Neil Young- After the Goldrush 10-21-86- San Francisco

As you hear during the In The Studio interview  exploring Déjà Vu , rock myth collides head-on with fact regarding Neil Young‘s  legendary 1970 solo album After the Goldrush.  Young was two years and two albums into a budding solo career  after leaving  Buffalo Springfield when  former bandmate Stephen Stills, ex-Byrd David Crosby, and Graham Nash  from the Hollies all realized that the three of them could not pull off the song arrangements live that were on their debut album. So Young was recruited for the first Crosby Stills Nash tour, not a permanent member of the band. But after trotting him out on tour including at least one high-profile gig near Woodstock NY in the Summer 1969, the trio felt that Young needed to be on their sophomore release Déjà Vu. Neil only contributed two songs, no doubt saving even stronger material for his own third solo album barely five months later.

Entitled After the Goldrush,  writer William Ruhlmann calls the title song “…a mystical ballad that featured some of Young’s most imaginative lyrics and became  one of his most memorable songs.” Here is an exclusive unreleased performance of “After the Goldrush” from a 1986 concert in his adopted hometown of San Francisco . –Redbeard