American Stars 'n Bars is the eighth studio album by Canadian folk rock songwriter Neil Young, released on Reprise Records in 1977. Compiled from recording sessions scattered over a 29-month period, it includes "Like a Hurricane", one of Young's best-known songs. It peaked at #21 on the Billboard 200 and received a RIAA gold certification. Background 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. Following the album Long May You Run. and a promotional tour that Young abandoned, he continued touring with Crazy Horse in the United States, then spent the first half of 1977 off the road. After recording several country rock compositions at sessions in April 1977, he assembled additional tracks from a variety of earlier recording dates to make up the second side of the new album. 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. Content "Homegrown" and "Star of Bethlehem" had initially been slated for his album Homegrown, which was shelved at the time. 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. Seven of the nine tracks feature his regular backing band Crazy Horse, and another, "Star of Bethlehem", features country music star Emmylou Harris. Songs from the April 1977 sessions are all in a country-styled vein, while the tracks from the second side are all in their original forms from their respective recording sessions (spanning 1974-1976). 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. Reception Initially receiving favorable reviews, the album was described as a "sampler...of Young's various styles", even a "hodgepodge." Paul Nelson, reviewing the album for Rolling Stone commented about the mixed selection of songs and styles, and praised the "gale-force guitar playing" of "Like a Hurricane": The album can almost be taken as a sampler,