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Neil Percival Young OM (born November 12, 1945,
Toronto, Ontario) is a Canadian singer-songwriter, guitarist and film director
who spent his teen years in Winnipeg, Manitoba.
His work is characterized by deeply personal
lyrics, distinctive guitar work, and an almost instantly recognizable nasal
tenor (and frequently alto) singing voice. Although he accompanies himself on
several different instruments —including piano and harmonica—his style of
hammer-on acoustic guitar and often idiosyncratic soloing on electric guitar are
the lynchpins of a sometimes ragged, sometimes polished, yet consistently
evocative sound. Although Young has experimented widely with differing music
styles, including swing, jazz, rockabilly, blues, and electronica throughout a
varied career, his best known work generally falls into either of two distinct
styles; acoustic folk rock (as heard in songs such as "Heart of Gold", "Harvest
Moon" and "Old Man") and hard rock, in songs like "Cinnamon Girl", "Rockin' in
the Free World" and "Hey Hey, My My (Into The Black)". In more recent years,
Young has started to adopt elements from newer styles of music, such as
industrial and grunge, the latter of which was profoundly influenced by his own
style of playing.
Young has directed (or co-directed) a number of
films using the pseudonym Bernard Shakey, including Journey Through the Past
(1973), Rust Never Sleeps (1979), Human Highway (1982), and Greendale (2003).[1]
He is also an outspoken advocate for environmental
issues and small farmers, having co-founded the benefit concert Farm Aid, and in
1986 helped found The Bridge School[2], and its annual supporting Bridge School
Benefit concerts, together with his wife Pegi.
****
Background information
Also known as Bernard Shakey
Joe Yankee
Phil Perspective
Shakey Deal
Clyde Coil
Born November 12, 1945 (age 61)
in Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Genre(s) Rock
Folk rock
Country rock
Hard rock
Occupation(s) Singer-songwriter
Instrument(s) Guitar
Harmonica
Vocals
Piano
Banjo
Years active 1963 - Present
Label(s) Reprise Records
Associated
acts The Mynah Birds
Buffalo Springfield
Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young
Crazy Horse
The Stills-Young Band
The Ducks
Website Official website
****
Biography
Neil Young was born in Toronto to sportswriter and
novelist Scott Young and Rassy Ragland Young. He spent his early years in
Omemee, Ontario a small country town which he later memorialized in his song,
"Helpless". A bout of polio at the age of six left him with a weakened left
side, and he still walks with a slight limp. He moved to New Smyrna Beach,
Florida to recover for a year; his mother later moved there permanently. His
parents divorced when Young was twelve, and he moved with his mother back to the
family home of Winnipeg, Manitoba, where his music career began.
Early
years
While attending Kelvin High School in Winnipeg, he
played in instrumental rock bands, one of which, the Squires, had a local hit
called "The Sultan." He later worked folk clubs in Winnipeg, where he befriended
guitarist Stephen Stills and Joni Mitchell, and spent summers in Thunder Bay,
Ontario, playing at local clubs. In the 2006 film Heart of Gold Young relates
how he used to spend time as a teenager at Falcon Lake, Manitoba where he would
endlessly plug coins into the jukebox to hear Ian Tyson's "Four Strong Winds."
In 1966, after an aborted record deal on the Motown
label with the Rick James-fronted Mynah Birds, Young and bass player Bruce
Palmer relocated from the coffeehouse scene in Toronto to Los Angeles, where
they joined Stills, Richie Furay, and Dewey Martin to form Buffalo Springfield.
A mixture of folk, country, psychedelia, and rock lent a hard edge by the twin
lead guitars of Stills and Young made the Buffalo Springfield a critical
success, and their first record Buffalo Springfield (1967) sold well after
Stills' topical song "For What It's Worth" became a hit.
Distrust of their management and the arrest and
deportation of Palmer exacerbated already strained relations among group members
and lead to Buffalo Springfield's demise. A second album, Buffalo Springfield
Again, was released in late 1967, but two of Young’s three contributions were
actually solo tracks recorded apart from the rest of the group.
In many ways, these three songs on Buffalo
Springfield Again are harbingers of much of Young's later work in that, although
they all share deeply personal, almost idiosyncratic lyrics, they also present
three very different musical approaches to the arrangement of what is
essentially an original folk song. "Mr Soul," the only Young song of the three
that all five members of the group perform together. In contrast, "Broken Arrow"
was confessional folk rock of a kind that would characterize much of the music
that emerged from the singer-songwriter movement. Young’s experimental
production intersperses each verse with snippets of sound from other sources,
including opening the song with a sound bite of Dewey Martin singing "Mr. Soul"
and closing it with the thumping of a heartbeat. "Expecting to Fly" was a lushly
produced ballad featuring a string arrangement that Young's co-producer for the
track, Jack Nitzsche, would dub "symphonic pop."
