Neil Young has always sounded simultaneously young and old. His creaky voice conveys innocence, but it also feels wise and nostalgic, as if its fault lines developed over centuries. That's why, in his mid-twenties, Young could get away with singing that he was a lot like an old man-- it sure sounded like the truth. On most of Young's recordings, the balance between age and youth skews toward the former. He experienced so much so early-- reaching success at age 21 with Buffalo Springfield, then quickly launching a prolific solo career-- that wisdom was branded on him immediately. By the time people even knew who Young was, he sounded more like a wily veteran than a green youngster.
Sugar Mountain: Live at Canterbury House 1968 offers a chance to hear Young with the scales tipped the other direction. It's taken from his first two post-Buffalo Springfield solo acoustic concerts, performed in a ministry on the University of Michigan campus. Unheard until now, these shows have gained legend due to one song from them, "Sugar Mountain", popping up on B-sides and the Decade compilation. Made just weeks before the release of his self-titled debut and only a few days short of his 23rd birthday, this recording reveals an eager, nervous version of Young-- a version that existed briefly, soon gone in the flash of his subsequent solo success.
Not that he was uncomfortable on stage. Young had played to bigger crowds as part of Buffalo Springfield, whose success he gently mocks in between songs, scoffing at their huge amps and, as he puts it, "ra-ta-ta-ta" stage act. But he had yet to prove himself alone, and the weight of a public solo debut adds a little more quiver to his voice, a little more self-deprecation to his rambling stories.
In fact, Young was reportedly terrified, in part because he feared he didn't have enough material to sustain a full performance. Of the 13 songs included here, nearly half were previously recorded with Buffalo Springfield. To compensate, Young fills each gap with jittery, candid banter. "Nothing I say up here is a lie," he claims with a stutter. "I never ever have told a lie onstage." His true stories are consistently endearing, covering everything from taking "diet pills" to get through his previous life as a bookstore clerk, to writing Buffalo Springfield songs while stuck at a diner at 4 a.m., to learning what residuals are and buying a classic car with them.
The songs on Sugar Mountain are delivered with similar earnestness and vulnerability. After an introducer admits that the audience is larger than expected, Young offers a fragile version of "On the Way Home", his timid chords and cracking voice besting the speedier version found on the final Buffalo Springfield album, Last Time Around. Later, he sings "The Loner" in a bashful near-whisper, and the delicate guitar of "If I Could Have Her Tonight" alternates between approach and retreat. As things progress, Young's confidence grows, culminating in the "The Old Laughing Lady", which hits a rushing peak of forceful strums.
Musically, Sugar Mountain isn't Young's best live solo album. On that count, it's outshined by another recent archival release, the Massey Hall performance that happened three years later, and sounds much bolder and wider-ranging. But as a portrait of this ageless artist as a truly young man, Sugar Mountain is an invaluable document-- and a pretty compelling one, too.
