Neil Young - Folksinger (Acoustic Demos) (1964-1966)

In 1965, Neil Young recorded a bunch of acoustic demos. These wouldn't get released until many years later, on his "Archives" box set. I think that, together, they make up a nice "what if" album. What if Young got a record company to release these demos as an album in 1965? It certainly would have fitted in with other folkie albums at the time, such as albums by Gordon Lightfoot, Ian and Sylvia, Tim Hardin, Phil Ochs, and the like. So I've packaged the demos to be such an album, with the generic name "Folksinger."

The demos as presented on the "Archives" box set were released in raw form, meaning there usually is some extra audio before and after each song. This extra audio is completely superfluous in my opinion, with a little bit of unimportant talking (such as Young saying "One two three, one two three" before one song to help him get the timing right), plus some tuning up, some clicks, and some dead air. So I trimmed all that, probably cutting the length of the songs down by a couple of minutes.

The demos themselves are rather short in total for an entire album. I added one demo, "I Ain't Got the Blues," that was only available as an Internet download for buyers of the "Archives" box set and not on the box set itself.  I also added a couple of songs from 1964 that Young sung with his band at the time, the Squires. They're a little bit different in style than the other songs, but I like having them added in as the first two songs, because I'm not a fan of the other Squires songs, which are generally generic-sounding instrumentals. (And I'm not a big fan of his other early band, the Mynah Birds, which has some songs sung by future funk star Rick James (!) but none by Young.)

Who knows what other direction Young's career would have gone if such an album had been released in 1965 and been well received? Perhaps he would have had an interesting solo career that started earlier instead of joining Buffalo Springfield.

By the way, you might notice that the melody of one of the songs here, "The Ballad of Peggy Grover," was reused by Young for the song "Don't Cry No Tears" on his 1975 album "Zuma." 

This album is 38 minutes long.

01 I'll Love You Forever (Neil Young & the Squires)
02 I Wonder (Neil Young & the Squires)
03 Hello Lonely Woman (Neil Young & Comrie Smith)
04 There Goes My Babe (Neil Young & Comrie Smith)
05 Sugar Mountain (Neil Young)
06 The Ballad of Peggy Grover (Neil Young)
07 Nowadays Clancy Can't Even Sing (Neil Young)
08 Casting Me Away from You (Neil Young & Comrie Smith)
09 Runaround Babe (Neil Young)
10 Extra, Extra (Neil Young)
11 I Ain't Got the Blues (Neil Young)
12 The Rent Is Always Due [Early Version of 'I Am a Child'] (Neil Young)
13 Flying on the Ground Is Wrong (Neil Young)
14 I'm Your Kind of Guy [Edit] (Neil Young)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15258803/NeilY_1964-1966_FolksingrAcoustcDemos_atse.zip.html

I made the album cover. The picture is of Young playing in a small club in 1965, so it's very fitting. It originally was in black and white, but I colorized it.