In May 1968, the band split up for good, but in
order to fulfill a contractual obligation, a final album, Last Time Around, was
recorded, primarily from recordings made earlier that year. Young contributed
the songs “On the Way Home” and “I Am a Child”, singing lead on the latter.
Breakthrough as a solo artist
After the breakup of Buffalo Springfield, Young
signed a solo deal with Reprise Records, home of his colleague and friend Joni
Mitchell, with whom he shared a manager, Elliot Roberts. Young and Nitzsche
immediately began work on Young's first solo record, Neil Young (November 1968),
which received mixed reviews. In a 1970 interview [1], Young deprecated the
album as being "overdubbed rather than played," and the quest for music that
expresses the spontaneity of the moment has long been a feature of his career.
Nevertheless, the album contains some tunes that remain a staple of his live
shows, most notably "The Loner."
For his next album, Young recruited three musicians
from a band called Danny and The Rockets: Danny Whitten on guitar, Billy Talbot
on bass guitar, and Ralph Molina on drums. These three took the name Crazy Horse
(after the historical figure of the same name), and Everybody Knows This Is
Nowhere (May 1969), is credited to "Neil Young with Crazy Horse." Recorded in
just two weeks, the album opens with one of Young's most familiar songs,
"Cinnamon Girl," and is dominated by two more, "Cowgirl in the Sand" and "Down
by the River," that feature lengthy jams showcasing Young's idiosyncratic guitar
soloing accompanied sympathetically by Crazy Horse. Young reportedly wrote both
songs in the same day.
Shortly after the release of Everybody Knows This
Is Nowhere, Young reunited with Stephen Stills by joining Crosby, Stills, and
Nash, who had already released one album as a trio. Over the next 24 months,
Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young would perform at Woodstock, release the album
Déjà Vu (1970), release a single of Young's "Ohio," and record a summer concert
tour, which was released the following year under the title Four Way Street
(1971).
“Ohio” was written following the Kent State
massacre on May 4, 1970, and was a staple of anti-war rallies in the 1970s.
Young was still performing it 20 years later, by which time he often dedicated
it to the Chinese students who were killed during the Tiananmen Square protests
of 1989.
Also that year, Young released his second solo
album, After the Gold Rush (1970), which featured, among others, a young Nils
Lofgren, Stephen Stills, and CSNY bassist Greg Reeves. Aided by his newfound
fame with CSNY, the album was a commercial breakthrough for Young and contains
some of his best known work. Notable tracks include the title track, with
dream-like lyrics that run a gamut of subjects from drugs and interpersonal
relationships to environmental concerns, as well as Young’s controversial and
acerbic condemnation of racism in "Southern Man," which, along with a later song
entitled "Alabama," later prompted Lynyrd Skynyrd to decry Young by name in the
lyrics to "Sweet Home Alabama."
With CSNY splitting up and Crazy Horse having
signed their own record deal, Young began the year 1971 with a solo tour
entitled "Journey Through the Past." Later, he recruited a new group of
country-music session musicians, whom he christened The Stray Gators, to record
much of the new material that had been premiered on tour for the album Harvest
(1972). Harvest was a massive hit (especially with the country-music crowd) and
"Heart of Gold" became a US number one single. Another notable song was "The
Needle and the Damage Done," a lament for, in Young’s own words, "all the great
art that never got out because of heroin." [citation needed]
The album's success, however, caught Young off
guard, and his first instinct was to back away from stardom. In the handwritten
liner notes to the Decade compilation, Young described 'Heart of Gold' as the
song that "put me in the middle of the road. Travelling there soon became a
bore, so I headed for the ditch. A rougher ride but I saw more interesting
people there."
On 8 September 1972, the Academy Award-nominated
actress Carrie Snodgress, with whom he had been living, gave birth to Neil
Young's first child. The boy, Zeke, would later be diagnosed with cerebral
palsy.
