Harvest is the fourth studio album by Canadian-American musician Neil Young, released on February 15, 1972, by Reprise Records. It featured the London Symphony Orchestra on two tracks and vocals by guests David Crosby, Graham Nash, Linda Ronstadt, Stephen Stills, and James Taylor. It topped the Billboard 200 album chart for two weeks, and spawned two hit singles, "Old Man", which peaked at No. 31 on the US Billboard Hot 100, and "Heart of Gold", which reached No. 1. It was the best-selling album of 1972 in the United States.
The album has been described as "[contain[ing] some of the most arresting imagery of Young's career to date". According to The Times deputy features editor Burhan Wazir, the album "evoked both the dying optimism of San Francisco's counterculture movement and the burgeoning cynicism of the Watergate generation."
The album has since remained Young's signature album as well as his best selling. In 2015, Harvest was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame.
Background In 1970, Young released both Déjà Vu with Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young and his third solo album, After the Gold Rush. The year also saw Young tour as a solo act and with both CSNY and his collaborators Crazy Horse. In the fall of 1970, Young released After the Gold Rush, divorced his wife Susan Acevedo, and purchased Broken Arrow Ranch in Redwood City, California, where he would live for the next four decades. While renovating his new home, Young injured his back, limiting his mobility and ability to perform electric guitar. Around the same time, Young would also begin his relationship with actress Carrie Snodgress. Young's new home and romantic relationship would inspire several new songs.
After completing After the Gold Rush, Young promoted the album through a series of solo acoustic concerts. After playing Carnegie Hall in December 1970, Young returned to his ranch for a break in touring. While picking up a slab of walnut, Young injured his back, which prevented him from standing up while performing, limiting him to playing acoustic music. Young explains in an August 1975 interview with Cameron Crowe for Rolling Stone that due to herniated discs, he was frequently in hospitals between After the Gold Rush and Harvest. He "didn't have any contact" since he could not move well, but David Crosby visited him, and it took 45 minutes to get to the studio, which was only 400 yards from his house. Most of Harvest was recorded in a brace, with "Are You Ready for the Country", "Alabama", and "Words" being done after his disc removal surgery.
Young embarked on a solo acoustic tour in January and February 1971 where he debuted many of the album's songs. A performance on The Johnny Cash Show led to collaborations with record producer Elliot Mazer and Nashville studio musicians. In Nashville, Young recruited a group of country session musicians, whom he would dub The Stray Gators to record his new songs. The resulting record was a massive hit, producing a US number one single in "Heart of Gold". The album's success caught Young off guard and his first instinct was to back away from stardom. He would later write that the record "put me in the middle of the road. Traveling there soon became a bore so I headed for the ditch. A rougher ride but I saw more interesting people there."Bronson, Fred (2003). The Billboard Book of Number 1 Hits, p. 308. Billboard Books. .
Writing In a post on his website, Young shares that much of Harvest "was written about or for Carrie Snodgress, a wonderful actress and person and Zeke Young's mother." In a radio interview, Young specifically cites "Heart of Gold", "Harvest" and "Out on the Weekend" as being inspired by his then blossoming love.
"A Man Needs a Maid" was also inspired by Young's budding relationship with Snodgress, whom he contacted after seeing her picture in a magazine. At a Philadelphia concert in October 2014, Young shared that the song was also inspired by a set of buttons which he thought were a light switch in a hotel he stayed at while touring with CSNY. He saw that the top one was labelled "MAN" and the other was labelled "MAID", and he immediately went to his piano.Comments to the audience, October 9, 2014. Academy of Music, Philadelphia
"Heart of Gold" was Young's only number 1 hit in the United States. In 1974, he would tell a journalist that its composition was influenced by French song "Love Is Blue."Neil Young in Amsterdam. Constant Meijers. Muziekkrant Oor. September/October 1974. Blues Online. Accessed October 29, 2023. http://bluesonline.weebly.com/the-loner.html.
