Neil Young & the Ducks - The Catalyst, Santa Cruz, CA, 8-22-1977

I've been planning to post more of Neil Young's music, and I want to post albums in a more chronologically consistent way, after I'd posted a few things out of order. However, I've been stuck from moving forward due to not knowing how to deal with his time playing with the Ducks in 1977. But I've figured it out: first, I'm posting this bootleg concert, the only compete concert of Young and the Ducks recorded in soundboard quality. Then I'll post another album of all the bootlegged songs they did that weren't played at this concert, also in soundboard quality.

I should probably explain the whole Neil Young and the Ducks saga. It's very little known episode in Young's career, since absolutely none of the Ducks' music has ever been officially released.

The story begins with Moby Grape. They were a critically acclaimed San Francisco rock band in the 1960s, though they didn't sell a lot of records. If you haven't heard their 1967 debut album, simply called "Moby Grape," you should definitely do so. It's a five star album for sure, and it's unusual in that all five of the band members were good songwriters. Unfortunately, the band never hit the heights of that first album again, though they stayed together until the early 1970s.

By the mid-1970s, the band had already reformed for the first of many times, with two original singer songwriter members, Jerry Miller and Bob Mosley. Another talented singer songwriter, Jeff Blackburn, joined them. He had been half of the folk duo Blackburn and Snow, which put out one album in the late 1960s. A drummer, John Craviotto, also joined them. Unfortunately, after Moby Grape broke up, their former manager kept the rights to the band's name and wouldn't let them use it. So they were calling themselves "The Jeff Blackburn Band," even though they essentially were Moby Grape plus Blackburn.

Neil Young knew Blackburn, Miller, and Mosley due to bumping into them in the late 1960s rock music world. Young also was a big fan of Moby Grape's music, which isn't surprising since that first great Moby Grape album sounds a lot like the stuff Buffalo Springfield was doing at the same time. In early 1977, he began occasionally jamming with them. But then Miller, the lead guitarist, quit. The others asked Young to join their band.

Amazingly enough, Young agreed and actually did it! This is pretty wild when you consider that he was one of the most famous musicians in the world in the mid-1970s. And while Moby Grape and Blackburn had some limited fame and success in the 1960s, by the mid-1970s they were toiling in obscurity, probably not even capable of getting a decent record contract. In 1977, disco and punk were the hot trends, and nostalgia for 1960s music hadn't kicked in yet. But Young is notorious for following his musical muse, and he was having fun playing with the Ducks.

The band was based in Santa Cruz, California, so Young moved there and spent all of the summer of 1977 totally focused on the band. Apparently, part of his contract with his occasional band Crazy Horse stipulated that he couldn't tour with any other band. But a loophole allowed him to play with the Ducks, so long as they only played within the city limits of Santa Cruz. Thus, Young and the Ducks played about twenty shows there, mostly in July and August.

The band was surprisingly democratic. Young was treated as just another band member. When it came to concerts, each of the four band members sang about one-forth of the songs. The drummer John Craviotto couldn't write songs like the others, but he could sing well, so he would generally sing cover versions of classic rock and roll songs. Blackburn and Mosley were both talented songwriters and singers, so they were able to rise to the occasion of competing with Young. (In fact, during the summer of 1977, Blackburn co-wrote a song with Young, the classic "My My, Hey Hey (Out of the Blue)," although unfortunately the Ducks never played it live.)

So keep in mind that Young only writes and sings about one-fourth of the songs in this concert. They truly were "The Ducks" and not "Neil Young and the Ducks" (even though I'm calling them that so that Neil Young fans don't miss the album). But Young is the lead guitarist for everything, and his guitar is all over this concert. Plus, as I mentioned above, the other band members were all talented, with good original songs. I'm sure Young wouldn't have joined them otherwise.

Unfortunately, the saga of the Ducks ended much too soon. No doubt, Young enjoyed being "just one of the guys" for a while instead of a big star, and at first that's how it was. In the early summer, the band played to the locals in small clubs with little to no advance notice, and everyone was having a great time. But as the summer went on, the fact that Young was living and frequently playing in Santa Cruz started to spread. People came from far and wide to see him, and things started to get crazy. Young was increasingly hassled by strangers, and his place was even robbed. The band had to play in venues that seated a thousand people instead of ones that seated a hundred.

The special vibe Young felt was over. He skipped town at the end of the summer, and the Ducks were no more. Young had paid for a mobile recording unit to record most or all of the band's concerts, and it was expected that a live album would result, but no such album ever came out.

