HARVEST Outtakes by Neil Young: "Journey Through The Past"

HARVEST Outtakes by Neil Young
(Click photo to enlarge) 

An unreleased studio outtake from the recording of Neil Young's album ‘HARVEST’ is now streaming on Neil Young Archives.

There are multiple versions of "Journey Through The Past" on NYA, including the original on the 'Time Fades Away'  album.  But now there are 2 versions of "Journey Through The Past"  recorded on April 4, 1971 with The Stray Gators @ Quadrafonic Sound Studios, Nashville.

 

NYA Volume #1 "Journey Through The Past" -  2:22

 

Previously released on NYA Volume #1, "Journey Through The Past" running time is 2:22 and an outtake running 10 seconds longer @ 2:32.

"Journey Through The Past" outtake - 2:32

 

 

After listening, clearly these are two different performance versions and not simply a shorter edit or different mix.

As Tomatron comments:

The laidback Stray Gators take on JTTP became my go-to version when Vol 1 presented it; this new take by them may even top it. 

You don’t hear that guy on piano with Neil too much, so it’s refreshing to feel the space he’s given in this mix with no harmonica. The balance in headphones is pretty sweet too, with the snare more centered and increased clarity to the low end. 

Although the Archives book does not cite multiple takes of this tune, I think they missed it on that tape list. Other songs from the same sessions like Alabama show at least three distinct takes. I do hear some differences here to indicate it’s a separate run through. This kind of thing is such a goodie for us Neil nerds. 

Yes I will be there in the movie theater for Harvest Time just like I was for Year of the Horse, Trunk Show, and Journeys.

Thanks for comment Tomatron. Yes, the new JTTP outtake does have a real laid back groove to it. The slower pace does sort of reinforce the imagery conveyed.

And yeah, we too will be in the theater as well to take in the big sound and screen of Harvest Time --  a documentary shot in 1971.

PREVIEW TRAILER: Neil Young: Harvest Time

Harvest Time ... perhaps the ultimate journey through the past of all time?

More on upcoming  Harvest 50th Anniversary Edition by Neil Young.

 

Harvest 50th Anniversary Edition Deluxe LP Box SetRelease Date: 12/02/2022
 (Click photo to enlarge) 
 

 

Also, see:

• Details on the  50th Anniversary Edition of the album Harvest  
• Unboxing Video: Harvest 50th Anniversary Edition by Neil Young
  
• ESSAY: Neil Young’s Harvest at Age 50 by Harvey Kubernik
  
• Neil Young Remembers "The Innocence": WORDS
• Neil Young's "Song of the Day": "Are You Ready The Country?" + VIDEO 
• Neil Young's Memories of Recording Harvest Album: "Sessions of a Lifetime"
• Neil Young's Song Of The Day: "Heart of Gold" + 1971 Interview 
• Unboxing Video: Harvest 50th Anniversary Edition by Neil Young 
• INTERVIEW: Neil Young Says He Was Offered Millions to Tour Harvest Album | AARP  

Harvest by Neil Young - Released on February 1, 1972

(see ESSAY: Neil Young’s Harvest at Age 50 by Harvey Kubernik)

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Comment of the Moment: The Essentials - On the Beach by Neil Young

Rare "On The Beach" Poster with Neil facing camera (Click photo to enlarge) 

Recently, we posted on The Essentials: On the Beach by Neil Young | The Old Grey Cat where the album OTB is the critical link in Neil Young's "Ditch Trilogy/Quadrilogy".

Here is Comment of the Moment by Kevin D. in Morro Bay:

"The Essentials" well said Old Grey Cat and another great article by our favorite cat. 

On The Beach was the third maybe fourth Neil album I bought after the triple play of EKTIN, AGT and Harvest. To say it was a surprise was an under statement. 

Truth be told after that initial triple play I was more than a little confused lets say after my first play of this wonderful album. With each listen I got deeper into it and for me it truly is an essential album. One of the first things I remember noticing when I bought the album second hand around 1975 or so was the pattern from the underside of the umbrella is on the inside of the record cover (not gate fold) but the back side of the actual record cover normally cardboard. Nice touch! 

All the folks I played it too never gave it to much thought as their view was it was a downer to listen to. To each their own the more I played the more I agreed with Rusty Kershaw's comment on the inner sleeve - " there is good music in this album". 

As the years went by I also invested in the DVD-A which saves my album from too much abuse. With the gallery scrolling and the music playing and a brew by my side - life is good. No honey slides necessary but always an option. 