The
Ditch Trilogy
Although a new tour had been planned to follow up
on the success of Harvest, it became apparent during rehearsals that Danny
Whitten could not function due to drug abuse. On November 18, 1972, shortly
after he was fired from the tour preparations, Whitten was found dead of an
overdose. Young described the incident to Rolling Stone’s Cameron Crowe in
1975,[3] "[We] were rehearsing with him and he just couldn't cut it. He couldn't
remember anything. He was too out of it. Too far gone. I had to tell him to go
back to L.A. 'It's not happening, man. You're not together enough.' He just
said, 'I've got nowhere else to go, man. How am I gonna tell my friends?' And he
split. That night the coroner called me from L.A. and told me he'd ODed. That
blew my mind. Fucking blew my mind. I loved Danny. I felt responsible. And from
there, I had to go right out on this huge tour of huge arenas. I was very
nervous and . . . insecure.”
The album made in the aftermath of this incident,
Time Fades Away (1973), has often been described by Young as his “least favorite
record,” and it is, in fact, one of only two of Young’s early recordings that
has yet to be re-released on CD (The other being the soundtrack album Journey
Through the Past). The album was recorded live over a disastrous tour where Neil
struggled with his voice and called David Crosby and Graham Nash to help perform
the music. Nevertheless, Time Fades Away occupies a unique position in Young’s
discography as the first of three albums known collectively as the "Ditch
Trilogy," and has also been referred to as the "Doom Trilogy" by some writers.
In the second half of 1973, Young formed The Santa
Monica Flyers, with Crazy Horse's rhythm section augmented by Nils Lofgren on
guitar. Deeply affected by the drug-induced deaths of Whitten and roadie Bruce
Berry, Tonight's the Night (1975) is a dark, brooding record of unrestrained
blues and out-of-tune ballads that Reprise did not see fit to release until two
years later and only after being pressured by Young to do so.[4] The album
received mixed reviews at the time, but is now regarded by some as a precursor
to punk rock. In Young's own opinion, it was the closest he ever came to art,
[citation needed] but the question of whether this is based on musical merits or
the biographical significance of Young "exorcising his demons" is open to
debate. Nevertheless, Tonight's the Night remains a favorite of many fans.
While his record company delayed the release of
Tonight's the Night, Young recorded On the Beach (1974), which dealt with themes
such as the downside of fame and the Californian lifestyle. Like Time Fades Away
and Tonight's the Night, it sold poorly but would eventually become a critical
favorite, presenting some of Young's most original work. In a review of the 2003
re-release on CD of On the Beach Derek Svennungsen described the music as
"mesmerizing, harrowing, lucid, and bleary," [5] a characterization that many
would say is an apt description of the entire Ditch Trilogy.
Zuma
and beyond
Young reformed Crazy Horse with Frank Sampedro on
guitar as his backup band for Zuma (1975). Many of the songs are overtly
concerned with failed relationships, and even the epic "Cortez the Killer,"
outwardly a retelling of the Spanish conquest of Mexico from the viewpoint of
the Aztecs, can be seen as an allegory of love lost—something that didn’t save
it, however, from being banned in Franco's Spain.
The following year, Young reunited with Stephen
Stills for the album Long May You Run (1976), credited to The Stills-Young Band;
the follow-up tour was ended midway through by Young, after having sent Stills a
telegram that read: "Funny how some things that start spontaneously end that
way. Eat a peach, Neil."
In 1976, Young performed with The Band, Joni
Mitchell, and other rock musicians in the high profile all-star concert The Last
Waltz. The release of Martin Scorsese's movie of the concert was delayed while
Scorsese unwillingly re-edited it to deemphasize the lump of cocaine that was
clearly visible hanging from Young's nose during his performance of "Helpless."
[6] Young later said, "I'm not proud of that," according to one of his
biographers.
American Stars 'N Bars (1977) contained two songs
originally recorded for the unreleased Homegrown album, "Homegrown" and "Star of
Bethelehem," as well as newer material. Performers included Linda Ronstadt,
Emmylou Harris and Young protégé Nicolette Larson along with Crazy Horse. Also
in 1977, Young released Decade: a personally selected career summary of material
spanning every aspect of his various interests and affiliations, including a
handful of unreleased songs. Comes a Time (1978) also featured Nicolette Larson
and Crazy Horse and became Young's most commercially accessible album in quite
some time, marked by a return to his folk roots.