"Are You Ready for the Country?" was written shortly before being recorded for the album. It, like "Words" and "Alabama", was recorded to provide contrast to the acoustic songs on the album. Young explains in a post on his website: "Are You Ready for the Country?" was written at the ranch shortly before the barn sessions happened. It's a simple song based on an old blues melody that has been used many times. I thought it would bring some welcome relief from the other songs."August 24, 2018. Neil Young Archives. neilyoungarchives.com
"Old Man" was inspired by Louis Avila, the caretaker of the Northern California ranch Young had recently purchased. He explains to an audience in January 1971: "This is a new song that I wrote about my ranch. I live on a ranch now. Lucky me. There's this old man who lives on it, that uh, he came with the place when I bought it. Ranches have foremen you know usually that sort of like stay there with the cows, no matter who owns it."Comments to the audience, January 19, 1971. Massey Hall, Toronto. He further describes Avila in his 2015 memoir, Special Deluxe: Louis and Clara were each about sixty years old and Louis had a very leathery face from being out in the sun working the land his whole life. His hair was full and white and he talked slowly in a friendly way. Clara, his wife of about forty years, was a very nice, soft-spoken lady. They were very much in love and lived in a little house about two hundred yards from my cabin, just on the other side of the beautiful little lake. They were there the day I first saw the place. Louis stood a little off-center due to an injury he sustained while walking through a field one day when he stepped in a deep hole and put his back out. He never got it fixed. He just soldiered on. His manner was always casual, country.Young, Neil. 2015. Special Deluxe. New York, New York: Plume, An Imprint Of Penguin Random House Llc. "Alabama" is "an unblushing rehash of 'Southern Man'";So characterized by Jim Miller in Rolling Stone; quoted in Inglis, Sam (2003), Harvest, pp. 93-94. The Continuum International Publishing Group. . to which American southern rock band Lynyrd Skynyrd wrote their 1973 hit "Sweet Home Alabama" in reply, stating "I hope Neil Young will remember, a southern man don't need him around, anyhow". Young later wrote of "Alabama" in his autobiography Waging Heavy Peace, saying it "richly deserved the shot Lynyrd Skynyrd gave me with their great record. I don't like my words when I listen to it. They are accusatory and condescending, not fully thought out, and too easy to misconstrue."
"The Needle and the Damage Done" was inspired directly by an overdose by bandmate Danny Whitten, who would later succumb to his addictions. The song was also inspired by several artists Young had seen fall to heroin, as he explained to a January 1971 audience.
"Words (Between the Lines of Age)", the last song on the album, featured a lengthy guitar workout with the band. In his 2012 memoir Waging Heavy Peace, Young reveals that the song "Words" was inspired by Young's growing fame, and the first cracks in his relationship with Snodgress: "Words" is the first song that reveals a little of my early doubts of being in a long-term relationship with Carrie. It was a new relationship. There were so many people around all the time, talking and talking, sitting in a circle smoking cigarettes in my living room. It had never been like that before. I am a very quiet and private person. The peace was going away. It was changing too fast. I remember actually jumping out the living room window onto the lawn to get out of there; I couldn't wait long enough to use the door! Words - too many of them, it seemed to me. I was young and not ready for what I had gotten myself into. I became paranoid and aware of mind games others were trying to play on me. I had never even thought of that before. That was how we did Harvest, in love in the beginning and with some doubts at the end.Young, Neil. 2012. Waging Heavy Peace. Penguin Publishing Group.
Recording The album was recorded across several different sessions in multiple locations in 1971. "The Needle and the Damage Done" was taken from a live solo performance at UCLA on January 30 during a solo acoustic tour. Multiple sessions in February and April were held in Nashville with established local studio musicians, produced by Elliot Mazer. "A Man Needs a Maid" and "There's a World" were recorded with the London Symphony Orchestra with Jack Nitzsche on March 1. The album's electric tracks were recorded at Young's ranch in September.
Young engaged in a solo acoustic tour in North America and the United Kingdom in January and February 1971. During the tour, he played several new songs inspired by life on his new ranch or the beginnings of his romantic relationship with Carrie Snodgress. Several of the shows were recorded for potential release as a live album. Young arrived in Nashville in early February 1971 to perform on an episode of the Johnny Cash Show. Linda Ronstadt and James Taylor were also slated to appear on the broadcast.
While in Nashville, Young met record producer Elliot Mazer. Mazer had recently opened Quadrafonic Sound Studios in Nashville in a converted house. Mazer remembers: "The control room was the old porch. The living room and the dining room became the two live rooms, and the kitchen became a drum area. We called it 'Quadraphonic' as a joke, although it did have four speakers in the control room."The Genius Of Harvest by Neil Young. Michael Leonard. May 12, 2021. Guitar.com. Accessed November 15, 2023. https://guitar.com/reviews/album/the-genius-of-harvest-by-neil-young/. Eager to record his new songs, Mazer helped Young assemble a band of local Nashville musicians. Young remembers:
Young would continue to work with Mazer and Drummond on several subsequent projects. Ben Keith would become one of Young's most frequent collaborators until his death in 2010. Several of the musicians had performed with Nashville bands Area Code 615 and Barefoot Jerry. At these first sessions in early February the band was able to capture "Heart of Gold", "Old Man", "Bad Fog of Loneliness", and "Dance Dance Dance". Linda Ronstadt and James Taylor also visited the studio to contribute to the sessions with Young. The three sat on a couch and recorded the background vocals for "Heart of Gold" and "Old Man". Taylor overdubbed a part for the latter song on Young's banjo guitar. Ronstadt remembers the session in a Mojo interview: "We were sat on the couch in the control room, but I had to get up on my knees to be on the same level as James because he's so tall. Then we sang all night, the highest notes I could sing. It was so hard, but nobody minded. It was dawn when we walked out of the studio."Neil Young's Harvest – in Depth. 2017. Long Live Vinyl. June 2, 2017. https://longlivevinyl.net/2017/06/02/classic-album-neil-young-harvest/. Mazer recalls Young's drive and the magical atmosphere: