Zuma appears fairly early in what is now a staggeringly long list of his solo albums, but after stints with The Buffalo Springfield and Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, Neil Young had developed not one, but several unmistakable styles which all appeared on this 1975 release. It showcases the distortion and reverb of his famed Marshall amps, the acoustic beauty and rugged falsetto of Neil’s love songs, harmonic country ditties, and strung out anthems replete with economic two-note guitar solos.
While “Cortez the Killer” appears on the greatest hits double-album Decade, no doubt to make sure that each previous release was represented by at least one song, there were no chart toppers from Zuma – Neil clearly had no interest in revisiting Harvest – which makes the songs more cohesive as an album to be listened to straight through. It works because the styles, while diverse, are applied with similar blue-collar workmanship, sounding as if the tunes were recorded during one prolific afternoon between lunch and dinner. It’s all comfortably Young.
CS&N make a cameo appearance on the album, but this is really the first great Crazy Horse album. From “Danger Bird” to “Cortez” and “Stupid Girl,” Young’s rough ‘n ready back-up band comes into its own, galvanizing its layered, 4/4 guitar buzz that sounds like the proto-type of what loud, amplified guitars should sound like. No wonder that even fifteen years later, when Pearl Jam, Screaming Trees and Stone Temple Pilots jettisoned high polished glam for a roots-oriented, straightforward guitar sound, they ended up sounding like Crazy Horse (and attracting Neil Young as a fan).
For fans of the beauty of Harvest, the country simplicity of Comes A Time, and the shout-it-out rock of Rust Never Sleeps, there is something wonderful in Zuma. It even has the seemingly requisite reference to birds (what is it about Neil Young and the concept of flying that flows consistently through his work?). Out of many overlooked Neil Young albums, if only because of the sheer amount of them, Zuma is a work worth discovering.
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