Special Deluxe

by Neil Young

  About that time, something very important happened. I found a Gretsch Chet Atkins horseshoe model like the one I had had in the Squires. It was in the possession of a musician who had fallen on hard times, much like I had when I sold mine in Toronto, a year or so before. He was living in an apartment building on Melrose Avenue. When we arrived there, Stills and I, the place had a seedy quality to it and was uncomfortable just to be in. People there did not look healthy. Some junkies appeared to be living in the hallways, looking up at us as they sat on the floor, like we might have something for them. We visited for just a few minutes, and for a small amount of cash I was able to get my second Gretsch. It even had the white case just like my original one. That guitar had my old sound, the sound I played in the Buffalo Springfield.

  • • •

  THE SPRINGFIELD had been living at the Hollywood Center Motel, located right on Sunset Boulevard near Highland, all of us together in an old two-story wooden house overlooking the pool at the back of the property. As we got a bit more money, I found another place to live. Some girls I knew from the Whisky, Donna and Vicki, turned me on to it. Donna and Vicki were protective, like gang girls, and warned me about some of the bad girls who were out trolling for us; the ones who were using hard drugs and were potentially dangerous. Soon I was all settled into my new hippie home, at the Commodore Gardens apartments in Hollywood, smoking grass and writing songs for our first LP.

  Turn me up or turn me down,

  Turn me off or turn me ’round.

  I wish I could have met you

  In a place where we both belonged,

  But if crying and holding on

  And flying on the ground is wrong,

  Then I’m sorry to let you down,

  But you’re from my side of town

  And I’ll miss you.

  —“FLYING ON THE GROUND IS WRONG”

  A lot of times, after a night’s playing, I got a ride back from the Whisky with Donna and Vicki. Often we would go to the International House of Pancakes on Sunset late at night. At three a.m., the lights were bright and the place was full of people, a lot of whom had been at the Whisky. We enjoyed hanging out together and talking about the show that night or whatever was happening with other musicians in Hollywood. I would usually have pancakes like the ones my dad used to make for me on Brock Road after my paper route. Donna and Vicki would move in if any of the girls they considered dangerous would get too close to us. They were like sisters to me.

  After about a month or so, I got in big trouble with the manager at the Commodore Gardens for tacking up grass mats on the walls. They wanted to charge me for damaging the building and I didn’t have enough money to pay them, so one night I stealthily departed with all my worldly possessions, including my guitars and my fringe jackets, and left the grass mats behind. Upon close inspection, I’m afraid my early history would be riddled with incidents like that. I was not a very reliable tenant.

  1957 Corvette

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  hen I moved into Laurel Canyon, I had to find a new car. Even though I didn’t have it anymore, I knew that the Packard ambulance-hearse combo could never have made it up those canyon roads; I was sure of that.

  The Springfield played a few more local college and high school gigs in Hollywood with the Byrds on weekends, and then returned to the Whisky for a ten-day run. Greene and Stone continued managing us, and Buffalo Springfield was picked up by the William Morris Agency when an agent named John Hartmann saw us at a club called the Cinnamon Cinder in San Diego.

  We played a lot of gigs in clubs during June and July. Momentum was picking up. On July 25, 1966, we got our biggest gig yet: opening for the Rolling Stones at the Hollywood Bowl. Although we were never close enough to the Stones to meet them and didn’t hang around to hear them, we were noticed at the Bowl by Nick Vanoff, producer of the Hollywood Palace TV show. He hired us for a future appearance. In November, our first LP record, Buffalo Springfield, was released.

  With a big TV show booked, the advance from Atlantic Records, and our first record released, I decided to reward myself again and purchased a 1957 Corvette for $1,250. Metallic bronze, with a really cool and powerful, throaty sound, that Corvette was the first sexy and fast car I owned, and it felt amazing to drive it. I loved its beautiful design, wheels, and classic instrument panel, even though it smelled of gasoline most of the time.

  This tradition of rewarding myself has continued for many years and, in fact, is still very much in practice today. I love my cars, and to me there is nothing like the feeling of accomplishing something and being rewarded. It completes the experience. Over the years, automobiles of all kinds marked different goals and achievements reached on my journey through life. The evolution of that has changed and grown into refining existing cars. Making them better and better is my reward now.

  • • •

  LAUREL CANYON was where a lot of the musicians I knew lived. Many of them were in successful bands. I rented a cabin way up at the top of Ridpath Avenue near Utica Drive, high in the canyon in a secluded area. My 1957 Corvette had no trouble getting up that steep, curvy road leading to my little knotty-pine cabin in the eucalyptus trees, and it felt great to have my own vehicle again. On my way up there, occasionally I used to see beautiful Michelle Phillips from the Mamas & the Papas in her yard, and I always looked for her whenever I passed that house. I never got to meet her, though. She was one of those girls you loved from a distance but knew you could never touch.

  I met a singer at the Whisky whose name was Freddy Brechtel. Freddy was a lead singer without a band, looking for one. He was a little like Sky Saxon without the Seeds or Mick Jagger without the Stones. He was kind of lost. We were good friends and spent a lot of days cruising around in the Corvette.

