Homegrown (Neil Young album)

1974 proved to be both a turbulent and creative year for Neil Young. With the unreleased 1973 album Tonight's the Night in the can, he recorded On the Beach in the Spring for a July 1974 release and then convened Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young at his ranch for a few recording sessions before launching an extensive summer stadium tour with the group. On "CSNY", author Peter Doggett says that the group recorded "Through My Sails" and a version of "Love/Art Blues" at Young's studio on Broken Arrow Ranch on June 17 . According to the same author, another session had taken place the day before, mostly for solo performances by Young, on which he recorded "Pardon My Heart", "Homefires", a solo version of "Love/Art Blues", "Hawaiian Sunrise" (this one with CSNY) and "Love Is a Rose" (a reworking of his earlier "Dance, Dance, Dance" with bassist Tim Drummond). Most of the songs from these sessions remained in the vaults. The exceptions were "Pardon My Heart" (which received backing vocal overdubs from Ralph Molina and Billy Talbot in August 1975) and "Through My Sails", both released on that year's Zuma album. "Love Is A Rose" was the third song to be released, appearing on the compilation Decade in 1977. As of June 2020, these are still the only released tracks from those initial sessions.

Later on, while on tour with CSNY, Young paused to record another new song, "White Line," as a duet with the Band's Robbie Robertson[1] at Ramport Studios in London on September 12, 1974.[2] That year, he debuted seventeen new songs in concert.[3]

After the tour, Young held more recording sessions in Nashville, Los Angeles and again at Broken Arrow Ranch. A December 11 session at Quadraphonic Sound Studios in Nashville with Levon Helm yielded "The Old Homestead", "Separate Ways", "Try" and "Daughters". Two days later, "Star of Bethlehem", "Homegrown" and "Deep Forbidden Lake" were recorded at the same studio.[4] A troubled CSNY session at Record Plant Studios in Sausalito, CA, on December 16, 1974, reportedly yielded another solo song, "Give Me Strength". According to the info cards on Young's official website, "We Don't Smoke It No More" was recorded with his band at Broken Arrow on December 31, 1974. Four days later, "Vacancy" was recorded at the same studio with the same band. Final sessions took place at Village Recorder Studios in L.A. on January 21, 1975. This time the material consisted of short solo pieces featuring Young on guitar or piano. Among the songs recorded are "Little Wing", "Mexico", "Kansas" and the spoken word track "Florida".[4]

Around thirty songs are reported to have been recorded between June 1974 and January 1975, many of which can be seen in hand written lists shown on NYA, as several tracks lists were assembled before the album was canceled.[5] The material from these sessions is largely acoustic, most of it being solo performances of Young on guitar and harmonica. Young has said that "Homegrown is the missing link between Harvest, Comes a Time, Old Ways and Harvest Moon."[1] The songs are quite personal, and reveal much of his feelings on his failing relationship at the time with actress Carrie Snodgress. "It was a little too personal... it scared me" Young would later explain to Cameron Crowe in interview.[6]

It was so near to being released that a cover had been created. At the last moment however, Young chose to drop Homegrown and release instead Tonight's the Night, an unreleased album recorded in 1973.[7] Young stated that he had a playback party for Homegrown and Tonight's the Night happened to be on the same reel. He decided to release Tonight's the Night after that listening because of "its overall strength in performance and feeling" and because Homegrown "was just a very down album."[8]

In his authorized biography of Neil Young, Shakey, author Jimmy McDonough offers descriptions of several of the performances captured during the sessions, which led to fans' speculation as to which of those songs were slated for the album's final track selection.

After years of confusion and speculation, Young's Archival Site published the official listing on April 25, 2020. According to the site, these are the 12 songs that made the album (some are followed by McDonough's descriptions):

In 2010, Neil Young's on-line newspaper stated that Homegrown along with other period unreleased albums were being "rebuilt" for inclusion in the second volume of his Archives project. Unlike similar unreleased collections from this period of Young's career, such as Chrome Dreams and the session acetates for Tonight's the Night, Homegrown never circulated in whole as a bootleg.

In July 2019, Neil Young Archives' mastering team began working on the original master tapes. The official site for Neil Young Archives shows several pictures of the tape boxes and respective handwritten notes, revealing much of the work that was required to create new analog masters using the original as a source. Safety copies were also used to substitute for the bits where the original tapes were damaged.

On November 21, 2019, an article was posted to Neil Young's Archives website announcing Homegrown as the first vinyl release scheduled for 2020. The article also included a short video of engineer John Hanlon overseeing an all-analog transfer of one of the album's songs ("We Don't Smoke It No More").

The album was released on June 19, 2020.[9] "Try" was released as a single exclusively to the Neil Young's Archives website on May 13, 2020,[10] followed by "Vacancy" on June 10, 2020.[11]

The original release date of April 18, 2020 had to be delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.[9]

Professional ratings

Aggregate scores
Source	Rating
AnyDecentMusic?	8.3/10[12]
Metacritic	88/100[13]
Review scores
Source	Rating
AllMusic	[14]
American Songwriter	[15]
Beats Per Minute	78%[16]
Clash	9/10[17]
Consequence of Sound	B[18]
DIY	[19]
Exclaim!	8/10[20]
MusicOMH	[21]
NME	[22]
Rolling Stone	[23]
Pitchfork	8.8/10[24]

Homegrown was met with universal acclaim from music critics. At Metacritic, which assigns a weighted average rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream publications, this release received an average score of 88, based on 17 reviews.[13]

Writing for The A. V. Club, Alex McLevy praised the release, writing that it is "no less masterful for having sat unheard all these years. If anything, the passing time has helped intensify the lush intimacy of the recordings, making Young’s spare and rich instrumentation (and old-school minimalist production) stand out all the more in an era of auto-tuned digitalization."[25]

All tracks are written by Neil Young.

Produced by Neil Young & Elliot Mazer except tracks 3, 6, 7 and 11 produced by Neil Young & Ben Keith; track 4 and 9 produced by Neil Young & Tim Mulligan; tracks 8 and 10 produced by Neil Young, Ben Keith & Tim Mulligan.

• Neil Young: guitar (1, 2, 5, 7–12), harmonica (1, 4, 7–12), piano (2, 3), wine glass (6), piano strings (6), narration (6), vocals (1–5, 7–12)
• Ben Keith: pedal steel guitar (1, 2), lap slide guitar (5, 8, 10), dobro (12), wine glass (6), piano strings (6), narration (6), vocals (2, 8, 10, 12)
• Tim Drummond: bass (1, 2, 4, 5, 8, 10, 12), vocals (8, 10)
• Levon Helm: drums (1, 2)
• Karl T. Himmel: drums (5, 8, 10, 12)
• Robbie Robertson: guitar (9)
• Emmylou Harris: backing vocals (2, 12)
• Sandy Mazzeo: backing vocals (8)
• Stan Szelest: piano (8), Wurlitzer piano (10)

Cover art: Tom Wilkes.