Anecdotes from a review of Neil Young Archives, Volume 1

[rich]

Channeling some IV vibe no doubt tho I'm really looking fwd to Volume
2 (the heavy 70s downer records)

"It's unlikely, however, that subsequent volumes will have the
satisfying unity of the first set, which offers a detailed portrait
not just of Neil Young but of the whole Los Angeles singer-songwriter
counter-culture through the era in which it moved inexorably
overground, rushing in to occupy the vacuum left at the end of the
1960s, when the Altamont and the Manson Family had effectively put the
naive hippie dream to the sword.

Neil Young actually knew Charlie Manson a little, having been
introduced to him at Beach Boy Dennis Wilson's house a few months
before the Tate/LaBianca murders. Like many, he found the would-be
songwriter a charismatic, powerful presence, with a curious gift -
shared with Dylan, and Young himself - of being able to reel off
lyrics apparently at will.

"Manson would sing a song and just make it up as he went along, for
three or four minutes, and he never would repeat one word, and it all
made perfect sense and it shook you up to listen to it," Young
explained years later. "It was so good that it scared you." A few
years later, he would write the song "Revolution Blues" from the
standpoint of a homicidal psychotic clearly based on Manson. Back in
the 1960s, however, Neil recommended Manson to his record company,
Reprise, but nothing came of it. Had the label granted Manson his
deepest wish and signed him up, who knows how things may have turned
out? Sharon Tate might still be alive, Charles Manson might be a
superstar rather than a bogeyman, and Neil Young might have been
dumped by his label and retired from music altogether, as a car
mechanic."

Rich