Neil Young: Sugar Mountain: Live At Canterbury House 1968

The biggest problem with Neil Young's recent spate

of archival live releases is that he's already put out so many anthologies and

concert recordings that the new issues risk redundancy simply by existing.

Sure, "It's all one song," as the man himself once put it (on 1997's Year Of

The Horse—a

live album, of course), but hearing every version is a fanatic's game.

Sugar Mountain: Live At Canterbury House 1968 in some ways typifies

this. The performances, captured over two November nights at the University Of

Michigan, are intimate, clear (the two-track recording is very good), and

obviously felt. It's got historical value, too, as Young's first solo

performances following his departure from Buffalo Springfield. "I never plan

anything ahead, in case anybody hasn't noticed," he says while introducing his

early song "Sugar Mountain." For those who adore Young for his spontaneity, the

winding, often wry between-song monologues have documentary value.

Much of the time, though, those "raps"

meander—a good fifth of Sugar Mountain's 70-minute run time is

devoted to them, and their replay value is limited. Which is too bad—the

performances are excellent. Young sounds so, well, youthful: appealingly gawky,

exuberant, but also a little bashful, emotionally naked while still in command.

(His delivery gives new clarity to the cryptic opening lines of "Nowadays

Clancy Can't Even Sing": "Hey, who's that stomping all over my face Where's

that silhouette I tried to trace") But Young the songwriter was only just

getting started, so while Sugar Mountain is pretty sweet, the highest peaks were yet

to come.