Neil Young to Reissue ‘Ragged Glory’ as Double Album
Neil Young’s Archive website confirms that an expanded double-length reissue of Ragged Glory will be released in the coming year, after producer John Hanlon rediscovered more of the original recordings.
This 19th studio album, released in 1990, marked a return to form for Young, who’d found himself distracted during much of the ‘80s, and was also a reunion with Crazy Horse for the first time since 1987’s Life.
“Listening to these [unreleased] tracks is a real head scratcher,” according to a statement on the website. “They are equal to anything on the existing record, maybe better. Possibly, the thought at the time was to have a single album and not include the songs from the last half of the unique ‘set-oriented’ recording sessions.”
Explaining the “unique” nature of those sessions, the statement added: “The band played a set of songs twice a day at Plywood Analog for a couple of weeks, then went back, listened and chose best tracks after the two weeks were up. … The same tracks were never repeated in a recording set, played only once as [a] set. … No repeats. This approach took ‘analysis’ out of the game during the sessions, allowing the Horse not to think; thinking is deadly for the Horse.”
Watch Neil Young & Crazy Horse Perform ‘Mansion on the Hill’
Titled Ragged Glory II, the double album will contain 38 more minutes of music in vinyl, compact disc and digital formats. A 2019 release was described as probable; “other announced projects” could be delayed as a result.