Songfacts®:

• This soft-rock favorite has a writer you wouldn't expect. "Lotta Love" was written by Neil Young and recorded by Nicolette Larson, becoming her first charting single. Larson got her career jump as a backing singer for Neil Young on the albums American Stars 'n Bars (1977) and Comes a Time (1978), so this is how he came to write for her.
• "Lotta Love" is the first track of what would prove to be a stellar album. Nicolette reached #15 on the US Album charts and was certified gold in the US and Canada. In addition, Rolling Stone declared her Female Vocalist of 1978 on the strength of this album, despite its being released in September of that year.
  
  Despite her continued work and albums released until 1994, she was never again to see this kind of success. Her only other appearance on the Billboard Top 40 charts is at #35 for her 1980 "Let Me Go, Love," a duet with Michael McDonald. However, she had many more charting singles on the Adult Contemporary and US Country charts - the country hits starting in the mid-1980s when she switched her genre to pure country.
• How Nicolette met Neil: She had already been working as a recording artist, first on the 1975 Commander Cody album Tales From the Ozone (Commander Cody was best known for 1972's "Hot Rod Lincoln"), then eventually with Emmylou Harris, which led to her meeting Harris' associate and friend Linda Ronstadt. Larson visited Ronstadt's Malibu home when neighbor Neil Young dropped by looking for a new female vocalist. Neil and Larson had their first jam session that day and he was thrilled. Together Larson and Ronstadt became "The Saddlebags," credited as such on Young's album.
  
  "Lotta Love" also got released on Young's own album Comes a Time - track 4, side 1. This is one of the albums with the band Crazy Horse serving back-up duties, including on "Lotta Love." In case you hadn't figured it out by now, Young and Larson also had a brief affair during this time. And after they had split, who should be the very next woman for Young to get involved with but a waitress named Pegi working at the Bella Vista Restaurant, Pegi being the woman he would marry for good.
• There's some controversy over exactly how Larson got this song. Linda Rodstadt claims it resulted from her suggestion to Larson. Larson, however, says that the suggestion came from Young himself. "I got that song off a tape I found lying on the floor of Neil's car," Larson said. "I popped it in the tape player and commented on what a great song it was. Neil said: 'You want it? It's yours.'"
• Larson passed away on December 16, 1997. On February 21 and 22 of 1998, a tribute concert named the Lotta Love Concert was held in her honor. Performers included Dan Fogelberg, Joe Walsh, Jackson Browne, Emmylou Harris, Crosby, Stills & Nash, Jimmy Buffet, Carole King, Linda Ronstadt, and Little Feat with Bonnie Raitt. Young did not attend, but according to the liner notes for the album cut from the concert, he sent "a bouquet of roses as big as the audience."