SO SHALL YE REAP
Fifty years on, LINDA RONSTADT remembers her role in Neil Young’s biggest hit album, Harvest.
“I FIRST MET Neil at the Troubadour. He struck me as shy, like gun-shy, and taciturn, kind of in another world, but when he spoke, he was very straightforward. As a songwriter, he was obviously first-rate, original and thought-provoking, and so admired by the best, like Randy Newman. And I loved Neil’s singing: almost a boy soprano, this strange Northern voice, like the sound of a loon.
He was always friendly and nice to me, but I barely knew him, or James Taylor, when we were all invited to Nashville to record the Johnny Cash show. After the show, Neil said, ‘I’m going to the studio, why don’t you both come?’ I think his producer, Elliot Mazer, had suggested to Neil that James and I should play on his record.
Nashville was such a foreign world to us. If you didn’t wear make-up or a bra, or the guys had long hair, they couldn’t figure you out, but the musicians were so good. The studio [Quadrafonic] was small but it was Nashville’s hip studio at the time, with the latest equipment. We were all in one room, singing on every take, live. There was no overdubbing. It just took a few hours to get the tracks down.
The only instruction Neil gave me was for Heart Of Gold. He said, ‘Just hop on the chord, and sing the top register.’ But I’d been singing harmonies before I started singing melodies, so I knew intuitively what to do. I thought my voice was disappearing into the other voices, so maybe that’s why I sang loud, but I always did. I’d be told, ‘Back off the microphone!’ We stayed up all night long, until dawn.
I love Heart Of Gold. From that opening chop-chop-chop guitar rhythm, you know it’s going to be a great song. But Old Man was especially poignant for me. Where Neil was in his life, all of a sudden there is new fame, and you don’t know what it means, friends treat you differently, you don’t know where you’re going, or how long it’s going to last, or if you’ll enjoy it anyway. So, he bought a ranch so he could think about it, and that’s where he met the old man.
I think Harvest is one of the best albums in American pop, or classic rock, maybe even Top 5. It’s Neil’s uniqueness, and his beautiful writing, so well-crafted and yet casual-sounding, and how he resonated with the Zeitgeist in subtle ways. Was I surprised when he changed direction after
Harvest? I was on the road with him for four months [1973’s Time Fades Away tour] and to me, he didn’t seem to be veering in any particular direction. He just made music the way he was feeling, just what was on his mind, doing the same stuff that Neil always did.”
As told to Martin Aston