#1
Rock'N'Roll Cowboy (5 CDR)
A large compiliation of Neil live from the beginning through 1991. Many treasures lie in these discs. Originally release as a (4) discs set, two songs were moved to fifth discs to make room for CDR recording. Crome Dreams bootCD fills up disc 5
Great Dane Boot CD>CDR   Great Dane 9407/ABCD
Obtained from Rust List Wonderboot '98 tree
Sound: A to B+, Sound Various due to different sources
Time  disc 1: 73:30    disc 2: 72:07    disc 3: 72:48    disc 4: 73:02    disc 5: 69:55
Flaws: None, openning intro deleted from disc 1 so it could fit on a CDR, all the music is there
Kahuna's Rating:****1/2
Heres what the Old Gray Cat says about this show:
Rock 'n' Roll Cowboy - (Great Dane 9407/ABCD)
A friend recently read through these reviews and chuckled. "You make me want to own all of these," she commented. "You're so enthusiastic!" Which is true; I am nothing if not enthusiastic when it comes to music in general and Neil Young's music in specific.
With that in mind, Rock 'n' Roll Cowboy is a rich, if frustrating, listening experience. Released by the Italian Great Dane record label a few years back, it's a four-disc set that collects various Neil live performances, spanning from his Springfield days to his Grammy Award show performance of "Philadelphia" in 1994. Among the many treats: "Sweet Joni," a 1973 piano-based paean to Joni Mitchell apparently only performed once. It's a fragile song with fragile lyrics, perhaps in keeping with its subject. Other highlights include several Stills-Young Band run-throughs, especially "Southern Man" which features some scintillating guitar solos from both Stills and Young. Say what you will about Stills' songwriting abilities, but there's no denying his prowess with a six-string. He's one of the best around--always was, always will be. Other highlights include the unreleased songs "Everybody's Alone," "Traces," "Love Art Blues," "Give Me Strength," "Lady Wingshot," "If You Got Love," "Gonna Rock Forever," "Amber Jean," "Let Your Fingers Do the Talking," "Grey Riders," "Nothing is Perfect," "Ordinary People," "Silver and Gold," "Homefires" and "Separate Ways." Add in several reworked versions of known quantities, such as the Saturday Night Live debut of "Rockin' in the Free World," "Shots" (performed acoustically from San Francisco's Boarding House) and "Helpless" (a stunning take from Neil & the International Harvester's Austin City Limits appearance in 1984) and "Stringman," recorded in London in 1976, and you have enough for a two-album set--a great one at that, especially if 20-bit remastering and/or HDCD technology is employed to clean up the sound. "To clean up the sound." Hmmm. Therein lies the rub, folks. Thanks to this collection's breadth--in total, 63 songs taken from upwards of 40 concerts--the sound quality ranges from the near-atrocious to excellent. A good example of this are the trio of songs ("Traces," "Human Highway," and "Human Highway") taken from CSNY's 1974 performance at the Coliseum in Seattle. It sounds like the audio equivalent of sludge--except, of course, for the harmonies which do come through. Thus, as I said at the outset, this is a rich, if frustrating, experience. Let's hope that many of its treasured are found in better form on the Archives when/if that multi-CD set is released.
Despite its sound lapses, until the Archives are released--and possibly even then--this is a true "essential." (A+)
 

disc one:  1) Nowadays Clancy Can't Even Sing 2) Birds 3) Cowgirl in the Sand 4) Tell Me Why 5)Only Love Can Break Your Heart  6) Everybody's Alone 7) A Man Needs a Maid/Heart of Gold 8) Out on the Weekend 9) Love In Mind 10) Dance Dance Dance 11) Cripple Creek Ferry 12) L.A. 13) Soldier 14) Harvest 15) Sweet Joni 16) Tonight's the Night 17) Tired Eyes 18) Pardon My Heart	disc two: 1) On the Beach 2) Traces 3) Human Highway 4) Love Art Blues 5) Hawaiian Sunrise 6) Like a Hurricane 7) Stringman 8) Evening Coconut 9) Long May You Run 10) Southern Man 11) Give Me Strength 12) Comes a Time 13) Sail Away 14) Lady Wingshot 15) Shots 16) Downtown
disc three: 1) If You Got Love 2) Transformer Man 3) My Boy 4) Old Ways 5) Kinda Fonda Wanda 6) Touch the Night 7) Amber Jean 8) Let Your Fingers Do the Talking 9) Helpless 10) Down by the River 11) Interstate 12) Grey Riders 13) Nothing Is Perfect 14) Southern Pacific	disc four: 1) Mideast Vacation 2) Road of Plenty (El Dorado) 3) Computer Age 4) Bad News 5) Ordinary People 6) Rockin' in the Free World 7) Winterlong 8) Silver and Gold 9) Campaigner 10) Homefires 11) Only Love Can Break Your Heart 12) Mr. Soul 13) Separate Ways
disc five: 1) Gonna Rock Forever 2) Philadelphia CHROME DREAMS 3) Powerderfinger 4) Caotain Kennedy 5) Pocahontas 6) Will To Love 7) Sedan Delivery 8) River of Pride 9) Too Far Gone 10) Star of Bethlehem 11) Like A Hurricane 12) Look Out For My Love 13) Hold Back The Tears 14) Homefires 15) Ride My Llama 16) Peace of Mind

As for Crome Dreams The Old Gray cat Says this:
For those who aren't aware of the album's history, let me place it into context: In October of 1976, Neil was set
to release the three-lp best-of Decade. At the last minute, however, he changed his mind and instead requested his record company, Reprise, to shelve the project for one year. He had plans for a new album, he said, that would be ready for a November release. He even proffered the title: Chrome Dreams. November came and went, of course, and no new Neil product was in sight. Fast forward to March of 1977: acetates of the proposed album are pressed, with the track listing as follows:

Side one: a solo acoustic "Pocahontas," "Will to Love," "Star of Bethlehem," "Like a
Hurricane," "Too Far Gone"
Side two: a solo acoustic "Hold Back the Tears," "Homegrown," "Captain Kennedy,"
"Stringman," a less frenetic "Sedan Delivery," a solo acoustic "Powderfinger," "Look Out for
My Love."

Jump ahead to June, when American Stars 'n' Bars is released: five of the songs planned for Chrome Dreams make the cut. The rest? They'd surface in the years to come, some with nary a change in arrangement and others. . . refashioned for the times. The questions surrounding this album, then, are what has kept it firmly entrenched in the Neil pantheon as a "mythical" album. What if Neil had released it in instead of American Stars 'n' Bars? While
ASnB is good--let's face it, it doesn't rank in the same league with this lost treasure. And what would have become of Rust Never Sleeps, which shares three tracks? And why, exactly, did Neil shelve this masterpiece? Of course, any answers are pure conjecture--which is half the fun.

All of that leads to this: This Chrome Dreams is not that unreleased album. For one, the bootleggers changed up the song order. Two, they substituted a live, 11-minute version of "Like a Hurricane." Three, they subtracted "Homegrown" and added a few more tracks: an electric "White Lines" (which they list as "River of Pride"), a 1992 acoustic performance of "Homefires," an acoustic 1978 performance of "Ride My Llama" and a live "Peace of Mind."

In short, this is a fine--nay, great--bootleg. Performances are topnotch throughout, especially the acoustic "red men run son" version of "Powderfinger" and ... all of the other songs. (A+)

My copy is missing the last song "Stringman" so it could fit on the disc.