Neil Young Discusses Recording 1976 Album ‘Hitchhiker’

One week from today Neil Young will finally release Hitchhiker, an album he recorded in 1976. Yesterday, the legendary rocker spent a few minutes discussing the circumstances surrounding the recording of the long-shelved LP.

During an appearance at KOTO Community Radio in Telluride, Colorado that was streamed live on Facebook, Young read a statement detailing the events in 1976 that led to the production of Hitchhiker. The album was made available to stream by NPR Music yesterday in advance of its official release on Friday, September 8. Young’s statement at KOTO began:

Hello, this is Neil Young.

Around the time of full moon on August 11, 1976, my producer David Briggs and I recorded an album in one night at Indigo Studio in the hills above Malibu, California. My friend Dean Stockwell was in the studio with me as I sang these songs. No one had ever heard them before. The album was called Hitchhiker. I had no accompaniment by my guitar, harmonica and the studio piano as I sang the songs in the order you still hear them today on the album Hitchhiker. The idea I had at the time was to present these new songs in their purest and most simplest form just as they had been written.

Later he described “smoking a little weed” with Dean and “feeling fine” before starting to record his at-the-time recently written “Pocahontas.” Watch Neil’s complete Hitchhiker rundown in the video below:

https://www.facebook.com/NeilYoung/videos/10159212915430317/

Hitchhiker Tracklist

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