BEACH PERFECT
Thanks for your extensive article about On The Beach [Take 322, February issue]. Of the three released ‘Ditch’ albums, this is probably the most significant. Time Fades Away could be seen as sloppy live album, and when Tonight’s The Night actually appeared, that version of Neil was long gone. On The Beach’s laid-back (laid-down?) vibe was the direct antithesis of the rather more polished, professional, well-rehearsed version of CSNY that went on the road that summer (a version facilitated by Young making his ranch available for rehearsals), so CSNY management must have despaired of creating any kind of mutually beneficial linkage between the two.
It was also a record which was accorded the rare honour of being reviewed twice in (possibly the first time it happened). Steve Clarke had panned it initially and Ian MacDonald was given a right of reply, lauding it as “a