So take advantage of this time before the mother load of Harvest 50 comes out in December and follow the Old Grey Cat's advice and give this album a spin, you won't regret it. 

Kevin D. in Morro Bay 

Thanks for the thoughts here  Kevin! 

We sense a surge in relevance of On the Beach to the these times in which we live.  The parallels between the 1970's and today are unmistakable to all but those  asleep and unaware of the pending Big Shift.

More on Neil Young's "Ditch Trilogy/Quadrilogy".

Neil Young's "Ditch Quadrilogy" (see Neil Young's "Ditch Quadrilogy" Re-Re-Release is Finally Coming! Official Release Series Discs 5-8 (4CD): May 12, 2017 Release)

 

Also, see:

• The Essentials: On the Beach by Neil Young | The Old Grey Cat
• "Time Fades Away", "Tonight’s the Night" & "On the Beach": The Beautiful, Enduring Gloom of Neil Young's Ditch Trilogy
  
• The Surrealism of Neil Young's "On The Beach" Album
  
• Tattoo of the Moment: "On The Beach Face" Neil Young's Album Cover
• On The Beach: 45 Years Later, Still Neil Young’s "Most Beautiful (and Most Depressing) Album")
• Nick Cave and His Favorite Neil Young "Hiding Song": "On the Beach"
  

 

Neil Young On The Beach: Reflecting on Reflections (See  On The Beach: 45 Years Later, Still Neil Young’s "Most Beautiful (and Most Depressing) Album")

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PREVIEW TRAILER: Neil Young: Harvest Time

 Neil Young: Harvest Time   (Click photo to enlarge)

 

Ahh, Northern California ranch country. So beautiful and serene w/ Neil's Alabama bouncing off the barn walls into the valleys and across the Pacific.

Here is a preview trailer for the film documentary Neil Young: Harvest Time. 

The upcoming Harvest box set commemorates the 50th anniversary of the album's release.

Harvest 50th Anniversary Edition Deluxe LP Box SetRelease Date: 12/02/2022
 (Click photo to enlarge)

The documentary film Neil Young: Harvest Time “takes viewers on an intimate journey to Young’s Broken Arrow Ranch in Northern California for the ‘Harvest Barn’ sessions, to London for an iconic performance with the London Symphony Orchestra, and to Nashville where the then 20-something Neil Young worked on various tracks of this signature album,” according to the distributor, Trafalgar Releasing.

The film, shot between January and September 1971, includes footage of Young creating and recording Harvest classics like “Old Man” and “Heart of Gold,” as well as other songs from the RIAA-certified four-times Platinum album. You can watch a clip from the film now.

“I was 24, maybe 23 and this album made a big difference in my life,” Young says of Harvest. “I had a great time and now when I listen to it, I think I was really just lucky to be there. I hope you enjoy this story, which is Harvest Time, and which talks about everything that happened.”

Neil Young: Harvest Time will debut December 1 in select theaters worldwide, with an encore presentation on December 4. Tickets go on sale November 10 at NeilYoungHarvestTime.com.

 

Neil Young in the Barn

photo by Joel Bernstein/courtesy of Gary Strobl

 

Per announcement for Deluxe LP Box Set:

• Harvest 50th Anniversary Edition Deluxe LP Box Set 

• Heart of Gold

• Journey Through The Past Releases 11/4 

• NYA Harvest 50th Anniversary Edition Hi Res Download Code 

 

Harvest by Neil Young - Released on February 1, 1972

(see ESSAY: Neil Young’s Harvest at Age 50 by Harvey Kubernik)

 

Neil Young's Memories of Recording Harvest Album: "Sessions of a Lifetime"

 

INTERVIEW: Neil Young Says He Was Offered Millions to Tour Harvest Album | AARP 

 

Also, see:

• Details on the  50th Anniversary Edition of the album Harvest  
• ESSAY: Neil Young’s Harvest at Age 50 by Harvey Kubernik
  
• Neil Young Remembers "The Innocence": WORDS
• Neil Young's "Song of the Day": "Are You Ready The Country?" + VIDEO 
• Neil Young's Memories of Recording Harvest Album: "Sessions of a Lifetime"
• Neil Young's Song Of The Day: "Heart of Gold" + 1971 Interview 
• Unboxing Video: Harvest 50th Anniversary Edition by Neil Young 
• INTERVIEW: Neil Young Says He Was Offered Millions to Tour Harvest Album | AARP  

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Nick Cave and His Favorite Neil Young Song

Nick Cave  (Click photo to enlarge) 

Nick and Neil are brothers in music, separated by vast time, music and geography spaces. (kinda like some of us and our fave commenters out there)

If you're familiar with Nick Cave and Neil Young and their music, much of this may already be familiar. Otherwise, carry on... 

