The living room and the dining room became the two live rooms, and the kitchen became a drum area.” The name though? “We called it ‘Quadraphonic’ as a joke,” Mazer later explained, “although it did have four speakers in the control room.” Mazer knew early the “romance” a place like Quad could offer: “The control room was the old porch. While in Music City, Young accepted a dinner invite from young producer Elliot Mazer (1941-2021) who had just launched Quadrafonic Sound Studios, a converted two-storey house in Nashville’s Music Row. A month after Toronto, while playing with Taylor and Ronstadt for a Johnny Cash TV Show session recorded in Nashville, Young was still travelling light with just his Martin D-45. In fact, Young’s relocation to ballad-ville was purely a practical concern at first: persistent back problems, which later required surgery, had made it painful for him to play his weighty “Old Black” Les Paul or other electrics and he simply couldn’t perform properly cranked or even standing up.

As part of his then Journey Through The Past tour, a newer image of Young alone – free from Buffalo Springfield and CSNY – hunkered over his Martin acoustic hammering out those clanking chords, was one soon set in stone. Young liked them, his audience loved them. In a now-fabled performance at Toronto’s Massey Hall in January 1971, Young shuffled in front of his hometown crowd and remarked of his songs: “I’ve written so many new ones that I can’t think of anything else to do with them other than sing them.” Potent, stripped down songs called Heart of Gold, Old Man and The Needle And The Damage Done were duly tested.

He also tapped future folk/country ascendants Linda Ronstadt and James Taylor, while previous bandmates David Crosby, Steven Stills, and Graham Nash all provided backing vocals. Although his name alone adorns the cover, he hooked some celebrated Nashville country session musicians he dubbed The Stray Gators, and also the London Symphony Orchestra. Young certainly wasn’t the first, but that well-worn “broken hearted singer-songwriter” vibe as valid “rock” performance? It kinda starts with Harvest.ĭespite his notorious hard-headedness… Despite his super-long raging electric guitar solos… Despite his ‘grand concept’ albums that cover every topic from drug death to ecology to anti-agrarian corporations… Young’s always been a serial collaborator. Another noted star of the day was Carole King, whose Tapestry and Music also proved that simply good songs always win the day.

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