The Emperor of Wyoming
Every Neil Young song reviewed! #01 The Emperor of Wyoming. Album: Neil Young
Neil Young's solo debut has been deemed an inauspicious start by many. Here's a fun fact, this is J. Mascis' favourite Neil Young album. Especially considering the opening track is a rather quaint instrumental. The Emperor of Wyoming is a provocative title, it promises a blend of ancient legend and epic Western. But this track is more a meeting of the Western and the slightly psychedelic.
So who is the Emperor of Wyoming? The best guess is David Briggs, producer of the album and soon to be long time producer for Neil. Briggs was from Wyoming, a juvenile delinquent and hitchhiked to California. Most of his work before giving a ride to a hitchhiking Young was on comedy albums. The description given of Briggs in Shakey isn't necessarily kind, described as looking like the devil, verbally abusive, physically imposing and one to abuse both drink and drugs. An abrasive figure to say the least, and to Neil, perhaps the regent of the great state of Wyoming.
This track is the start of a long tradition for Neil, playing fast and loose with history and period aesthetics in the pursuit of a general evocation of the mood of that time. In Buffalo Springfield, he was deemed the Indian, he wore brown suede coats with tassles, he had intense eyes. He's always had a fascination with the wild west.
You get a hint of how his sound would eventually evolve into Harvest. His future work wouldn't always be as country influenced, this presence of electric guitar is the only thing that ties the song to the 60's. The rest is a fairly traditional fare, if perhaps a little too basic. It's peaceful and it's a pleasant listen, but doesn't always fit with the tone of the rest of the album. It jaunts along at a temperate and mild pace. It's a vignette of a song. It's a good song, not a great one. A nice start for Neil.
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