There’s a lot of harmless debates that I’ve been known to go to bat for a little harder than usual. The sleeping with socks discourse, dogs versus cats, which way to load your toilet paper roll and Spotify versus Apple Music. I couldn’t really tell you why exactly, but I’ve always been a big Spotify gal — until last Wednesday that is. Last week Neil Young, who’s an avid believer in the importance of the COVID vaccine, decided to pull his music off Spotify because they offer a platform to the famous podcaster, Joe Rogan.
Rogan has made misinformative remarks about the COVID vaccine, and Young has had enough. A couple of days before he made the choice to pull his solo catalog off the streaming app, Young posted a letter to Spotify asking them to pick between him and Rogan as to who would stay on the platform. As half my playlists now sit bare with the departure of my favorite little lumberjack, I regret to inform you they picked Rogan. To make matters worse, my musical mommy Joni Mitchell, a fellow folk singer and lifelong friend of Young’s, pulled her music too. While I used to defend Spotify to the death, now myself and many other folk fans are toying with the idea of opening up an account on Apple Music.
While it sounds like a menial thing because you can always search these artists up for free on YouTube or drop some dime on a physical copy of their albums, it’s brought Young back into the news as a major player in the music industry, decades after he used to make headlines regularly. Now I don’t know if this was purposeful or not, but the 76-year-old singer couldn’t have picked a more tragic time to shake the room with this statement. Today on Feb. 1, his most widely beloved solo album, “Harvest” turns 50.
Young had quite the journey to stardom, but by his fourth solo album “Harvest” he was a household name. After the breakup of Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young following the release of the damn perfect album “Deja-Vu,” Young ditched Laurel Canyon life for a taste of the American South. He hired a group of bumpkin songbirds which he dubbed The Stray Gators and got back to work on his solo career. The crew brought together a collection of tracks that would become known as “Harvest” and cut a deal to record in Nashville after Young appeared on The Johnny Cash Show.
Not that I’m any sort of voice for the people, but I feel quite comfortable considering this one of those few undeniable records in popular culture. In my book, his 1969 album with Crazy Horse titled “Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere” is the magnum opus of Young’s songbook, but when I step away from how much I love every bit of “Cinnamon Girl,” I can contest that “Harvest” is in many ways crowned jewel of his solo career.
The album starts out with “Out On The Weekend” which scratches this itch in me that church must scratch in the Catholics. From here on out it just keeps getting better. “Heart of Gold” needs no introduction as it’s burned in the brains of bonfire go-ers everywhere and “Are You ready for the Country” serves up OG CSNY through a new Nashville lens.
Where the album really gets spiritual for me is “Old Man”. I’ll never forget the first time I saw the 1971 BBC tape of Neil Young playing this song live for the first time ever, a year before it came out on wax. The krinkle on the bridge of Young’s nose and his downtrodden gaze floored me as I’m writing this now; it floors me still. The song tells the story of the old lawyer Young had bought his ranch from in Northern California, Louis Avila.
Avila earned himself a front and center spot as the subject of the song after taking Young for a ride around the property in his beat up blue Jeep. As they looked over Broken Arrow Ranch, the two realized that despite the years, they weren’t so different at all.
Besides “Old Man,” the track to end all tracks on “Harvest” is “The Needle and The Damage Done.”
It’s a not at all subtle allusion to heroin and all the wasted potential he’d seen take a few too many of the artists and friends he’d known. In the liner notes of the album he even writes, “I am not a preacher, but drugs killed a lot of great men.”
Even though it happened shortly after the album was released in ‘72, guitarist Danny Whitten of his prior band Crazy Horse, died of a heroin overdose. I can’t speak for Young, but I’d call that the most tragic product of the needle the track could’ve pointed to.
Whatever way you slice it, “Harvest” feels like grandma’s pumpkin pie at a family-drama-free Thanksgiving dinner. It’s warm, it’s home and it’s country rock at its finest. Though you might not be able to catch it on Spotify anymore, I’ll trust that you’ll find your own way to toast Mr. Young on the album’s 50th birthday.
