Over the course of his now half-century long career, the always-prolific Neil Young has amassed a series of projects that have never ended up seeing the light of the day.
Today, however, Young announced that Hitchiker—a legendary 1976 album that he recorded alone with his producer, David Briggs, and an acoustic guitar in a single day—will be released September 8.
In typical Young fashion, the majority of the mostly new songs recorded on Hitchhiker ended up surfacing on various projects years (and in some cases even decades) later. "Human Highway" appeared on 1978's Comes a Time, and three of the album's cuts ("Powderfinger," "Ride My Llama" and "Pocahontas") appeared on 1979's Rust Never Sleeps, one of Young's most enduring records.
The title track, which you can hear below, wasn't released by Young until he recorded it for 2010's Le Noise.
The new album also features the previously unreleased tracks "Hawaii" and "Give Me Strength," which Young has played live on occasion. The original recordings were produced by Briggs, Young's longtime producer, and were touched up by John Hanlon.
You can preorder Hitchhiker here. For more on Neil Young, stop by his website.
Hitchhiker Tracklist
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Jackson is an Associate Editor at GuitarWorld.com. He’s been writing and editing stories about new gear, technique and guitar-driven music both old and new since 2014, and has also written extensively on the same topics for Guitar Player. Elsewhere, his album reviews and essays have appeared in Louder and Unrecorded. Though open to music of all kinds, his greatest love has always been indie, and everything that falls under its massive umbrella. To that end, you can find him on Twitter crowing about whatever great new guitar band you need to drop everything to hear right now.
