[rating=9.00]
Upon its release from the vault, Neil Young’s Hitchhiker resonates with the purity of the solo acoustic setting in 1976 which it was recorded. And the album is both provocative and penetrating because the ten songs are of a piece, despite the fact many of the tunes have been released over the forty-year-plus interval since the single-sitting of a session this iconic musician described in his memoir Special Deluxe.
“Pocahontas” and “Powderfinger,” for instance, both appeared on Rust Never Sleeps. “Campaigner” showed up on the anthology Decade, while “Captain Kennedy” closed Hawks and Doves in 1980. And “The Old Country Waltz, ” here in a solo piano cum harmonica rendition, is a marked contrast to its somewhat more lighthearted predecessor that was part of the patchwork American Stars and Bars: an ostensibly throwaway in the other context becomes such a deeply-felt paean to the power of art.
“Human Highway,” keynoted Comes A Time, after it was once intended to be the title song of the third CSNY album: here it functions with ear and eye-opening finality. Which in turn begs the question of whether the “Hawaii” (the site of that four-way meeting of the minds) is an allegory for Young’s stunted creative interaction with Crosby, Stills & Nash. “Give Me Strength,” likewise previously unreleased til now, is much more openly emotional, truly confessional in its expression of vulnerability, And the title song’s imaginary litany of people and places is as sinister as it is compelling, just like this album’s sun-drenched but nonetheless shadowy cover image.
Over the course of a career dating back to his time in (and out) of Buffalo Springfield, Neil Young has vacillated from instinct to impulse without totally forsaking reasonable purpose. Accordingly, while this Canadian musician might seem to pose as many questions as he answers with Hitchhiker, the songs themselves fully and completely captivate and his performances amplify the effect, the stark, charged atmosphere captured in the spontaneity of the moment(s), in all their echoed ambiance, by Neil Young’s second-in-command at the time (and for so long), the late David Briggs.
The man who suggested the stellar Live From Massey Hall should’ve been the follow-up to After the Gold Rush, no doubt would approve of issuing this extraordinary piece of work. For any long-term devotees of Neil Young, it’s not altogether dissimilar from the aforementioned 1971 homecoming concert recording as well as Sugar Mountain Live at Canterbury House 1968, that is, an absolutely essential entry into the collection. And because Hitchhiker is such a clear-cut exposition of the fundamental virtues of Neil Young’s art, it’s also an ideal jumping off point for novices to begin a serious exploration into the sprawling body of work of a man as iconoclastic as he is idiosyncratic.