Quote:

Five weeks later, in Argyll, Norman McPhee, a police constable from Campbeltown, fresh from a drug identification course among the bright lights of Glasgow, decided to have a nose around the vacant High Park Farm. Following the publicity that surrounded the Swedish bust, he was looking for anything suspicious, on the premise that he was checking the security of the property. Peering through the glass of the McCartneys' greenhouse, among the tomato plants, he spied cultivations of an altogether more exotic nature, bearing the distinctive serrated leaves he had recently been taught to recognize.
  He left, taking with him a couple of the plants to have them checked out back at the police station in the town. When they were positively identified as marijuana, McPhee returned to the farm with seven colleagues, and they found more plants at the Low Ranachan property. Once the search was completed, the police had collected five tiny plants, the product of which would have amounted to very little weed.
  It was beginning to look like open season on the apparently lawless McCartneys, who were back in London at Cavendish Avenue when they were given the news. Worse, Paul's lawyer in Scotland, Len Murray, had heard that the raid had been prompted by a local tip-off. Three days after this second bust, on September 20 [1972], McCartney was charged in absentia on three counts—two of possessing marijuana and a third of growing it.
  Paul was now viewed as a notoriously open dope smoker.


(Man on the Run: Paul McCartney in the 1970s By Tom Doyle)





September 20, 1972  Police find cannabis growing on Paul & Linda McCartney's farm


(http://www.1972summitseries.com)




September 20, 1972 Paul McCartney is arrested for growing marijuana on his farm in Scotland. The judge in his case had never seen a cannabis plant, so he took a good look at it and fined McCartney 100 pounds.


(https://calendar.songfacts.com)

---

Quote:

Long May You Run is an album credited to The Stills-Young Band, a collaboration between Stephen Stills and Neil Young, released in 1976 on Reprise Records, catalogue MS 2253. The album peaked at #26 on the Billboard 200 and certified gold in the U.S. by the RIAA. The album is the sole studio release by Stills and Young in tandem outside of their work with Buffalo Springfield and Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young. Musically, the album follows mostly in similar vein as those groups, traversing various facets of Americana and folk music, while songs such as "Make Love To You" have something of a jazz feel, and the extensive use of synthesised strings on the second side give the songs an art rock pretension.

Background

Following the Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young stadium tour of 1974, an attempt by the quartet to finalize a new album ended amidst acrimony without result. David Crosby and Graham Nash resumed their partnership as Crosby & Nash, while Stills and Young continued their independent careers. Songs from the aborted CSNY album appeared on various albums by group members, and Stills covered two Young songs on his most recent studio albums: "New Mama" on Stills; and "The Loner" on Illegal Stills.

In early 1976, Stills and Young reached a rapprochement, and began to work on a joint album project from a desire by both to pick up where they left off with their Buffalo Springfield-era guitar explorations, a decade after the inception of the band. Crosby and Nash signed on as well, and briefly Long May You Run looked to be the awaited CSNY reunion album. However, on a deadline Nash and Crosby left Miami to finish the sessions for what would become their 1976 album Whistling Down the Wire, and Young and Stills reacted by removing the duo's vocals and other contributions from the master tapes. Crosby and Nash vowed never to work with either again, although less than a year later they would regroup with Stills for a new CSN album in 1977. The original mix for the song "Long May You Run" with vocals by Crosby and Nash restored was included on Young's Decade compilation in 1977.

The Stills-Young Band, comprising Stills' current touring band behind the pair, began a tour in 1976 prior to the album's release. The tour commenced in Clarkston, Michigan on June 23, but after nine dates Young dropped out after July 18 via a laconic telegram to Stills, forcing Stills to complete the concert tour solo through October. The telegram read: "Dear Stephen, funny how some things that start spontaneously end that way. Eat a peach. Neil."

The album's advance single, "Long May You Run", peaked at #71 on the UK singles chart.[6] The song was an elegy for Neil Young's first car (which he nicknamed "Mort"), a 1948 Buick Roadmaster hearse that died in 1965 when its transmission blew in Blind River, Ontario. Mort was a different vehicle to the 1953 Pontiac hearse, nicknamed Mort 2, that Richie Furay, traveling with Stills, saw Young driving in a Hollywood traffic jam in 1966 that led to the formation of Buffalo Springfield. "Long May You Run" was performed by Young on the final broadcast of The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien on January 22, 2010, and during the closing ceremonies for the Vancouver Olympics on February 28, 2010.

Track listing

Side one

1. "Long May You Run"  Neil Young 3:53
2. "Make Love to You"  Stephen Stills 5:10
3. "Midnight on the Bay"  Neil Young 3:59
4. "Black Coral"  Stephen Stills 4:41
5. "Ocean Girl"  Neil Young 3:19

Side two

1. "Let It Shine"  Neil Young 4:43
2. "12/8 Blues (All the Same)"  Stephen Stills 3:41
3. "Fontainebleau"  Neil Young 3:58
4. "Guardian Angel"  Stephen Stills 5:40

Personnel

    Stephen Stills — vocals, guitars, piano
    Neil Young — vocals, guitars, piano, harmonica, synthesizer
    Jerry Aiello — organ, piano
    George "Chocolate" Perry — bass, backing vocals
    Joe Vitale — drums, flute, backing vocals
    Joe Lala — percussion, backing vocals


Released September 20, 1976
Recorded Criteria Studios, Miami
February 16 to June 7, 1976
Genre Country rock, roots rock, blues rock, Americana
Length 39:10
Label Reprise
Producer Tom Dowd, Don Gehman, Stephen Stills, Neil Young


(https://en.wikipedia.org)

---

336 said:

lol why did they need to do chemical analysis on the plants? Is low/no-thc hemp legal in Scotland?

---

Yeah, I'm not sure why they did that. I assume it was due to their, then, unfamiliarity with marijuana, coupled with their desire to make damn sure they got it right, due to Paul's fame.

By the way, Paul was fined $240 for the plants in 1973. That's the equivalent to $1,762.83 today.