What’s more exciting than Neil Young recording a brand new album? Depends who you ask, but we’re sure most fans would agree they’d be even more excited about hearing one he recorded way back at the peak of his powers in 1976.
That’s exactly what we’re getting with Hitchhiker, an unreleased studio LP that’s was announced earlier this year, but is finally set to hit on vinyl, CD and digital on September 8, through the appropriately-named Reprise Records.
First recorded at Indigo Studio in Malibu between the releases of albums Zuma and American Stars and Bars, the tracks were then produced by long-time pal David Briggs, and feature Young and his acoustic guitar and nothing more.
While some of the tracks from the sessions have since shown up on other records, many of the sessions here were the first time the tracks were ever taken into the studio, and some of them haven’t been heard in any form.
“I spent the night there and recorded nine solo acoustic songs, completing a tape I called Hitchhiker,” Young explained back in 2014. “It was a complete piece, although I was pretty stony on it, and you can hear it in my performances.
“Dean Stockwell, my friend and a great actor who I later worked on Human Highway as a co-director, was with us that night, sitting in the room with me as I laid down all the songs in a row, pausing only for weed, beer, or coke.”
You’ll be able to hear the “stony” Young on the long lost tape in a month’s time, and the tracklist is below.
Hitchhiker Track List
1. ‘Pocahontas’
2. ‘Powderfinger’
3. ‘Captain Kennedy’
4. ‘Hawaii’
5. ‘Give Me Strength’
6. ‘Ride My Llama’
7. ‘Hitchhiker’
8. ‘Campaigner’
9. ‘Human Highway’
10. ‘The Old Country Waltz’
