During the 1987 tour with Crazy Horse, Neil Young began playing a short "blues" set between the standard acoustic and electric sets, featuring Crazy Horse (with Poncho Sampedro playing organ instead of guitar), Ben Keith, and Young's guitar tech Larry Cragg on saxophones. The song 'This Note's For You' was debuted at those shows, and Young liked the results, and so following the tour conclusion he further expanded the horn section, dubbing the new band The Bluenotes, and set about recording an album with the new band. Before that the group made its live debut in November 1987 with a 10-date California club tour, playing mostly new material, influenced by classic R&B and big band sound, mixed with several old numbers dating back to Young's earliest band, The Squires. The Bluenotes then entered the studio to start recording, however Young became dissatisfied with the performances of the Crazy Horse rhythm section; bassist Billy Talbot was fired first, temporarily replaced by George Whitsell, before Rick Rosas was finally brought in, while drummer Ralph Molina was replaced by Rosas's bandmate Chad Cromwell. After the album was released, Young toured with the Bluenotes band (later renamed to Ten Men Workin' for legal reasons) throughout 1988, playing predominantly new material, including a number of unreleased songs. Aside from live versions of 'This Note's For You' songs, they debuted 'Welcome To The Big Room', 'Bad News Comes To Town', 'Crime Of The Heart' and 'Doghouse', and several of the songs from the tour were written as a teenager while Young was a member of The Squires. At the time he was influenced by blues artists such as Jimmy Reed, and both 'Find Another Shoulder' and 'Hello Lonely Woman' were resurrected for the Bluenotes tour.
Young initially compiled a double live album from the tour shortly after its conclusion, as a showcase for the unreleased material performed during the shows, but it was ultimately shelved in favour of a CSNY reunion album and 1989's 'Freedom'. A live album from the tour, titled 'Bluenote Café', was planned at the time as a follow-up to the studio album, but that got shelved, although two songs did appear on the compilation 'Lucky Thirteen' in 1993. Young also did more studio sessions with the band in 1988, and known songs that were recorded are 'Crime In The City (Sixty To Zero Part I)' and 'Someday', both of which would be included on the next year's 'Freedom', plus 'Ordinary People', an 18-minute song which eventually saw its release on Young's 2007 studio album, 'Chrome Dreams II'. As 'Crime In The City' and 'Someday' were later stripped of their horns so that they could be included on 'Freedom', I wondered what an album of new material slotted in between 'This Note's For You' and 'Freedom' would have sounded like, if the tracks played live with the Bluetones were similarly stripped of their horns in anticipation of Young's return to a pure rock sound, so I've done just that, ending up with a great rock album with a touch of the blues, and which features the original takes of 'Ordinary People' and 'Crime Of The Heart'.
Track listing
01 Welcome To The Big Room
02 Hello Lonely Woman
03 Ordinary People
04 Crime Of The Heart
05 Doghouse
06 Boxcar
07 I'm Goin'
08 Bad News Comes To Town
09 Find Another Shoulder
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