  Neil Young Tribute album to benefit The Bridge School (1989)

 

From  a 1990 Neil Young interview by Nick Kent that appeared in VOX Magazine, where Neil was asked about an tribute album of covers including Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds cover of ‘Helpless’:

VOX: You've been been quoted as saying you found 'The Bridge: the recent tribute album "threatening". Why?

Neil Young: "Well I made that statement before I'd actually heard the record.

I love that record now.

Before, I saw it as all these groups saying 'O.K. Uncle Neil, time for that rocking chair'. I love all those guys on the record - The Pixies, Sonic Youth and that Nick Cave guy in particular. When I heard it, it really touched me."

From Nick Cave names his favourite Neil Young song | Far Out Magazine by Aimee Ferrier:

This led Cave to discuss what he refers to as his “hiding songs.” These “sacred” tracks “deal exclusively in darkness, obfuscation, concealment and secrecy.”

***

Cave shared, “My ‘hiding songs’ serve as a form of refuge for me and have done so for years. They are songs that I can pull over myself, like a child might pull the bed covers over their head, when the blaze of the world becomes too intense. I can literally hide inside them. They are the essential pillars that hold up the structure of my artistic world.” 

Alongside Cohen’s ‘Avalanche’, another track that Cave refers to as a “hiding song” is ‘On the Beach’ by Neil Young, the first track on side two of his 1974 album of the same name. The album explores the isolation and alienation that Young experienced after the success of his 1972 album Harvest. Discussing how his successful album inspired On the Beach, Young said, “[Harvest] put me in the middle of the road. Travelling there soon became a bore, so I headed for the ditch. A rougher ride, but I saw more interesting people there.” 

‘On the Beach’ reflects Young’s struggle with fame and his love-hate relationship with being a performer. The musician sees escape as the only way to cope with his feelings, which he admits are “meaningless” in the grand scheme of things. He finds that escaping into nature, spending time with friends and hitting the road doesn’t rid himself of his issues, but that’s all he can do.

Ahh, ‘On the Beach’ yet again.

More  on "the essential Neil Young song and album 'On the Beach' ":

 

• The Essentials: On the Beach by Neil Young | The Old Grey Cat
• "Time Fades Away", "Tonight’s the Night" & "On the Beach": The Beautiful, Enduring Gloom of Neil Young's Ditch Trilogy
  
• The Surrealism of Neil Young's "On The Beach" Album
  
• Tattoo of the Moment: "On The Beach Face" Neil Young's Album Cover
• On The Beach: 45 Years Later, Still Neil Young’s "Most Beautiful (and Most Depressing) Album")

Tracks On The Beach by Neil Young
(Click photo to enlarge)

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ATTENTION TW EMail Subscribers: This Note's For You ... again & again

Hello,

Apologies, but here's yet another update on TW EMail Subscriptions.

Earlier this year, we issued an alert to all of our email notification subscribers.

We have now re-started a new email service and begun to send out a daily mail digest to previous subscribers.  Please be on the lookout and check your SPAM folder.

GMAIL Users: How to Whitelist Gmail: 

First, if you find email from mail@robert-spencer.com in your Gmail spam folder, select our email and click the "Not Spam" button. 

Next, open an email that you have received from us. Click on the little down-pointing-triangle-arrow next to "Reply": Click "Add mail@robert-spencer.com to Contacts list". (If you don't see this option, it means you already have us in your Address/Contacts list.)

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This Note's For You
Neil Young & The Bluenotes

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"One of the rarest records in the world": NEIL YOUNG UNRELEASED TRANS TEST PRESSING w/ UNRELEASED EXTRA TRACK | ebay

"One of the rarest records in the world": NEIL YOUNG UNRELEASED TRANS TEST PRESSING w/ UNRELEASED EXTRA TRACK via ebay
(Click photo to enlarge)

 

From  ebay listing for NEIL YOUNG UNRELEASED TRANS TEST PRESSING w/ UNRELEASED EXTRA TRACK: (thanks johnny q!)

Neil Young's personal European test pressing of his 1982 album Trans, with the unreleased track “If You Got Love."  This is certainly one of the rarest records in the world.

This track was pulled from the album at the last minute, and has never been released. As Wikipedia notes, After a year of work, the album was mixed in a hurry because Young was eager to go out on tour, and a last-minute change in the running order is evident in the inclusion of a song called "If You Got Love" in the track listing and lyric sheet, even though it is not on the album.

