Harvest

Neil Young's fourth studio album was not supposed to sound the way it does. Recorded across multiple sessions in 1971, Harvest was shaped by a spinal injury Young suffered while renovating his California ranch. Unable to play electric guitar comfortably, he turned to acoustic instruments and quieter arrangements, creating what would become the best-selling album of 1972 in the United States.

The album was assembled piecemeal across four recording locations: Quadrafonic Sound Studios in Nashville, Barking Town Hall in London (with the London Symphony Orchestra), Young's own Broken Arrow Studio in California, and Royce Hall at UCLA. The core band, which came to be known as the Stray Gators, included drummer Kenny Buttrey, bassist Tim Drummond, pedal steel guitarist Ben Keith, and pianist Jack Nitzsche. Guests included James Taylor, Linda Ronstadt, Stephen Stills, David Crosby, and Graham Nash.

Thematically, the record spans new romance (Young had recently begun a relationship with actress Carrie Snodgress), grief over a bandmate's heroin addiction, affection for the people in his daily life, and throughout it all, the quiet introspection of a man temporarily knocked sideways by injury and forced to sit still with himself. The warmth and fragility of the record are inseparable from those circumstances.

Harvest topped the Billboard 200 for two weeks and produced Young's first and only number one single in "Heart of Gold." Its commercial success profoundly unsettled Young, who subsequently pivoted toward the deliberately difficult trilogy of Time Fades Away (1973), On the Beach (1974), and Tonight's the Night (1975). Critical reception at the time of release was mixed; the album has since been recognized as one of the finest records of its era.