(By the way, due to the rise of the Internet and social media, what Young did then simply wouldn't be possible for a big star today. Hordes of fans would have ruined the special vibe in a matter of days.)

The other band members kept going under a variety of names, but without Young in the band they went back to toiling in obscurity without a record contract. Apparently, Blackburn is still playing concerts to this day, even though I don't think he's ever put out an album. Unfortunately, Mosley was diagnosed with schizophrenia in the late 1960s. He was still fully functional in 1977 and still writing good songs, but by the 1990s he was homeless due to mental illness. Some former Moby Grape members found him living by the side of a freeway in San Diego and helped him out, leading to him recording a solo album in 2005. I don't know what's happened to him since, but it seems he's still alive.

One well known rock critic, Jeff Tamarkin, has said of Moby Grape: "The Grape's saga is one of squandered potential, absurdly misguided decisions, bad luck, blunders and excruciating heartbreak, all set to the tune of some of the greatest rock and roll ever to emerge from San Francisco. Moby Grape could have had it all, but they ended up with nothing, and less." The story of the Ducks fits into that larger story, which I don't have time to explain here. The other guys, Mosley, Blackburn, and Craviotto, still had a lot of talent in 1977. The lucky stroke of luck of Young joining their band could have propelled them back into the musical big leagues if only the Ducks had managed to release at least one album. But they didn't, so it became just one more heartbreak for them.

But at least we have this album, and the other album I'll post shortly. Also, I hope that Young will eventually release some Ducks music, maybe as part of a long-awaited "Archives 2" project. I hope he does that while the other guys are still alive, so they'll be able to see that the Ducks weren't totally forgotten after all.

Regarding the recording of this concert, as I mentioned above, it's an excellent soundboard, probably from that mobile recording unit that Young had at most or all of the Ducks' concerts. I did make a major change though. There was a LOT of dead air between songs. Typically, there was a minute or so of relative quiet between songs while the band members tuned up and got ready. I deleted all of this boring stuff without cutting out anything important. Whenever anyone on stage said anything, I kept that. But as you'll see when you listen, there isn't much commentary, maybe just a sentence or two here or there. By removing the dead air, I shortened the concert by at least 20 minutes. I think it makes for a much better listening experience. It still is one hour and 45 minutes long.

Oh, one other thing. When I first heard music by the Ducks, it took me a while to get into it, because I expected all or mostly Neil Young songs, when in fact it's mostly songs by the other band members. To help myself sort out who sang and wrote what, I looked up the songwriters for each song. Then I added that info to the "comment" mp3 tags. That can help you learn to identify the different styles of each of the singer songwriters.

Note that the song "Gone Dead Train" appeared on a Crazy Horse album in 1971. Young played guitar on that, and the rest of that album, but he didn't write it or sing it. And in this concert, he doesn't sing it either. Young's songs are a mix of old (like "Mr. Soul" and "Are You Ready for the Country") and songs that were then new (such as "Comes a Time," "Sail Away," and "Cryin' Eyes," which wouldn't be released until 1987). His long instrumental "Windward Passage" still is officially unreleased.

01 talk (Neil Young & the Ducks)
02 Deeper Mystery (Neil Young & the Ducks)
03 Gypsy Wedding (Neil Young & the Ducks)
04 Sail Away (Neil Young & the Ducks)
05 I'm Tore Down (Neil Young & the Ducks)
06 Behind the Sun (Neil Young & the Ducks)
07 Only Loving You (Neil Young & the Ducks)
08 Cryin' Eyes (Neil Young & the Ducks)
09 Bye Bye Johnny (Neil Young & the Ducks)
10 Your Time Will Come Around (Neil Young & the Ducks)
11 Do Me Right (Neil Young & the Ducks)
12 Are You Ready for the Country (Neil Young & the Ducks)
13 Silver Wings (Neil Young & the Ducks)
14 Two Riders (Neil Young & the Ducks)
15 Your Love (Neil Young & the Ducks)
16 Gone Dead Train (Neil Young & the Ducks)
17 Mr. Soul (Neil Young & the Ducks)
18 Hold On Boys (Neil Young & the Ducks)
19 Poor Man (Neil Young & the Ducks)
20 I'm Ready (Neil Young & the Ducks)
21 Comes a Time (Neil Young & the Ducks)
22 Windward Passage (Neil Young & the Ducks)
23 talk (Neil Young & the Ducks)
24 Younger Days (Neil Young & the Ducks)

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I had a hard time finding any photos of the Ducks in concert. Luckily, I did find one, which I've used here. I'm not sure what Santa Cruz venue it's from, but it's not the Catalyst, which is larger.