Nils Lofgren is the rarest of species, being an axe-man for two of the greatest backing bands in the world – Crazy Horse and the E Street Band. It must take a unique type of beast to satisfy the titanium standards that Neil Young and Bruce Springsteen obviously demand. Lofgren has been allied with the latter since 1984 and has been knocking about with the godfather of grunge since 1970’s After The Gold Rush.

Chuck into that an impressive solo catalogue that stretches back 50 years and you know you got the real deal, a hardy buck who has lived and then some. His latest offering, Mountains, features the late great David Crosby on the wonderful ‘I Remember Her Name’, with Nils serenading his beautiful wife Amy. He charts their love story, one that sparked in the Empress Motel, Asbury NJ and kept lit down through the decades.

Superb heartland rocker ‘Only Ticket Out’ – all shots of gutter whiskey, quarts of Mad Dog, fat lines and dark pills – is a scarred map of a veteran guitar-slinger. Old mucker Neil Young turns in a fine vocal harmony on ‘Nothin’s Easy (For Amy)’, while none other than Ringo Starr registers his trademark tub-thumping on ‘Ain’t The Truth Enough’.

Elsewhere, the bedraggled blues-rock of ‘Won’t Cry No More (For Charlie Watts)’ forms something of a diptych with Lofgren’s ‘Keith Don’t Go (Ode To The Glimmer Twin)’, his emotional plea to Keith Richards off his eponymous debut solo album. The Rolling Stones and The Beatles? What more could you want?

Listen: ‘Only Ticket Out’
Score: 8/10

Out now via Cattle Track Records. Buy on Lofgren's website.

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