Hitchhiker

Hitchhiker is a perfectly wonderful solo-acoustic session recorded one day in 1976. .... This is a most welcome collection. [No. 148, p.61]

Originally rejected by Reprise Records executives as being nothing more than a bunch of demos, the entire set is spun with some strange, surreal and beautiful magic.

A buried-treasure mother lode. ... He's in peak lonesome-guy mode on the never-released failed-relationship chronicle "Give Me Strength." Another previously unheard song, "Hawaii," is a spooky mysterious-stranger ballad.

The intimacies of David Briggs' production and the pure strength of the songs suggest an album that, with a few overdubs and a bit more polish could have worked as that desperately anticipated follow-up to Harvest. ... Pride of place, though, goes to the two unreleased tracks {Give Me Strength and Hawaii]. [Oct 2017, p.

Beautiful, strange, and stoned, Hitchhiker lets us in on one of those nights.

A fascinating look at a day in the life of an artist at his absolute pinnacle.

For fans of Neil Young in the ’70s--his pretty undeniable peak--this one is fantastic. Beyond that, it could easily serve as an introduction to a generation that hasn’t heard his music.

Bootleggers will tell you that there are better versions of almost anything Neil Young puts out, and maybe they’re right, but that doesn’t matter much when this record’s playing. Because nude, even if you see some flaws, you’re not going to care because they’re dressed just right for love. You might love them even more for imperfections like the disarmingly stoned giggle at the start of “Hawaii.”

Some songs from Hitchhiker found purchase on Young’s 1979 electric record “Rust Never Sleeps,” but gathered as they were originally intended, Hitchhiker is a profound addition to Young’s canon of campfire classics.

His tremulous voice and weed-fuelled guitar still resonating 41 years on.

You certainly won’t find a clunker among Hitchhiker’s more familiar cuts, though few of them surpass the official versions. ... Young’s talent is vast and his art contains plenty of contradictions. Hitchhiker stands as proof that no matter how strange his creations might sometimes seem, he always draws them from the same well.

Here, deprived of Crazy Horse and Young’s tectonic lead guitar, “Powderfinger” assumes its natural form as an antique folk ballad, while the haunting “Pocahontas”, minus overdubs, is likewise more nakedly vulnerable.

It’s this ability to take the familiar and present it in dramatically different forms, with the potential for rediscovery that this allows, which makes Hitchhiker--faults and all--a must-hear for Neil Young fans.

Although Young's had plenty of highs and lows throughout his sprawling discography, there's no question that each of his 38 studio LPs were results of a particular vision, and Hitchhiker benefits greatly from this fleeting vision captured over a single evening in 1976.

Although Young is correct when he claims Hitchhiker is a "complete piece"--it sustains a dusky sweetness from beginning to an end--it is certainly not a polished album. Often, it feels as if Young is singing with no intention of his music being heard by a wider audience, but the presence of Briggs at the board means this doesn't sound like a ragged demo. Instead, Hitchhiker holds together as a mood piece.

While eight have appeared in different versions spooned out on releases ranging from 1976’s American Stars And Bars, Rust Never Sleeps from 1979 (three tracks), Decade (the Nixon diatribe “Campaigner”) and one even as late as 2010’s Le Noise, there is an intimacy and rawness to these performances that is riveting and subtly powerful.

Most of these songs (with the exception of the spooked, slow burner Hawaii--featuring a fantastically creepy snigger on the intro--and the yearning, melodically twisting beauty of Give Me Strength) would find their way onto various Young albums of various vintages over the years, but there’s an accumulative effect in hearing performances of songs as powerful as Pocahontas, Powderfinger and Campaigner unadorned and fresh in their authors mind.

Over 10 simple songs, Young seems to be scratching for America's soul, as well, lamenting butchered buffalo while simultaneously finding an icon in Marlon Brando. As Young's convictions towards peace and environmental efforts remain unswayed 40-plus years later, Hitchhiker feels less like an artifact and more like a missing piece of an ongoing conversation.