Reviews of Neil Young AlbumsIn 2004 Rustie, Mike "Expecting 2 Fly" Cordova posted a series of articles on his experience listening to all of Neil Young's albums in chronological order. Here is one in the series. For a complete listing, see Albums in Order reviews.
Date: Sun, 28 Nov 2004 14:51:36 -0800 (PST)
From: Mike Cordova
To: rust@rustlist.org
Subject: Albums in order: Harvest Moon
Harvest Moon is an interesting one. Along with lots of other Neil Young fans, I was introduced to this album in phases. For me, the first time I heard one of the songs on this record (well, really a small snippet) was back in the mid 70's when I found that a friend had a vinyl bootleg of I think the Dorothy Chandler Pavilian show from '71 [I copied it onto cassette for myself] in which Neil sings, before I Am A Child, "I was thinking 'bout you and me, making love beneath a tree, and I wonder could it be." So, I was pretty surprised to hear this on this 1992 record for sure, now as a full song.
In early 1992, I taped Farm Aid 5 on the television in which Neil and a re-formed Stray Gators (with Nils Lofgren and Nicolette Larson) performed three new songs and a couple of old ones. The new ones were Harvest Moon, Unknown Legend, and Old King. Most of Unknown Legend was cut by commercials but I must say I was not totally enthralled by the other two...
On 6-27-92 (I went with my friend then and current friend and also rust-crew offical Deb the Re-Writer Of Rules plus some other folks) to see Neil's solo show near Pittsburgh, PA. I had a chance to hear lots of good songs performed solo including some HM tunes.
Finally, the album came out in the fall of '92. Pretty good record, not bad. The style of most of the album and the inclusion of many singers and musicians and the similar title had many dubbing it (maybe even Neil himself) as a sort of sequel to Harvest. It had it's own thing to say and it's own way of saying it though. Standout tracks for me are Unknown Legend, One Of These Days, Dreamin' Man, and Natural Beauty. Regarding NB, I used to have a cat that absolutely flipped out when she heard the animal sound-effects at the end. One Of These Days is kind of sad, very autobiographical. I feel when I'm listening to the song that Neil should stop singing and start writing! The mention of that old country fiddler mentioned in the tune must be Rufus. Other nice things about the album are vocals by Linda Ronstadt and Nicolette Larson who are together here with Neil I think for the first time since ASnB.
I don't play this one a whole lot, but it is a good record. I very much enjoyed listening to Harvest Moon today.
Mike - Expecting To Fly
For more of Expecting To Fly's reviews, see the Albums in Order series.
Neil Young - Thrasher's Wheat Archives