The provenance is best explained by the included letter of authenticity from longtime Neil associate Joel Bernstein:

This letter is to authenticate one 12" vinyl LP test pressing made by German CBS of Neil Young’s 1982 album Trans, with the unreleased track “If You Got Love”. This was one of a few test pressings given to Neil by a European record company executive, while on the Trans tour in Europe in the fall of 1982.  I was the guitar tech on that tour and Neil gave this copy to me personally.

I photographed Neil Young for the first time at his first East Coast show with Crazy Horse, at the Bitter End in New York City, in February 1969. I went on to work with Neil extensively, as both his and CSNY’s tour photographer, and shooting him for eighteen of his album covers (including After The Gold Rush, Harvest, Time Fades Away, Tonight’s The Night, Decade, Rust Never Sleeps and Greatest Hits) plus numerous other official projects including publicity, advertising, songbooks, posters, et al. On various tours from 1973-1993, I also worked with Neil as his guitar technician; and served as his archivist for 20 years, researching and presenting him with every source for audio, artwork and text used in his massive box set Archives Vol. 1  1963-1972.

During the course of working for Neil, he gave me various acetates, test pressings, set lists and other memorabilia. Neil knew I was a collector and he wasn’t, so once he was done with things like this, instead of throwing it away, he often gave it to me. Sincerely, Joel Bernstein

As far as we can determine, the only surviving examples of Trans with “If You Got Love" are the test pressings given to Neil Young. In virtually mint condition and probably played no more than once or twice.

With Joel Bernstein’s letter of authenticity, and Recordmecca’s lifetime guarantee of authenticity.

Joel Bernstein’s letter of authenticity

 

For more on Neil Young's 1982 album TRANS, see TRANS: A Little Bit of Essential Neil Young.

Neil Young - TRANS (1982)

Cropped Album Cover

(See TRANS: A Little Bit of Essential Neil Young)

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The Essentials: On the Beach by Neil Young | The Old Grey Cat

Tracks On The Beach by Neil Young
(Click photo to enlarge)

 

Here is a look back at some of the earliest reviews of the essential Neil Young album "On the Beach".

From The Essentials: On the Beach by Neil Young | The Old Grey Cat:

Rolling Stone magazine lauded it upon its release (and has since ranked it the 311th greatest album of all time). Jack Garner of the Rochester Democrat & Chronicle, in his 8/16/74 review, called it “a strong, complete and exciting record.” Across the pond, in the Bracknell and Ascot Times, Geoff Thompson agreed, though he thought it had a listening curve: “On the Beach is an album that takes quite a bit of getting into, but once you are in, there’s no escaping.” A few decades later, in a capsule review that I posted to the original Old Grey Cat website in the late 1990s, I called it “a grim realization (or is that acceptance) of life, circa 1974.”

It reflects the moment when the fantasies of youth give way to self-doubt (if not self-recrimination). On the Neil Young Archives, Neil himself wrote, “Looking back on this album, somehow it makes me feel sad remembering that part of my life.” (It may be why he allowed the LP to go out of print in the early ‘80s and waited until 2003 for it to be issued on CD.)

***

The original (red) Rolling Stone Record Guide (1979), I should mention, gave On the Beach two stars but no mention in John Swenson’s half page take on Neil’s oeuvre. For the 1983 (blue) edition, rock curmudgeon Dave Marsh elbowed Swenson to the side and rewrote (and expanded) the discography. The two stars remained, but a sentence description was added: “[T]his album’s apocalyptic prophecy is rendered all but unlistenable by Young’s grating, whining delivery.” (He gives Tonight’s the Night five stars and a paragraph of praise, however, so all’s forgiven.)

In a similar vein, L.A. Times rock scribe Robert Hilburn wrote in his August 27, 1974, review “[T]he tone of the new album is drab, sullen, isolated.” Newsday’s Robert Christgau, too, found little to like: “Something in the obsessiveness of this music is easy to dislike and something in its thinness hard to enjoy.” (He spent the bulk of the review praising Time Fades Away so, as with Marsh, forgive him his misjudgment.)

(I share those sentiments simply because I enjoy digging into what I like to call “the first draft of history.” It takes time for critical consensus to congeal, after all.)

Thanks OGC! Definitely essential Neil, for sure.  Also, we enjoy your digs into “the first draft of history.” Agree, yes, it sometimes takes decades -- if not more -- for critical consensus to congeal. And somewhat ironically, you know what Neil had to say about critics and pissin' in the wind ...