  Once, we went all the way out on the Pacific Coast Highway just to experience the coast vibe and go to Malibu. Exploring, we drove all over the coastal mountains with the Corvette’s throaty sound echoing off the canyon walls. Eventually we stopped at a place called the Malibu Inn, a restaurant-bar entertainment place with a giant jukebox console that played movies of musical performances. It was called Electronovision, and I had never seen one before. There were a lot of songs on it from the T.A.M.I. Show, which was a big rock and roll show that had been filmed in 1964 at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium as an American International Pictures release. James Brown, the Rolling Stones, the Beach Boys, the Supremes, Marvin Gaye, Lesley Gore, Chuck Berry, Smokey Robinson and the Miracles, and several other headline acts, along with great dancers, appeared in this most amazing and revolutionary music film. I stood there transfixed, watching all of these acts on Electronovision, while pouring quarters into the machine. I had never seen anything like it. I could watch it over and over again. The sound was stereo and great. I spent an hour right there, marveling at the way this machine had used technology to marry different art forms and make them accessible. Eventually we drove back to Hollywood, but my mind had been blown by what I had seen and I couldn’t forget it. That was 1966.

  • • •

  MY 1957 CORVETTE was an LA car and I was feeling very Californian, as only a Canadian could. The wind blowing in my hair, driving down Sunset Boulevard. I was a very happening guy in my own mind, flush with the success of Buffalo Springfield, and all of twenty-one years old, just eight months after I had arrived in California with Bruce.

  My twenty-first birthday, in 1966, was notable because that was the night the Sunset Strip riots began. The first big disturbance happened at a place called Pandora’s Box, a club located at Sunset and Crescent Heights Boulevard. About this time, locals were upset at all the hippies hanging out on the streets around the clubs. The flower children, as they were sometimes called, were seen as a nuisance, just loitering around, and a ten p.m. curfew was imposed.

  The flower children loved the clubs and the rock music and, feeling that Sunset Boulevard was theirs, they were p
issed. They didn’t want to go home at ten p.m. Young people freaked out at having their civil rights violated, flyers were circulated urging people to stand for their rights, and they did, and it got ugly.

  The riot that happened there was mostly because a popular radio station, big with rock music lovers, had announced a rally that night at the club in the center of the action on the strip, Pandora’s Box, giving the location on the air, Sunset and Crescent Heights Boulevard. Sure enough, when about a thousand flower children, hippies, and others showed up, the cops went nuts on them when the ten p.m. curfew passed and the flower children went crazy. The friction continued until the end of the sixties, but it was most intense in 1966 and 1967.

  About the same time as Stephen Stills was writing his song “For What It’s Worth” as a reaction to the riots, I was traveling down Sunset with Freddy Brechtel in my 1957 Corvette, doing nothing obviously illegal, and I was pulled over by the sheriff, who demanded to see my nonexistent license. I tried to fake that I didn’t have it with me, but I was taken straight to jail.

  There’s something happening here.

  What it is ain’t exactly clear.

  There’s a man with a gun over there,

  Tellin’ me that I got to beware.

  I think it’s time we stop, hey, what’s that sound?

  Everybody look what’s going down.

  —“FOR WHAT IT’S WORTH”

  Those were some edgy times. Stephen’s song nailed it. We sang his song and recorded it. It became our biggest hit. It was real. We had a message and connected with the people. That’s the way it started for us. Stephen and I and many others wrote songs after that about anything topical that happened, commenting on our times, following the lead of the protest singers of the past: Seeger, Dylan, Guthrie, Ochs, just to name a few.

  Buffalo Springfield was booked on the Johnny Carson show and I didn’t want to do it. I felt very strongly at the time that we should be all about the music. To my way of thinking, The Tonight Show was just some jive Hollywood entertainment show that had nothing to do with either us or our audience. It was irrelevant to what we were singing about. I quit the band with no conversation or anything. Johnny Carson never happened, and other shows like it were off my list. I suppose I could have made that point better by talking about it with Steve instead of by quitting the band, but I was not mature enough then for that.

  Consequently, at some point I lost the Corvette because I wasn’t playing and couldn’t make the payments. The car was repossessed. That was a lesson I have not forgotten, and since that time I don’t think I’ve ever done anything other than pay cash for a car.

  Of course, I rejoined the band after a short time and we were back on the road again. Buffalo Springfield continued to play a lot of California and West Coast shows, becoming weekend warriors (bands that go out and play on weekends and then return home during the week), as well as doing some extended tours in the east.

  On March 22, 1967, we played the Crystal Ballroom in Portland, Oregon. At that point we were playing some very wild shows and the band was starting to stretch out on Steve’s classic song “Bluebird,” pushing and pulling it to its limit with psychedelic, string-bending, distortion-ridden, molten, and crashing jams, culminating with me breaking all the strings on my Gretsch and Dewey crashing the hell out of his drums, while Stephen played his ass off. The crowds were going absolutely apeshit while Bruce and Richie kept the groove going. That was the Buffalo Springfield that never was heard on record.

