HARVEST TIME
1971 doc gives a peek behind the barn doors and beyond
EVEN for fans who know just how conscientiously Young has documented his activities across his entire career, the sheer wealth and detail of the footage that makes up the two-hour documentary accompanying the 50th-anniversary edition of Harvest is astonishing.
Shot between January and September 1971, the film captures every aspect of the recording of the album in close-up: following Young and his ragtag family of cohorts from the famous sessions conducted in the barn at his bucolic Broken Arrow ranch in Northern California, across the ocean to a grey London for his collaboration with the London Symphony Orchestra, musicians separated by a common language as they attempt to capture “A Man Needs A Maid”. Finally, it lurches back to Nashville, for further tracking and overdubbing sessions amid a cast of Music City eccentrics.