Reprise 2032
Producers: Elliot Mazer, Neil Young, Jack Nitzsche, and Henry Lewy
Track listing: Out on the Weekend / Harvest / A Man Needs a Maid / Heart of Gold / Are You Ready for the Country / Old Man / There’s a World / Alabama / The Needle and the Damage Done / Words (Between the Lines of Age)
March 11, 1972
2 weeks
By 1971, Neil Young had already enjoyed artistic success as a member of pioneering folk-rock outfit Buffalo Springfield, as a solo artist, and with Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, but Young had yet to experience his greatest commercial triumph.
Buffalo Springfield, which included Stephen Stills, never cracked the top 40 of the album chart, but scored a top 10 single in 1967 with “For What It’s Worth (Stop, Hey What’s That Sound).” “Mr. Soul,” perhaps Young’s finest contribution to the group, was not issued as a single.
Following the breakup of Buffalo Springfield, Young began his solo career in 1969, but ironically it didn’t take full flight until he joined Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young. After the Gold Rush, Young’s third solo album, released while he was touring with CSN&Y, garnered critical acclaim and reached number eight in September 1970.
Although he was plagued by chronic back problems, Young would go on to make the most successful album of his career in 1971. “It was very spontaneous,” says co-producer Elliot Mazer. Much of the album was cut at Quadrafonic Sound Studios in Nashville, Tennessee, which Mazer co-owned. “I was working on an album by a guy named Jay Coles and we had heard that a bunch of artists from New York and Los Angeles were coming to Nashville to do the last Johnny Cash TV show.” Mazer was introduced to Young by Young’s manager Elliot Roberts. Young told Mazer he was impressed with a band of local Nashville musicians called Area Code 615, so Roberts suggested that Young visit the studio and play with some of the musicians. “We went into the studio and Neil played a couple of songs and we were stunned by how beautiful his songs were and how incredible he was,” says Mazer. “It was magic.”
Most of what would become Harvest was cut live in the studio at brisk pace on 16-track. “We did ‘Heart of Gold’ and five other songs in two days,” says Mazer, “Then Neil had to go on the road.” The sessions were a departure for Young, who was backed by the group of Nashville musicians dubbed the Stray Gators, rather than his usual backing band Crazy Horse.
One song in particular stood out. “When Neil did ‘Heart of Gold,’ we all knew it was a hit. It was just a question of recording it.” Backing vocals by James Taylor and Linda Ronstadt were overdubbed “in the control room on the playback of the take,” adds Mazer. “It was pretty obvious that we had the right take.”
Young also called upon his CSN mates for backing vocals on “Are You Ready for the Country,” “Alabama,” and “Words,” which were recorded at Young’s Broken Arrow Studio #2, located at his Northern California ranch.
Aside from those songs and the cuts recorded in Nashville, Harvest includes “A Man Needs a Maid” and “There’s a World,” which feature accompaniment by the London Symphony Orchestra, and “The Needle and the Damage Done,” recorded live at UCLA’s Royce Hall in Los Angeles. The latter track was inspired by Crazy Horse guitarist Danny Whitten’s heroin problem. It proved prophetic when Whitten died of a heroin overdose in late 1972.
With Young’s back problems requiring surgery, Harvest took nearly a year to complete. “We were concerned about Neil’s health,” says Mazer, “but we weren’t too worried about the album, because we had already cut ‘Heart of Gold,’ which everyone thought would be a huge single.”
Harvest became Young’s first and only Number One album in its second week on the chart. A week later, with Harvest still holding at the summit, “Heart of Gold” hit the top of the Hot 100.
THE TOP FIVE
Week of March 11, 1972
1. Harvest, Neil Young
2. American Pie, Don McLean
3. Concert for Bangladesh, George Harrison and Friends
4. Fragile, Yes
5. Music, Carole King