  We would be all sweaty and jacked after one of those sets, and that night in Portland when we hit the dressing room, something went way wrong. Stephen and Bruce and I got into a big fight over something and I was out of my mind. Not high, just crazed. I took my beautiful orange Gretsch and crashed it over a chair, breaking the back of the body wide open. I had too much energy and didn’t know what the hell to do with it. Things like that may be why I got a reputation as being an angry guy, I don’t know. I could also be funny and lighthearted, but I was sure out of control at times.

  Back then, a brand-new Gretsch like mine came from the factory with a soft leather pad on the back to prevent the wood from getting scratched by belt buckles, so I got the guitar fixed and patched, and covered the damage with one of those pads. I still play it today.

  The shows we did with that band were among the very best I have ever played. Buffalo Springfield took it to the limit for the first time in my life, and there is something special about the very first time you do anything. We were on the edge, exploring, and the crowds were eating us up. Unfortunately, the world never really got to see Buffalo Springfield. No good recording exists of the original live band and no film shows what that band really could do and did. That is why the name always evokes a bittersweet feeling among those who saw it at its peak. That broken guitar crashing into that chair may have been an early sign of the frustration and sense of missed chances associated with the band that the remaining members still feel today. It’s really an incomplete story. It was truly too good to last.

  1948 Continental “Abraham”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  n late 1967, living in Laurel Canyon during the fading times of Buffalo Springfield, I had just purchased an old bronze 1948 Continental. It was a unique Continental design, had a perfect Bedford cord interior, and was in magnificent shape. I named it Abraham in honor of Abraham Lincoln.

  I had recently returned to the group after another leave of absence. This time, I had missed the Monterey Pop Festival because I really had no interest in being part of it. Looking back, I was fairly unreasonable, selfish, and hard to get along with, but I believed those gigs had nothing to do with who we were. I didn’t like playing on big bills with other bands.

  During my time out of the band, I had arranged and recorded some songs with Jack Nitzsche, orchestrations that were a huge departure from my work with the Springfield. I was happy to be back in the band because Stephen and I really enjoyed playing together, and I think we were both beginning to recognize the blessings of our friendship in a new way.

  I had brought “Expecting to Fly,” an orchestration that Jack and I had done together, to our second LP project, Buffalo Springfield Again. Stephen and I had been in the studio producing “Rock & Roll Woman” and “Hung Upside Down,” two great songs of his. That period was one of the best for us, working together, trying to make a really fine record. After having tried to do things separately, we were beginning to realize all the benefits of working together.

  Someday I will be free,

  And there’ll be times, you just wait.

  I will come to you, see,

  What I’ll bring you when I get straight,

  Oh it’s too late.

  And I’m hung upside down.

  —“HUNG UPSIDE DOWN”

  I tried so hard to stand

  As I stumbled and fell to the ground

  So hard to laugh as I fumbled

  And reached for the love I’d found

  Knowing it was gone.

  —“EXPECTING TO FLY”

  After the LP’s release, we were in a good groove and had been playing quite a bit, supporting the Beach Boys and headlining a lot of local California gigs of our own, but our moment may have passed us by. Bruce Palmer had recently been deported back to Canada for drug possession and the group was not the same without his magic bass playing. Stephen and I loved playing with Bruce, who had been on the record we had just made, but now he was gone. So many things had gone wrong, and the band struggled to get back to the groove of those first days. That was the real deal; those early days at the Whisky and on the road. That was Buffalo Springfield at its peak.

  One evening, Abraham was rolling along the Pacific Coast Highway with Stephen and I on our way to a gig at the Earl Warren Showgrounds in Santa Barbara. It was January 6, 1968, and we had known each other three years. We shared a liking for big American cars
and were having a fine time, enjoying the smooth, luxurious ride of the old classic Lincoln Continental. The Pacific Coast Highway was perfect cruising for Abraham, whose big V12 engine, built for the open road, could easily overheat when stuck in slow traffic.

  A few months later, I was growing as a musician and writing so many songs that I needed my own outlet. I had outgrown the band, or at least was unable to reconcile how to divide my interests between myself and the band’s. It was hard to decide where a song should go: on my solo LP or a new Buffalo Springfield record? Stephen had much the same situation and was moving toward other outlets, too, so eventually the band just broke up, not having reached the commercial success we knew we were capable of. Richie had a lot of songs of his own and had started a band called Poco, which was making waves in country rock.

  I still think Buffalo Springfield might still be together today if we had only gotten started in the right direction with a great producer like Barry Friedman, Tom Dowd, or Paul Rothchild. However, we ended up with Greene and Stone, two managers who wanted to be producers. They had no idea what to do with us. We may actually have been the first band they produced.

  When I moved to Topanga Canyon and bought my own house on Skyline Trail, I was forced to park Abraham down below the house because the road was so steep. Tom Wilkes, the art director for A&M Records, lived with his wife, Lynne, down at the bottom of Skyline Trail, about two hundred yards below my house, almost straight down. They let me park Abraham outside their place in a turnaround. Abe was very heavy, and even with a giant, gas-guzzling twelve-cylinder engine, the Continental could not make it up the grade to my house. Abraham was designed for the open road, cruising along between gas stations in the bountiful luxury and excess of the times.