Ben Keith – pedal steel guitar on "The Old Country Waltz", "Saddle Up the Palomino", "Hey Babe", "Hold Back the Tears" and "Bite the Bullet" Dobro, backing vocal on "Star of Bethlehem".Frank "Poncho" Sampedro – guitars all tracks except "Star of Bethlehem" and "Will to Love" synthesizer on "Like a Hurricane" backing vocals on "Like a Hurricane" and "Homegrown".Neil Young – vocals, guitars harmonica on "Star of Bethlehem" glockenspiel, keyboard, piano, vibes, drums on "Will to Love".Performed by Neil Young, Crazy Horse and the Bullets recorded in April 1977.
It was finally released on compact disc, as an HDCD, on August 19, 2003, as part of the Neil Young Digital Masterpiece Series along with On the Beach, Hawks & Doves, and Re-ac-tor.Īll songs written by Neil Young except as indicated. The album's centerpiece however, is "Like a Hurricane," one of Young's classic hard rock songs and guitar workouts, and a perpetual concert favorite.
But even without such documentation, it would have been easy to tell that the album was a stylistic hodgepodge, its first side consisting of country-tinged material featuring steel guitar and fiddle, plus backup vocals from Linda Ronstadt and then-unknown Nicolette Larson, while the four songs on the second side varied from acoustic solo numbers like "Will to Love" to raging rockers such as "Like a Hurricane." "Will to Love" is a particularly spooky and ambitious piece, extending the romantic metaphor of a salmon swimming upstream across seven minutes. They revealed that the songs had been cut at four different sessions dating back to 1974. Neil Young made a point of listing the recording dates of the songs on American Stars 'n Bars the dates even appeared on the LP labels. Īccording to William Ruhlmann, in a review for Allmusic, The album can almost be taken as a sampler, but not a summation, of Young's various styles from After the Gold Rush and Harvest (much of the country rock) through On the Beach (the incredible "Will to Love") to Zuma ("Like a Hurricane" is a worthy successor to "Cortez the Killer" as a guitar showcase) with a lot of overlap within the songs. Initially receiving favorable reviews, the album was described as a "sampler.of Young's various styles", even a "hodgepodge." Paul Nelson, reviewing the album for Rolling Stone commented about the mixed selection of songs and styles, and praised the "gale-force guitar playing" of "Like a Hurricane":
Reception Professional ratings Review scores It features Connie Moskos, then the girlfriend of producer David Briggs, drooping with a bottle of Canadian whisky in her hand and an intoxicated Young with his face pressed against the glass floor. The album cover was designed by actor and Young's close friend Dean Stockwell, who had also written the screenplay that inspired After the Gold Rush. Songs from the April 1977 sessions are all in a country-styled vein. Seven of the nine tracks feature his regular backing band Crazy Horse, and another, "Star of Bethlehem", features country music star Emmylou Harris.
Both of those songs, along with " Like a Hurricane", "Hold Back the Tears" and "Will to Love", had also been slated for yet another unreleased Young album project, Chrome Dreams. "Homegrown" and "Star of Bethlehem" had initially been slated for his unreleased LP Homegrown. The April 1977 sessions featured Crazy Horse augmented by an ad hoc grouping dubbed "The Bullets": pedal steel guitarist and longtime Young collaborator Ben Keith, violinist Carole Mayedo and backing vocalists Linda Ronstadt and Nicolette Larson. After recording several country rock compositions at sessions in April 1977, he assembled additional tracks from a variety of earlier recording dates to make up the balance of the new album. His previous album, Zuma, had been issued in November 1975. He then embarked on his second tour of the year with Crazy Horse, but spent the first half of 1977 off the road. In the summer of 1976, Young rekindled his partnership with Stephen Stills, resulting in a tour that ended abruptly and the album Long May You Run.