More  on The Essentials: On the Beach by Neil Young | The Old Grey Cat.

 

More on the essential Neil Young album "On the Beach": 

• "Time Fades Away", "Tonight’s the Night" & "On the Beach": The Beautiful, Enduring Gloom of Neil Young's Ditch Trilogy
  
• The Surrealism of Neil Young's "On The Beach" Album
  
• Tattoo of the Moment: "On The Beach Face" Neil Young's Album Cover
• On The Beach: 45 Years Later, Still Neil Young’s "Most Beautiful (and Most Depressing) Album")
  

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Neil Young says "Boo!" - Happy Halloween 2022!

Boo!

Which reminds us of the monster concert Neil Young did in Hamilton, Ontario, Oct 31, 1996 with a 24 song set that went for nearly 3 hours. Here's a report from HyperRust: Neil Days In Canada by Mark Klus a.k.a. "Powderfinger".

Happy Halloween!

A very cool pumpkin carving for Halloween. Here's one from Neil fans Kurt & Lisa. Thanks!

Bridge School Benefit Concerts

The Great Bridge Pumpkin 

29th Annual Bridge School Benefit Concerts

Photo by thrasher

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"All the young dudes carry the news": David Bowie and Neil Young

David Bowie: Berlin, 2002

 
From our TW post back in 2011, here's an absolute mesmerizingly amazing cover by David Bowie of Neil Young's song "I've Been Waiting For You", live in concert in Berlin, 2002 on YouTube.




On the 2002 album Heathen Bowie covers Young's song "I've Been Waiting For You". Incidentally, the riotous guitar treatment is by Dave Grohl of Foo Fighters and former Nirvana drummer.

David Bowie -- the Man Who Fell To Earth -- wrote "Kooks" after listening to Neil Young's "After The Goldrush".  Bowie performed Kooks at a BBC session on 3 June 1971 - three days after his son Zowie's birth.

"I'd been listening to a Neil Young album and they phoned through and said that my wife had a baby on Sunday morning, and I wrote this one about the baby," he told the studio audience [BBC.com].

In an article on David Bowie in The Kansas City Star By TIMOTHY FINN (May. 09, 2004) on artistic relevance, musical innovation and why he is still a rebel:

Bowie: "When things go bad, I've always looked to my peers and, in a way, my musical mentors to see what they've done in similar situations. Neil Young and Bob Dylan have done similar things: They have both made a few disastrous albums, but they always end up coming back to the point of what they started in the first place. You've got to go back to what you were doing when you were rooting around with experimentation, ideas that are going to work for me, not my audience."

From Powell's Books , David Bowie on Neil Young:

Bowie: "There's youthful redemption in everything he [Neil Young] does, a joyfulness about being an independent thinker in America.'

More on other musicians covering Neil Young songs. 

David Bowie ‘Heroes’: Bridge School Benefit Concert 1996

Here's a video of David Bowie's acoustic ‘Heroes’ at Bridge School Benefit Concert in 1996 (concert review).



David Bowie ‘Heroes’: Bridge School Benefit Concert 1996

Pegi Young posted in 2016 on her Facebook account (thanks Far Out Magazine!):

“My first impression of David Bowie as he walked through the front door of our home for the annual BBQ fiesta that traditionally kicks off the Bridge School Benefit Concert weekend was how slight he was. His music and his persona were so large that I was struck by the contrast.

As I approached him and his band to welcome them to our home and to thank them for coming to play for our kids, the next thing that stays in my memory is what an absolute gentleman he was. He was an enormously talented yet humble man who was content to just hang out with the kids and other guests who were attending that night’s party.

I feel very fortunate to have had the opportunity to meet him, to welcome him into my home and to have him grace the stage over that weekend in 1996 to offer his unique and innovative talent for our organization.

He was an original in every senses of the word. On behalf of all of us who have been associated with Bridge School, I offer our sincere and heartfelt sympathies and wishes for peace to his many close and dear loved ones.

Love and light.

Pegi”

More on David Bowie and Neil Young @ David Bowie [1947 - 2016] Covers Neil Young's "I've Been Waiting For You", Berlin, 2002.

The Great Bridge Pumpkin
29th Annual Bridge School Benefit Concerts
Photo by thrasher

More on The History of 30 Years of Bridge School Benefit Concerts.

The Bridge School

A post script ...

"The Man who Fell to Earth" (1976) D: Nicolas Roeg

The Bridge School Concerts
25th Anniversary Edition
**100% of Proceeds to Benefit Bridge School***

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