UPDATE ON NEW ALBUM: Neil Young's "Hitchhiker" Now Due September 8 + Preview Track

Neil Young | Hitchhiker
Album Cover by Gary Burden | rTwerk.com
(Click photo to enlarge)

Neil Young's newest album "Hitchhiker" is now due for release on September 8.

"Hitchhiker" is now available on vinyl and CD to pre-order on Amazon.com. The song "Hitchhiker"(Like An Inca) is available to download as pre-release single now. (Thanks kahunasunset!)

Back in April, we posted an intriguing image by Gary Burden | rTwerk.com of what appeared to be a cover for the unreleased album Neil Young | Hitchhiker.

Gary Burden is Neil Young's long time art director and cover graphic artist. Also, credited is Jenice Heo, who is responsible for Art Direction, Design.

Hitchhiker includes solo, acoustic songs recorded in 1976 at the Indigo Ranch Studios in Malibu, California. Writing in "Special Deluxe", Neil Young's -- second memoir -- he comments on Hitchhiker:

"I spent the night there with David and recorded nine solo acoustic songs, completing a tape I called Hitchhiker.

It was a complete piece, although I was pretty stony on it, and you can hear it in my performances. Dean Stockwell, my friend and a great actor who I later worked on Human Highway as a co-director, was with us that night, sitting in the room with me as I laid down all the songs in a row, pausing only for weed, beer, or coke. Briggs was in the control room, mixing live on his favorite console.

The song "Hitchhiker" was released on Neil Young's 2010 album Le Noise.

Track listing:

1 Pocahontas

2 Powderfinger

3 Captain Kennedy

4 Hawaii

5 Give Me Strength

6 Ride My Llama

7 Hitchhiker

8 Campaigner

9 Human Highway

10 The Old Country Waltz

Preview title track "Hitchhiker" by Neil Young:

A preview review from Riff Magazine by Shane Johnson:

The guitar work is simple and spectacular throughout the album. The finger picking on the “Captain Kennedy” intro is a prime example, while the strumming on “Hitchhiker” shows how Young can get such amazing sounds out of his guitar.

This album also introduces most of us to two long-lost songs of Young’s that had never been released. The first, “Hawaii,” is a beautiful ballad with a funky little finger picking piece to it. It’s not like anything I’ve really heard from Young in the past.

Hardcore fans may know the second unreleased track, “Give Me Strength.” Young used to play this song on tour in the mid-70s. This is classic Young, and one fans will feel like they may have heard before, even if they may not have seen the folk singer in concert.

Throughout the album, you hear Young and Brings working together on the recording, which only adds to the intimacy of the album. You almost want to help move the mic out of the way as Young moves to the piano for the album’s final song “The Old Country Waltz.”

This album has something for everyone. Hardcore fans will love the two new songs, while casual fans will love hearing some of his classics in an amazingly intimate and new way. This album is a must own for Young fans, and even if you’re not I would suggest you get it. This is one of the first albums to give me chills in a long, long time.

Read entire review in Riff Magazine by Shane Johnson.

More on Neil Young's "Hitchhiker".

Also, we posted a YouTube video on Neil Young's Indigo Ranch "Hitchhiker" 1976 Sessions Revealed: Behind the Scenes w/ Richard Kaplan. Here is Part #2 of a two part podcast about Neil Young and his recordings at Indigo Ranch Studios with the resident Producer at the time, Richard Kaplan. Here Richard explains how Neil Young recorded "Will To Love" and "Trans". (Thanks Syscrusher & Babbo B.!)

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