Zuma by Neil Young

Zuma, Neil Young's seventh studio album, rolled out on Reprise in November 1975, and it's the sound of Crazy Horse saddled up again. It was the first record in six years co-credited to Young and the Horse, and the first to feature Frank Sampedro playing rhythm guitar, the hole left by Danny Whitten's death in 1972 finally filled. Young produced it.

Zuma picks up the trail of Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere, all country-rock lope and heavy, ragged guitar, with Sampedro chopping out chords while Young's leads wander off into the brush and come back bleeding. The centerpiece is "Cortez the Killer", a long, slow-burning march that became one of the best-known things Young ever cut with Crazy Horse, and FM listeners have never let go of it.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.