The best-known of Neil Young's backing bands and a significant garage rock band in its own right.
The band's roots lie in the obscure early 1960s doo wop band Danny & the Memories, which included future Crazy Horse members Danny Whitten, Billy Talbot and Ralph Molina, among others. Although all three later played instruments in Crazy Horse, the trio focussed solely on vocals for this early band, as the group relocated back and forth between the East and West Coasts.
After finally settling down in Laurel Canyon in 1966, the members picked up instruments (Whitten the guitar, Talbot bass and Molina drums) and formed the Rockets. Joining the trio were additional members Bobby Notkoff on violin and Leon and George Whitsell on guitar, who all played on the sextet's one and only record, 1968's self-titled debut.
Shortly after the album's release, Whitten and Talbot met Neil Young, who had just left Buffalo Springfield and was about to launch a solo career. Young jammed with the Rockets at a gig at the famed Whisky A Go-Go and immediately asked Whitten, Talbot and Molina to play on a few new songs he had written. The trio accepted and played on what became Young's 1969 classic album Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere, resulting in the trio breaking up the Rockets to sign on with Young full-time under the new name Crazy Horse.
The album established both Young and Crazy Horse as one of the most promising new rock bands, as he enlisted the band once again to play on his third solo release, 1970's After the Gold Rush.
But at the same time Young joined up with Crazy Horse, he also accepted an invitation to team up with Crosby, Stills & Nash. With extended periods of time between playing with Young, Crazy Horse signed their own recording contract, resulting in their 1971 self-titled debut. Although the record failed to match the success of their work with Young, it turned out to be an inspired effort (as Grin guitarist Nils Lofgren and renowned producer/pianist Jack Nitzsche guested on the album) showing that the group was not merely Young's backing band.
But just as their own recording career began, Whitten became addicted to heroin, which hampered his talents and desire to play with the band, resulting in his leaving by 1972. Crazy Horse continued on with various replacement members taking Whitten's place for a pair of lacklustre albums in 1972 - Loose and At Crooked Lake.
As Crazy Horse's career appeared to hit a skid, Young's career continued to flourish as he issued the biggest hit of his career, the mellow country-rock classic Harvest, the same year. When Young heard about Whitten's deteriorating condition (Young wrote Needle and the Damage Done for him), he wanted to help out his old friend and asked Whitten to be part of his touring band. But when Whitten proved to be too far gone during rehearsals, he was fired. On the same night he left Young and the band, Whitten overdosed and died in November 1972.
Devastated, Young carried on with the tour, but reconvened with the surviving members of Crazy Horse by the summer of 1973, working on a set of dark songs he had written about the seedier side of life. The band toured Europe later in the year (with Lofgren back on board) and recorded these new compositions, which were finally issued in 1975 as Tonight's the Night.
The same year, the group named their official replacement for Whitten, newcomer Frank 'Poncho' Sampedro, as the newly reinstated Neil Young & Crazy Horse issued their next release, Zuma, following it up with 1977's American Stars 'N Bars, and playing on a few tracks for Young's largely 1978 country effort, Comes a Time.
Amid the flurry of recording, Crazy Horse managed to issue a 4th album on their own, 1978's Crazy Moon, which featured Young guesting on a few of the tracks and was easily their finest and most-focussed effort since their debut release 7 years earlier.
Their 1979 tour was one of their finest, resulting in 1979's classic Rust Never Sleeps, as well as a movie of an entire show from the tour (the film was also titled Rust Never Sleeps, while its soundtrack was issued under the name Live Rust).
Although Young took a 3-year break from the concert stage afterwards, Crazy Horse still appeared on his studio recordings in the early 1980s. Throughout the rest of the decade, Young tried a variety of musical styles with other musicians, but would usually include at least one member of Crazy Horse in these projects.
After a proposed Neil Young & Crazy Horse tour in early 1984 failed to materialise, the band got back together two years later for a tour and released their weakest and poorest selling album, 1987's inappropriately titled Life.
With Sampedro deciding to stay behind and play with Young, Molina and Talbot recruited new members Matt Piucci (guitar/vocals) and Sonny Mone (guitar) and carried on under the name Crazy Horse, issuing their fifth album in 1989, the less-than-stellar Left for Dead.
But as previously in Young's career, it was only a matter of time until he gathered up the old troops, as Crazy Horse (sans Piucci and Mone) rejoined him and Sampedro in time for the 1990 back-to-basics record Ragged Glory. The ensuing tour was a strong one, resulting in the release of the definitive Neil Young & Crazy Horse live album Weld, a year later (a video of the same name was released as well).
The 1990s saw further releases by Young and the group, including 1994's Sleeps With Angels and 1996's Broken Arrow, as well as the 1995 home video The Complex Sessions, the 1999 live album/movie Year of the Horse, and of course, numerous tours.
2001 saw another Young/Crazy Horse tour, during which they debuted several newly penned tracks, set to possibly surface on a forthcoming new album.
Talbot kept himself busy during his time off around this period by starting the Billy Talbot Band, as well as a projected reunion with the 1980s version of Crazy Horse (Talbot, Molina, Piucci and Mone), this time under the name Raw.