Neil Young & Crazy Horse released Zuma on November 10, 1975, through Reprise Records. Young’s seventh studio album was the group’s first with Frank “Poncho” Sampedro on rhythm guitar, joining bassist Billy Talbot and drummer Ralph Molina. That lineup recorded “Cortez the Killer,” “Danger Bird” and most of the album’s other songs.
Original Crazy Horse guitarist Danny Whitten had died in 1972, leaving a musical partnership Young struggled to replace. Sampedro arrived with his own reasons to need a fresh start. In a 2021 interview with Stereogum, he recalled selling his guitars and applying for a post office job after years of struggling to pay for food and rent. Talbot got him playing again and introduced him to Young. Young valued the fact that Sampedro approached the job as himself. In his 2012 memoir, Waging Heavy Peace, he wrote that Sampedro wouldn’t imitate another guitarist’s parts, an attitude that helped the musicians continue after Whitten’s death.
Much of the recording took place at producer David Briggs’ house in Point Dume, Malibu, near the beach that supplied the album’s name. Sampedro remembered a routine of playing familiar material, trying new songs and heading out for meals. Nobody was concentrating on a finished album or its running order. A call from Warner Bros., relayed by Young, made turning in a record a practical concern. “We just kept making new ones,” Sampedro recalled.
The resulting record gave that partnership room to stretch. “Don’t Cry No Tears” opens Zuma in roughly two and a half minutes; “Danger Bird” and “Cortez the Killer” each run beyond six. The latter also survived an accident at the recording console. As Rolling Stone reported in 2024, its power failed while the band continued playing. Young told Neil Young Archives subscribers that the performance was strong enough to keep, so the master tape was edited together despite missing verses. That interrupted recording became the nearly seven-and-a-half-minute track placed near the end of Zuma.
The final song changes the lineup. “Through My Sails,” recorded at Young’s Broken Arrow Ranch in 1974, features Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young. Coming immediately after “Cortez the Killer,” it closes the album with the harmonies of Young’s other group. Another older ranch recording, “Pardon My Heart,” also made the sequence after additions in 1975. Talbot and Molina sang backing vocals on that track, with Tim Drummond playing bass. The finished album drew on more than the new quartet’s sessions, even as Sampedro’s arrival defined its principal band.
Those sessions also produced material that didn’t make the nine-song release. Listening back to an early “Powderfinger” decades later, Sampedro remembered the band working through a song whose lyrics and instrumental parts were still developing.
A wider selection arrived in 2020 as Dume, a 16-track collection within Neil Young Archives Vol. II (1972–1976). It placed recordings from Zuma alongside other material from the period, including “Powderfinger,” “Pocahontas” and “Ride My Llama.” Reprise released Dume separately on vinyl in 2024, making more of those formative recordings available outside the box set.
