Neil Young
Hitchhiker

'Hitchhiker', Neil Young's thirty-ninth studio album, released last September 8th via Reprise Records, has been met with mixed reviews from both the public and critics.

Some reviews have labeled it as 'recycling', a term often used in such situations to highlight what are considered purely commercial ventures. In other cases, it's seen as a mostly useless release. Lastly, it has been deemed as an album exclusively for the most ardent fans of one of the greatest giants in the history of rock music.

To be honest, considering this last observation as inclusive but not the only possible truth, one could argue that this release—if indeed aimed solely at this segment of the audience—would still be sensible, given his great and universally recognized popularity. But knowing Neil Young, who is not only a great musician and songwriter, but an artist who has historically paid particular attention to recording processes and sound quality (how can we not consider all his ideas and reflections behind the 'Pono' project, to which he dedicated ample space even in his autobiography 'Hippie Dream'), talking about recycling or an offhand publication makes no sense.

'Hitchhiker' is a collection of songs that Neil Young recorded nearly forty years ago at Indigo Ranch Studio in Malibu, California on the night of August 11, 1976. Neil Young himself recounted this recording session in the company of his historic producer David Briggs and his friend and actor Dean Stockwell, where he recorded all the songs in a row 'taking breaks only for a little marijuana, beer, and cocaine'.

It's inevitable to think in this case of another one of the more 'typical' episodes (as if there were any ordinary ones...) of the immense discography of this artist, namely the mythical 'Homegrown', another album of acoustic sessions recorded between November 1974 and January 1975 across the United States and never released until now.

As for the 'Homegrown' songs, practically all the 'Hitchhiker' recordings, except 'Hawaii' and 'Give Me Strength', have subsequently been revisited by Neil Young over the years in various forms. 'Pocahontas', 'Ride My Llama', and 'Powderfinger' were released revised, with the third receiving a new live recording with Crazy Horse on the 1979 album 'Rust Never Sleeps'; 'Captain Kennedy' was included in the album 'Hawks & Doves'; 'The Old Country Waltz' ('American Stars 'n Bars'), 'Campaigner' ('Decade'), 'Human Highway' ('Comes A Time'), and the title track 'Hitchhiker' ('Le Noise') were all re-recorded and presented to the public in forms different from the originals contained in this session from the 1970s up to 2010 with the album 'Le Noise' produced by Daniel Lanois.

John Hanlon, who is the same producer of Neil Young's recent releases, oversaw the post-production of these recordings that are now finally available and presented to the public with this LP.

The arrangements are minimal and acoustic in that most authentic and honest songwriter form, which constitutes one of the forms in which Neil inevitably manages to express himself more intimately and more easily connect directly with his audience and listeners.

As far as I'm concerned, we are clearly faced with an album that is not unforgettable, but in addition to being a piece of 1970s rock music history (how else to define an episode like this), it is a collection of beautiful songs that were evidently worth releasing, and a new achievement by Young following the publication of the lovely 'manifesto' that was the 'Peace Trail' album, released last December 2016 after the half-misstep of 'Earth'.