Neil Young's Harvest (Thirty Three and a Third series)

Great in-depth look at a classic Neil Young release that helped propel him to Superstar status in the 1970's.

I really liked this one. The 33 1/3 series can be hit or miss but this is one I liked a lot. Had a lot of interesting info and insights into Young at the time, the album and the recording.

I’ve read 40-50 of the 33 1/3 series. This is probably the best written of the lot. I enjoyed some in the series because they are about artists or albums I worship, and they are well written. I like Young; I like “Harvest.” But reading this little monograph was an absolute pleasure. The author is even, knowledgeable, and clear. The album is placed in a historical context, its production is explored, and he does a concise track-by-track walk through. Highly recommended.

I've always preferred loud, fuzzy Neil to sensitive, folky Neil and Harvest has never really been one of his albums I cared all that much about. Digression - I spent a year or so in my mid teens disliking Neil Young because I thought he was America. Man, did I hate Horse with No Name and Ventura Highway. Sorry, Neil. Sam Inglis' book on Harvest is almost stunningly short, but a worthy read. Not caring much for Harvest, I'd never paid much attention to. I bought it years and years ago out of fealty to Young, and as a completist, than out of any great appreciation for it. I did like a couple of the songs, but it has pretty much been my least-listened to NY album up until those that, later on in his career, I didn't pick up. Inglis, however, is sending me back to it. Like some of the others in the 33 1/3 series, this is, in some ways, its real value. But that is selling it short. Inglis is persuasive in presenting the album as an underrated entry in Young's catalog - often overlooked by the simple virtue of being popular: the Neil Young album for those who don't really like Neil Young. He leads us through a track-by-track tour of the album, presenting it not as Young's best by any means, but as, perhaps, his most well-crafted, and featuring a few of his finest songs. He relates the background of the recording of the album, places it both within Young's catalog and the framework of the (musical) times in which it was released. 40 years on, it hard to remember that when this record came out, Young was best known for his sometime collaborations with Crosby, Stills, and Nash. (We used to refer to them as "Moe, Curly, Larry and Young".) If nothing else, this is the album that firmly established Young as a solo artist to the mass of listeners at the time. I still prefer Tonight's the Night, On the Beach, Time Fades Away, Ragged Glory, and any number of other Neil records to Harvest. Harvest doesn't care. It keeps on selling and being proud of its songs and performances. And this slim, but worthy little volume about it will keep signing its praises. Rightly so.

One of the better books in this series.

it's in my collection!!!

This is a very solid overview of "Harvest," with some insight into Young's larger career. The author doesn't tell you anything that McDonough's "Shakey" won't tell you better, but for those whose fandom doesn't extend to those lengths, it's a great introduction.

Excellent book on Harvest. Written wouldn't even tone, and no stylistic shenanigans like novella or diary form. The author keeps the book about the album and not about himself.

Neil Young was one of many artists to whom I listened as a teenager. I knew him as a solo artist and as a member of Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, though I knew nothing of the internal dynamics of the band. I knew he was Canadian. I didn't actually buy Harvest until 30 years later, though I did buy a second-hand copy of Heart Of Gold, I remember that song providing me with accompaniment as it played loudly on a juke box in a café late one night as I walked home, and I somehow considered the record a part of my youth and was glad to be able to buy a book that gave me a bit more background. That Harvest is indeed a "fine" album (as described by Young himself) and yet totally different from say Freedom or Rust Never Sleeps speaks volumes for Young's talents. It's what serves me as a "mellow" album, though Alabama for starters is anything but mellow, and it's worth noting that with that song, as with Southern man before it, Young put his neck on the line, receiving death threats both from those who understood what he was saying and from some who didn't - partly, admittedly, because as author Sam Inglis says it seems as if Young lumps all Alabamians into one nasty, racist lynch-mob. That Lynyrd Skynyrd's riposte, Sweet Home Alabama, was allegedly one of his favourite songs suggests he knew otherwise; as Patterson Hood says in his spoken peroration The Southern Thing on Drive-By Truckers' Southern Rock Opera, which makes reference to Young's songs, there's a lot of good people down there. Inglis starts off with a good summary of Young's career prior to Harvest. Obviously there's a lot missing, making generalisations almost inevitable: his assertion that London, LA and New York were and are the key centres of popular music, for example, ignores the influence of Motor City, Muscle Shoals and Jamaica, albeit they don't have the economic weight of the other places. Moving on to the account of the recording, Inglis mentions the Old Grey Whistle Test session Young did in the middle of the process through which I was originally introduced to the Harvest material. Look hard enough and you will be able to find a recording and hear the bit where Young forgets his words (because the song is so new); you will also notice that some of the words on a Man Needs A Maid were different. You can also at last get the Massey Hall recording referred to - well worth it - and Inglis explains why it was not released when originally intended. Having never heard Harvest right through until I bought it in the early noughties I hadn't appreciated that Needle And The Damage Done and Words were not bonus tracks for the CD. Words in particular, as Inglis suggests, crashes very abruptly and rudely into the applause from Needle, and I'd thought it was part of the same live recording, not recorded in Young's barn, as the author now informs me. Incidentally, Inglis points out that Young's band for Harvest, the Stray Gators, was essentially the group of session musicians who recorded as Area Code 615. What he misses, having already mentioned the Old Grey Whistle Test connection, is the opportunity to observe that they provided that programme with its theme tune. Nevertheless, toward the end of the book he provides background to the Gators and some of the other people associated with the recordings. The book is, in short, full of interesting revelations, and nowhere more so than the track-by-track commentary, which is especially informative. It is, in short, a "fine" book about a "fine" record.

great.many thanks.very fast

Excellent.

This book made my husband very happy.