The classic Neil Young song that features James Taylor and Linda Ronstadt | CPT PPP Coverage

In the 2006 film Heart of Gold, Young explains how the song originated. He said: “About that time when I wrote (‘Heart of Gold’), and I was touring, I had also—just, you know, being a rich hippie for the first time—I had purchased a ranch, and I still live there today. And there was a couple living on it that were the caretakers, an old gentleman named Louis Avila and his wife Clara.”

Young continues: “And there was this old blue Jeep there, and Louis took me for a ride in this blue Jeep. He gets me up there on the top side of the place, and there’s this lake up there that fed all the pastures, and he says, ‘Well, tell me, how does a young man like yourself have enough money to buy a place like this?’ And I said, ‘Well, just lucky, Louis, just real lucky.’ And he said, ‘Well, that’s the darnedest thing I ever heard.’ And I wrote this song for him.”

Whilst the song was undoubtedly brilliant in its original form, the addition of both Taylor and Ronstadt in the studio made it the classic it is today, imbuing it with extra genius. Notably, Taylor played the banjo on the track, which augments the emotive character of the chords and Young’s stirring vocal melody. The three converged on ‘Old Man’ and its Harvest counterpart, ‘Heart of Gold’, shortly after an appearance on an episode of The Johnny Cash Show in Nashville.

Years later, when appearing on The Howard Stern Show in 2018, Taylor remembered working with Young for ‘Old Man’ and ‘Heart of Gold‘. Taylor said that he always knew the material was “beautiful”, even in its embryonic stage. Revealing the type of instrument he played on ‘Old Man’, Taylor explained: “Well, it was a six-string banjo tuned liked a guitar, so it was kind of cheating.”

During the same conversation, when recalling how the collaboration came about, Taylor explained: “Neil and I had both done – and Linda Ronstadt – had done The Johnny Cash Show in Nashville at The Grand Ole Opry at the Ryman Auditorium, and just after we were finished, Neil said, ‘Well come to the studio with me, I got some studio time, I’m gonna put down a couple of songs’. So, I played along on that song, ‘Old Man’, and ‘Heart of Gold’ Linda and I sang on.”

Asked if he recognised whether ‘Old Man’ was an excellent song and a great hit in the making, Taylor recalled: “You know, ‘hit’, that’s very difficult to tell. Whether or not the record company will get behind it and release it as a single or… but I knew it was a great song, that both of these songs were beautiful.”

Elsewhere, Linda Ronstadt has also looked back on the session fondly, echoing Taylor’s account of the song’s quality. She later told Mojo: “I can’t remember why Neil wanted me to sing with him – I guess he just figured I was there and could do it – but we went in there and they were doing ‘Heart of Gold’ and ‘Old Man’ and I thought they were such beautiful songs. I loved them”.

“We were sat on the couch in the control room, but I had to get up on my knees to be on the same level as James because he’s so tall,” she continued. “Then we sang all night, the highest notes I could sing. It was so hard, but nobody minded. It was dawn when we walked out of the studio.”

Listen to ‘Old Man’ below.