Neil Young Harvest LP

Rolling Stone 500 Greatest Albums of All Time - Rated 72/500!

A quadruple platinum #1 smash and the best-selling album of 1972, Harvest was Neil Young's fourth solo effort. With the gold #1 "Heart Of Gold", Top 40 "Old Man", powerful "The Needle And The Damage Done", controversial "A Man Needs A Maid" and "Southern Man" companion "Alabama," Harvest won inclusion in Rolling Stone's "500 Greatest Albums Of All Time."

Neil Young performs with The Stray Gators on seven out of the ten selections. The Stray Gators consist of Ben Keith on pedal steel guitar, Jack Nitzsche on piano and slide guitar, Tim Drummond on bass and Kenny Buttrey on drums. Young is joined by The London Symphony Orchestra for "A Man Needs A Maid" and "There's A World". Noted guest artists include David Crosby, Graham Nash, Linda Ronstadt, Stephen Stills and James Taylor, all performing backing vocals.

Whether as a singer, a songwriter or a guitarist, Neil Young has been one of the most influential and important artists of the rock era. Blending folk, country and rock, the acoustic and the electric, the melancholy and the hopeful, Young has been an icon for the uncompromising and unpredictable since the 1960s.

Harvest yielded Young's only Number One hit, 'Heart of Gold,' and helped set the stage for the Seventies soft-rock explosion - both James Taylor and Linda Ronstadt sing on the album. Along with Young, they were in Nashville to appear on Johnny Cash's variety show the week that Harvest was cut with an odd group of accomplished session players that included bassist Tim Drummond, who had played with James Brown. The sound was Americana - steel guitar, slide guitar, banjo - stripped down and rebuilt with every jagged edge exposed. The standout tracks include 'Old Man' and 'The Needle and the Damage Done.'