Neil Young To Open The Vault For Long-Awaited Release Of ‘Hitchhiker’ Album

Rock & Roll Hall Of Famer Neil Young will open his archive to release Hitchhiker, a previously unreleased studio album, on August 4. Young originally recorded the 10-track, all acoutic album live at Indigo Studios in Malibu on August 11, 1976 and it contains some of Neil’s most beloved songs as well as two previously unreleased tracks.

Neil Young tapped longtime studio collaborator David Briggs to produce the original sessions and employed John Hanlon, who has produced his most recent works, to handle post-production duties. Hitchhiker shows off the simplicity of just a single voice and a guitar. Most of the tracks found on the LP would not appear on vinyl until years later. In fact the title track was not officially released until appearing on 2010’s Le Noise and as you can imagine sounds very different from the original.

The two previously unreleased tracks on Hitchhiker, which have remained in the vault since 1976, are “Hawaii” and “Give Me Strength.” A press release describes “Hawaii” as “a soaring ballad and unlike anything else Young had recorded at the time,” while “Give Me Strength” was performed occasionally by Young in the mid-’70s but is now available on a record for the first time.

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