(via Ultimate Classic Rock) by Dave Lifton
Note: Neil Young’s Harvest album was released 50 years ago today.
Between his work in Buffalo Springfield, Crosby, Stills Nash & Young and his first few solo records, Neil Young had often flirted with mixing country and rock. But with Harvest, released on Feb. 1, 1972, he more or less dove headfirst into it and came out with one of country-rock’s most commercially and critically successful albums.
Work began a year earlier when Young went to Nashville to appear on The Johnny Cash Show, on an episode that also included James Taylor and Linda Ronstadt. Elliot Mazer, who had produced Ronstadt’s Silk Purse album a year earlier, arranged a party at his Quadrofonic Sound Studio for the three artists, and struck up a conversation with Young…