Graham Nash’s bizarre first experience listening to the Neil Young album ‘Harvest’
Throughout his discography of work spanning six decades, Neil Young has sung of love and loss – standard themes for most singer-songwriters in the folk sphere, but what’s also interspersed throughout is hat-tips to nature and, oftentimes, the moon.
Despite having a religious upbringing, Young has spoken openly about his spiritual tendencies rather, commenting in an interview with Uncut, “I respect people who are dedicated to organised religion, and I respect their way of life, but it’s not mine.”
He goes on to explain, “To me, the forest is my church. If I need to think, I’ll go for a walk in the trees, or I’ll go for a walk on the prairie, or I’ll go for a walk on the beach. Wherever the environment is most extreme is where I will go. If there’s a moon, I’ll try to get out and walk under the moon.”
Prior to the release of 1972’s Harvest – his fourth album – Young had invited his Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young bandmate, Graham Nash, to his ranch, south of San Francisco. What followed was a bizarre, unexpected musical experience for Nash.
“Yeah, of course, I want to hear a new Neil Young record,” Nash responded when his Canadian comrade offered him an early listen. He expected Young to lead him to his studio and blast the track through standard studio speakers. Instead, Neil Young instructed him to get in his rowboat. The two rowed out to the middle of a beautiful lake at Young’s property, and as Nash recalls with a grin, his entire house became the left speaker with “his entire barn as the right speaker, and he played me Harvest full blast in the redwoods, and it was an amazing experience.”
As the final note on the record rang out, the late Elliot Mazer – Neil’s producer at the time, credited with producing the iconic album – approached the edge of the lake and shouted, “How was that Neil?” To which Young responded, “More barn!”
Unorthodox as this playback may have been, it’s somewhat unsurprising that Neil treated a boat surrounded by nature as just as good as any front-row seat for Nash to enjoy his first listen of Harvest. Of course, Nash himself featured on the album alongside fellow special guests David Crosby, Linda Ronstadt, Stephen Stills, James Taylor, and the London Symphony Orchestra.
It was three years prior that Young was added to the Crosby, Stills & Nash line-up, and despite his coming and going from the band throughout the years, the singer-songwriter helped CSNY earn two Grammy nominations, including an album of the year nod for 1970’s Déjà Vu. Nash later reflected: “It’s been amazing to watch Neil become this great artist. When we were first together as CSNY we all realised how talented he was. I personally feel that Crosby, Stills & Nash and Crosby, Nash, Stills & Young are two completely different bands because of his talent and the difference that it makes.”
The October of 2024 saw the release of Live at Fillmore East, 1969, which marked the band’s first archival release since David Crosby passed away in January 2023.
