Roxy Gordon - Crazy Horse Never Died (2023) [Hi-Res]

Arrestingly singular and deeply moving, this 1988 album by Choctaw, Assiniboine, and Texan poet, journalist, artist, activist, and musician Roxy Gordon (First Coyote Boy) (1945–2000)—whose long out-of-print work has been acclaimed by friends such as Townes Van Zandt, Leonard Cohen, and Terry Allen—sets his cold-blooded, bone-lean reflections on the complexities and contradictions of American Indian (and American) history and identity to atmospheric, synth-damaged country-rock that skirts ambient textures and postpunk deconstructions.

The gatefold package of this first-ever reissue—a decade in the making and the first in an archival series—includes new and restored artwork and a chapbook, featuring forty-eight pages of lyrics, essays, photographs, and First Coyote Boy’s extraordinary drawings for each song. (The chapbook is included in the LP edition only and also available for purchase separately.)

“Roxy Gordon is a brother of mine. I don’t like the word ‘poet’; it is usually used too lightly. Roxy, however, is a real one. God bless him and the buffalo he rode in on.” – Townes Van Zandt

“His work is strong. The word goes out. Can a change come on dove’s feet?” – Leonard Cohen

“Roxy Gordon is one of the great outlaw artist American misfits. He writes like an angel and sings like livin’ hell. His voice is as stone, true as the history of blood and dirt.” – Terry Allen

“Someday maybe Steinbeck will be my favorite writer again but, right now, it’s Roxy Gordon.” – John Stewart