Neil Young’s Homegrown, one of the great “Holy Grails” of his unreleased catalogue, will finally see the light of day some 46 years after its recording.
The twelve-track studio set will be released June 19 on all formats, via Reprise Records, the Warner Music Group label and Young announced Friday.
In a letter posted to the Neil Young Archives, the legendary Canadian rocker admits Homegrown was the one that got away for far too long.
“I apologize,” he writes. “This album Homegrown should have been there for you a couple of years after Harvest. It’s the sad side of a love affair. The damage done. The heartache. I just couldn’t listen to it. I wanted to move on. So I kept it to myself, hidden away in the vault, on the shelf, in the back of my mind….but I should have shared it.
The album, he concedes, is “actually beautiful. That’s why I made it in the first place. Sometimes life hurts. You know what I mean. This is the one that got away.”
Recorded in analog in 1974 and early 1975, Homegrown was shelved in favor of the 1973-recorded Tonight’s The Night. In Young’s own words, it’s the unheard bridge between Harvest and Comes A Time.
Some of its songs turned up as different mixes on other releases, such as “Star of Bethlehem” (on 1977’s American Stars ‘n Bars), “Little Wing” and “This Old Homestead” (on 1980’s Hawks & Doves), and “White Line” (on 1990’s Ragged Glory).
The original tapes have been restored by John Hanlon, and mastered by Chris Bellman at Bernie Grundman Mastering, making Homegrown a “completely original album,” reads a statement from Reprise.
Album pre-orders will receive the instant-grat download of “Try,” one of the album’s seven previously-unreleased tracks.
Homegrown is “coming your way in 2020,” enthuses Young, “the first release from our archive in this new decade. Come with us into 2020 as we bring you the past.”
