Even for followers who know simply how carefully Neil Younger has documented his actions throughout his complete profession, the sheer wealth and element of the footage that makes up the two-hour documentary accompanying the Fiftieth-anniversary version of Harvest is astonishing.
Shot between January and September 1971, the movie captures each facet of the recording of the album in close-up: following Younger and his ragtag household of cohorts from the well-known periods performed within the barn at his bucolic Damaged Arrow ranch in Northern California, throughout the ocean to a gray London for his collaboration with the London Symphony Orchestra, musicians separated by a typical language as they try and seize “A Man Wants A Maid”. Lastly, it lurches again to Nashville, for additional monitoring and overdubbing periods amid a solid of Music Metropolis eccentrics.
Steering away from voiceover narration, the movie is an immersive, fly-on-the wall expertise – notably within the barn session sequences. The footage sits the viewers proper on the plaid-shirted shoulders of the Stray Gators band Younger and co-producer Elliot Mazer assembled for the report as they work up tracks like “Alabama”, “Phrases” and “Are You Prepared For The Nation” – caught right here in rawer, extra quick takes than these featured on the ultimate album.
Memorable moments come thick and quick: Younger defining himself as “a wealthy hippy”… Stray Gators bassist Tim Drummond demonstrating the right use of an aquarium pump throughout downtime in Nashville… Younger, Stephen Stills and Graham Nash discussing whether or not their studio is haunted whereas trying to nail harmonies on “Phrases”… glimpses of Younger and his then associate Carrie Snodgress huddling collectively on the sidelines any likelihood they get, the Seventies daylight flaring round them.
Watching the movie is a poignant expertise for Younger. “Seeing all these guys,” he says at the moment, referring to the Stray Gators, “none of them are alive. So, y’know, that’s a visit. I’m them and I’m the one one left. There’s an excellent jam in there, someplace in the course of the Harvest barn. It’s very cool listening to that. Very funky and spontaneous. I like issues like that. I like the thought of getting this movie out and having individuals see the actual story – and the truth that I made the movie, as an alternative of another person doing it.”
You may learn extra about Neil Younger and the Harvest documentary within the subsequent problem of Uncut
The Harvest Time movie options as a part of the Harvest Fiftieth-anniversary boxset, alongside the unique album, three studio outtakes on CD/7” vinyl, a e-book of liner notes, and one other DVD of Younger’s dwell 1971 solo efficiency for BBC TV
