@tablejockey, yeah, Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere is great musically, but the recorded sound is not very good. The low end is rolled off (no doubt in anticipation of the poor tracking abilities of the arms & cartridges presumably owned by the album’s anticipated audience), the highs pretty soft and veiled. Harvest sounds much better, recorded on mobile equipment in the barn on Neil’s Northern California ranch, inspired by The Band’s brown album.
The musicianship on Harvest is about as good as it gets in Rock ’n’ Roll (far better than that of Crazy Hose on EKTIN): Jack Nitzsche was brilliant, a classically-trained pianist, composer, and orchestrator (he did the string and horn charts for Phil Spector, and lots of soundtracks including that for the Chinatown movie). If you ever see a copy of his 1974 Reprise album St. Giles Cripplegate, buy it! Very sophisticated compositions, 20th Century Classical music for the Pop/Rock audience. Jack produced the 1971 s/t Reprise Records Crazy Horse album, upon which Ry Cooder and Nils Lofgren guest. Real good album.
Harvest drummer Kenny Buttrey is a fantastic musician, his playing on the album absolutely brilliant. Such musicality, such taste! And his drums and cymbals sound great, not true of all superior drummers. Jim Gordon (Derek & The Dominoes, Traffic, Delaney & Bonnie) is another excellent drummer who had great sounding instruments.
Bassist Tim Drummond was in Dylan’s band for quite awhile, and pedal steel guitarist Ben Keith is on a LOT of records.