American Stars 'n Bars is the eighth studio album by Canadian-American folk rock songwriter Neil Young, released on Reprise Records in 1977.

[2] Following the release of his album, Zuma, in November 1975, and a subsequent international spring tour with Crazy Horse, Young rekindled his partnership with Stephen Stills.

[4][5] Both of those songs, along with "Like a Hurricane", "Hold Back the Tears" and "Will to Love", had also been slated for the unreleased Young album project, Chrome Dreams.

[7] "Hold Back the Tears" had previously been recorded in February 1977 as a solo performance with Young playing guitar, keyboards and percussion.

"Bite the Bullet", which also features suggestive lyrics, combines the emerging genres of outlaw country and punk rock.

In a 1975 Cameron Crowe interview for Rolling Stone, Young indicated a fondness for the track and an eagerness to release it, singling out the "beautiful harmonies" of Emmylou Harris.

"[12] In his memoir Special Deluxe, Young recalls bar hopping on Skyline Boulevard: "... we pulled over at Skeggs Point Scenic Lookout to park and enjoy some cocaine...

"Homegrown" and "Like a Hurricane" were recorded in November 1975 with Crazy Horse at Young's ranch during rehearsals for a short tour of Northern California, his first with the reconstituted band with guitarist Poncho Sampedro.

Young wrote in Waging Heavy Peace: "Like a Hurricane" is probably the best example of Old Black's tone, although if you listen too closely, it is all but ruined by all the mistakes and misfires in my playing...

He explained in Special Deluxe: "The instrumental passages on this recording are some of our best Crazy Horse moments, with Poncho playing a great part on the Stringman keyboard, an amazing analog string synthesizer.

He would later mix the recording and add overdubs during a full moon session at Indigo Ranch in Malibu, as recounted in Waging Heavy Peace: "Sitting on the floor late at night, I recorded in front of the fireplace with the cassette on the hearth, three feet from the fire, and you can hear the crackling and hissing of the fire as I played my old Martin guitar and sang.

I told David that I simply wanted to play back the cassette through the Magnatone with vibrato so it would sound like I was underwater at times during the song, when I was taking the point of view of the salmon.

That memory is one of my favorite moments and is the perfect example of a great life with my friend David, who guided me and assisted me in every trip I decided to take through the world of music.

The April 1977 sessions featured Crazy Horse augmented by an ad hoc grouping dubbed "The Bullets": pedal steel guitarist and longtime Young collaborator Ben Keith, violinist Carole Mayedo, and backing vocalists Linda Ronstadt and Nicolette Larson.

"[14] The album cover was designed by actor and Young's close friend Dean Stockwell, who had also written the screenplay that inspired After the Gold Rush.

It features Connie Moskos, then the girlfriend of producer David Briggs, drooping with a bottle of Canadian whisky in her hand and an intoxicated Young with his face pressed against the glass floor.

[5] Writing in Rolling Stone, Paul Nelson noted the mixed selection of songs and styles and praised the "gale-force guitar playing" on "Like a Hurricane".

He concluded that the album "can almost be taken as a sampler, but not a summation, of Young's various styles from After the Gold Rush and Harvest (much of the country rock) through On the Beach (the incredible "Will to Love") to Zuma ("Like a Hurricane" is a worthy successor to "Cortez the Killer" as a guitar showcase) with a lot of overlap within the songs".

Describing "Will to Love" as "a particularly spooky and ambitious piece", he said that "[the] album's centerpiece however, is "Like a Hurricane," one of Young's classic hard rock songs and guitar workouts, and a perpetual concert favorite".

[16] It was finally released on compact disc, as an HDCD, on August 19, 2003, as part of the Neil Young Digital Masterpiece Series along with On the Beach, Hawks & Doves, and Re-ac-tor.