"'Heart of Gold' put me in the middle of the road. Traveling there soon became a bore so I headed for the ditch."  - Neil Young. 

1975's Tonight's The Night is part of Neil Young's so-called "Ditch Trilogy" along with the live LP Time Fades Away (still not available on CD) and On The Beach.   Recorded in 1973 it actually is the first although it was released after the other two.  The cirumstances for it's recordings are well known:  after the drug related deaths of Crazy Horse guitarist Danny Whitten and roadie Bruce Berry, Young produced an LPs worth of darker, more introspective songs in contrast to his 1972 commercial breakthrough Harvest.     

Rumors circulated almost from the time of its release of many different versions of this LP.  It wasn't until the late 70's when a collector stumbled upon an acetate documented in this latest release on Mainstream.  The full story by the collector was published in Broken Arrow and can be read here (and this entire article is reprinted as liner notes on this release):  http://www.sidestreetrecords.com/articles/acetateTonightsThe.html

This acetate features "Speakin' Out", "Walk On", and "For The Turnstiles" that are contained on On The Beach, "Winterlong" from Decade, and the two additional songs "Bad Fog Of Loneliness" and the acoustic version of "Traces".  The former is a stunning country-tinged song that is very nice.  When all is said and done about this, I do have to agree with the artist's vision on the finished product.  This working version is interesting but the final product is much better. 

This new release by Mainstream Soundboard Masters is straight from the acetate itself along with occasional pops and crackles.  The original acetate ran a bit slow on the final four tracks and Mainstream unfortunately have not corrected it for this release.  However, for the Neil Young collector, this is an essential title to own.