Neil Young's infamous 1973 Time Fades Away live album has finally been released as a standalone CD. The bundle for the album includes both a newly pressed CD along with a Time Fades Away Hi Res Download Code via Young's official website (NeilYoungArchives.org). As it stands now, the album is already sold out — but supplies are expected to seen be replenished.
The live album was primarily recorded on the road in early-1973 while Young and his then-band the Stray Gators were touring behind his massive 1972 Harvest album. The Stray Gators featured Jack Nitzsche on piano, Ben Keith on steel guitar, Tim Drummond on bass, and drummer Johnny Barbata. David Crosby and Graham Nash joined the tour and are featured both vocally and instrumentally backing Young on several tracks.
Time Fades Away was originally released on October 15th, 1973 and topped out at Number 22 on the Billboard charts. Due to Young's dissatisfaction with the album, it was never issued on CD along with the rest of his catalogue in the 1980's and '90s.
Noise11.com reported, “The album finally had a CD release as part of the Official Release Series Discs 5-8 in 2017 but it was a very limited release. However, it has been available for streaming with Young’s other catalogue and was first released digitally through Pono from December 2014.”
Neil Young told us that over the course of his career, he's happy to have a diverse community of musicians that he can pick and choose from to help serve his music on a project-by-project basis: “Generally, if I'm writing some real rock n' roll songs and some real basic, primitive rock n' roll songs, usually I'll go to Crazy Horse. And if I'm writing more complicated songs or things that are, are more complex or, y'know, where the rhythm patterns are different and they require a little more refinement, then I'll go somewhere else.”