James Taylor on why Neil Young is “the ethical one”
Many renowned musicians have worked with Neil Young. One of the most celebrated, who helped bring two of his most lauded compositions to life, is singer-songwriter and guitarist James Taylor.
Notably, Taylor and Linda Ronstadt feature on the duo of Young classics, ‘Heart of Gold’ and ‘Old Man’ from the Canadian’s 1972 masterpiece, Harvest. The duo were recruited in Nashville, Tennessee, as they and Young were in town to record an episode of Johnny Cash’s television programme. Famously, this experience would lead Young to hire many personnel who worked on the record, including producer Elliot Mazer.
It was Mazer, the famed studio master who had previously worked with the likes of Bob Dylan, Gordon Lightfoot and even Chubby Checker, who arranged for Taylor and Ronstadt to appear on Harvest. While the album is brimming with highlights, there is no doubt that apart from ‘The Needle and the Damage Done’, the two songs that Taylor and Ronstadt appear on are the two most important cultural offerings it contains.
Notably, Taylor played the banjo on ‘Old Man’, adding a tangible element of melancholy to the music while also invoking the titular caretaker Young spoke to when buying Broken Arrow Ranch. In the years since the song was released, Taylor would also reveal that the banjo was six-stringed and tuned like a guitar, conceding it was “kind of cheating”.
Discussing the nature of the track, Taylor recalled on The Howard Stern Show in 2018: “You know, ‘hit’, that’s very difficult to tell. Whether or not the record company will get behind it and release it as a single or… but I knew it was a great song, that both of these songs were beautiful.”
Given their respective statuses as fine singer-songwriters and that both men have worked together in the past, Taylor and Young share a deep understanding of each other. Outside the musical sphere, Taylor also greatly respects Neil Young for his unwavering dedication to never giving in to the machinations of big business and the fact that he’s in the job solely for the art. He even once called him “the ethical one”.
For any doubters, check out the lyrics for Young’s defiant anthem ‘This Note’s for You’: “Ain’t singin’ for Pepsi / Ain’t singin’ for Coke / I don’t sing for nobody / Makes me look like a joke / This note’s for you”.
Speaking on a BBC documentary, Taylor explained: “Neil will not have it. He simply won’t have it. He won’t take a sponsor and do that. You look at Elvis Presley. You got two good years, and then occasionally some great stuff, a lot of it great because it’s camp, but, really, they just did their best to shellac him, you know, bury him under two inches of acrylic or something. Neil is known as the ethical one, you know, the one who won’t let business kill him.”
Watch James Taylor speak about Neil Young below.
