We continue our look at the music of 50 years ago….
Danny Whitten was a doomed soul. He was the leader, vocalist and guitarist for a band called The Rockets. They recorded an album in 1968 and then re-named Crazy Horse, Whitten, Billy Talbot and Ralph Molina, hooked on as a backing band for Neil Young on the albums “Everybody Knows This is Nowhere” and “After the Goldrush”. They were joined on the latter by studio ace Jack Nitzsche and a teenage guitar ace Nils Lofgren. From their work with Young they were able to land a record deal with Reprise and it resulted in the LP “Crazy Horse” released in 1971. By that time Whitten was in the throes of the alcohol & drugs that would kill him the next year. His performances had deteriorated to the point that the band fired him and this is the only Crazy Horse LP on which he appears. Young would memorialize him in his tune ‘The Needle & The Damage Done”…a live version of which appeared on”Harvest”.
The interesting thing about this LP is how many of the songs were covered by other artists…
Rod Stewart had a #1 hit in the UK with Whitten’s I Don’t Want To Talk About It . Rita Coolidge covered it again.
The New Seekers covered the Neil Young tune Dance Dance Dance…
Nazareth covered two…Gone Dead Train and Lofgren’s Beggars Day
Lofgren trotted it out for his underrated live Lp in the late 70’s
Randy Newman did Gone Dead Train on the 1969 soundtrack for the movie “Performance” which starred Mick Jagger
And Young and Whitten did a live version of Downtown on Young’s dour Lp Tonight’s the Night.
The album also includes some tasty slide guitar from Ry Cooder…check out Dirty Dirty.
Although Crazy Horse released some other LPs over the years and backed up Young on many projects…this is one & done for Danny Whitten. It’s too bad…he might have done some good things if his demons hadn’t won the war.
I know many of you have probably never heard this. Take a listen and let me know what you think.
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