Tape Chronicles – 2 – Neil Young Harvest & Harvest Moon

Phil Gurnee ♦ February 12, 2017 ♦ 3 Comments

The Tape Chronicles:

Number two is an artist that will show up time and time again. From his work with Buffalo Springfield – Crazy Horse – CSNY – Solo artist, Neil Young would be one of my finalists for an island artist.

This tape combines his earlier sentinel work Harvest created in 1972 with the sequel  Harvest Moon created twenty years later.

Harvest was the best selling album of 1972, with brilliant songs such as Old Man, Heart of Gold, Are you ready for the Country, and Alabama. Yet it is “Needle and the Damage done” that left the biggest imprint on me.

Like many others in 1972 I listened to that album from beginning to end over and over and it was a time in Los Angeles where KLOS or KMET would play just about every track.

Fast forward 20 years to 1992 and I don’t think Harvest Moon got much radio airplay at all. It is a solid album, full of pretty songs thoughtful songs, and Harvest Moon itself stands up to some of the greatest songs that Neil Young has ever composed. Not many artists have put out an album as good as Harvest Moon twenty years after they created one of the great albums in history.

Both of these albums were more acoustic in nature, but later we will hit Neil Young when he rocks as only he could rock.

I’ve seen Neil Young numerous times over the years and he always puts on a great show. My only complaint is that he tends to get rock crazy and give us 5 – 8 minutes songs, and while that is cool for one or two shows, I’d really like to hear him get deep into his catalog instead of spending so much time rocking out to a few songs.