Long May You Run is not a
Neil Young solo album. It is credited to "The Stills-Young Band," which is to say,
Stephen Stills and his band with
Young added, and the two divide up the songwriting and lead vocals, five for
Young, four for
Stills. The pairing, though it proved short-lived and had, in fact, ended before this album was released, must have seemed commercially logical. Like
Young,
Stills had seen his record sales decline after a successful period following the 1970 breakup of
CSNY. So had erstwhile partners
David Crosby and
Graham Nash, but they had returned to Top Ten, gold-selling status in the fall of 1975 with their
Wind on the Water duo album. Why couldn't
Stills and
Young do the same thing? Maybe they could have (and, actually, this was the first gold album for either in two years) if they had made a better record together.
Young's songs were pleasant newly written throwaways with the exception of the title track, a trunk song he had written as a tribute to an old car.
Stills' compositions seemed more seriously intended, but still were not substantial. The playing, largely handled by the professional sessionman types in
Stills' band, was far smoother than what one was accustomed to in a
Young album. The result was a listenable record, but not a compelling one, and thus well below
Young's usual standard and
Stills' best. ~ William Ruhlmann