Crazy Horse's Billy Talbot To Release Solo Album "On The Road To Spearfish" May 21

Los Angeles, CA (Top40 Charts / Vapor Records) Billy Talbot , best known as a founding member of Neil Young 's longtime backing band Crazy Horse, releases a new solo album, On The Road To Spearfish, May 21 (Vapor Records). In addition to the digital release of the nine-song set, a companion HD film chronicling the sessions will be available. The album was inspired by the vast North American prairie, where Talbot and his wife Karin have restored a homestead in Spearfish, South Dakota. In a musical journey that feels both mortal and mythic, Talbot translates the elemental Great Plains landscape into songs that transcend specific geography. Rather, they inhabit the realms of the heart and soul, emanating a restless sense of wonder about the world of Spearfish and beyond.

The album opens with "Empty Stadium," a plaintive ballad driven by a longing for home. It's followed by the up-tempo groove of the album's lead track, "Running Around," a song about searching for a better place. That yearning is felt throughout the set list in songs that juxtapose despair and redemption, range from somber to psychedelic, and that span the distances in between—with an overall progression from darkness to light.

The spirit of what Talbot has helped create with Neil Young and Crazy Horse also flows through the record, nowhere more fully than the title track. Awash in guitar interplay, "On The Road To Spearfish" is an epic 13-minute anthem to the open plain that mourns the West that once was, while still seeking solace in what will never fade away.

On The Road To Spearfish follows up the Billy Talbot Band's 2004 album Alive In The Spirit World. With the addition of newcomer Ryan James Holzer (trombone, harmonica, autoharp, organ, acoustic guitar), the same versatile musicians join Talbot again: guitarist Matt Piucci , Erik Pearson (horns, banjo, lap steel), Mark Hanley (lap steel, mandolin, guitar), Tommy Carns (bass), and Stephan Junca (drums). Using vintage gear and an eclectic orchestra of acoustic and electric instruments, the album was recorded at Light Rail Studios in San Francisco.

Reflecting on his journey, Talbot hopes to put forth a truer expression of himself. He cites Warren Zevon 's final album, The Wind (2003), as a touch point. "When I first heard Warren's last record, the starkness and the raw emotion, I really felt that and got into it. It inspired me," Talbot says. "That quality, that's what I'm going for."