Young next set out on the lengthy "Rust Never
Sleeps" tour, in which each concert was divided into a solo acoustic set and an
electric set with Crazy Horse. Much of the electric set was later seen as a
response to punk rock's burgeoning popularity. "Hey Hey, My My (Into the Black)"
compared the changing public perception of Johnny Rotten with that of the
recently deceased Elvis Presley, who himself had once been disparaged as a
dangerous influence only to later become an icon. Rotten, meanwhile, returned
the favour by playing one of Young's records on a London radio show. The
accompanying albums Rust Never Sleeps (new material, culled from live
recordings, but featuring studio overdubs) and Live Rust (a mixture of old and
new, and a genuine concert recording) captured the two sides of the concerts,
with solo acoustic songs on side A, and fierce, uptempo, electric songs on side
B. A movie version of the concerts, also called Rust Never Sleeps (1979), was
directed by Young under the pseudonym Bernard Shakey.
Young was suddenly hip again, and the readers and
critics of Rolling Stone voted him Artist Of The Year for 1979 (along with The
Who), selected Rust Never Sleeps as Album Of The Year, and voted him Male
Vocalist Of The Year as well.
1980s
- experimental years
The 1980s were a lean time for Young both
critically and commercially. After providing the incidental music to a biopic of
Hunter S. Thompson entitled Where the Buffalo Roam, he recorded Hawks & Doves
(1980), a folk/country record. Re-ac-tor (1981), once again with Crazy Horse,
was a façade of distortion and feedback obscuring a relatively weak selection of
songs, but his strangest record of the decade came with Trans (1982). Recorded
almost entirely with vocoders, synthesizers, and other devices that modify
instruments and vocals with electronic effects, it is sometimes considered an
experiment to find technology that would become a means to communicate for
Young’s son (with his wife Pegi), Ben, who has severe cerebral palsy and cannot
speak. Many fans were baffled by the radical forms of this album and
rockabilly-styled Everybody's Rockin' (1983), and record company head David
Geffen even sued Young for making "unrepresentative" music - i.e. music that did
not sound like Neil Young. Young later stated that he would have preferred to
release the songs featuring the synclavier and vocoder as an EP, and that their
inclusion with the Hawaiian-themed rockabilly was a mistake.
in 1983, Young worked with zany Brit video director
Tim Pope, making two videos - "Wonderin'" and "Cry, Cry, Cry."
In 1985, he reunited with Crosby, Stills and Nash
at Live Aid at Philadelphia's JFK Stadium. The two songs that they played, "Only
Love Can Break Your Heart" and "Daylight Again/Find The Cost of Freedom," were
the first songs they had played as a quartet in front of a paying audience since
1974.
Old Ways (1985) saw a return to country music,
recorded with a group of friends and session musicians. Landing on Water (1986)
is entertaining for the blending of synthesizers and other instruments related
to the 80's into Young’s own style, with lyrics that take pot shots at some
favourite targets, including CSN in "Hippie Dream," with a chorus that goes:
"But the wooden ships/Were just a hippie dream," and David Geffen in “Drifter,”
with the line: “Don’t try to tell me what I gotta do to fit.” The resumption of
his partnership with Crazy Horse on Life (1987) fulfilled his contract with
Geffen, and Young was finally able to switch labels.
Signing with Warner Brothers and returning to
Reprise Records, Young produced This Note's For You (1988) with a new band, The
Bluenotes, whose name rights were owned by musician Harold Melvin. The addition
of a brass section provided a new jazzier sound and the title track became his
first hit single of the decade. Accompanied by a witty video which parodied
corporate rock, the pretensions of advertising and Michael Jackson in
particular, the song was initially banned by MTV (although the Canadian music
channel, MuchMusic ran it immediately) before being put into heavy rotation and
finally given the MTV Video Music Award for Best Video of the Year for 1989.
After Melvin sued over the use of the Bluenotes name, Young renamed his back-up
group "Ten Men Workin'" for the balance of the concert tour.
Young also contributed to that year's CSNY reunion
American Dream (1988) and CSNY played a few benefit concerts. Young, however,
refused to book a full tour with CSN and the foursome would not embark upon a
nationwide tour until 2000.
1990s
- return to country-rock roots
Freedom completed the return to form, a mixture of
acoustic and electric rock dealing with the state of the US and the world in
1989, alongside a set of love songs and a version of the standard "On Broadway."
Rockin' in the Free World, two versions of which bookended the album, again
caught the mood. Some say it became a de facto anthem during the fall of the
Berlin Wall, a few months after the record's release. However, most Germans
don't remember the song being related to the reunification, understandably so,
since the lyrics are not about political repression. Like Bruce Springsteen's
"Born in the U.S.A.", the anthemic use of this song was based on largely
ignoring the verses, which evoke social problems and implicitly criticize
American government policies. By 1990, grunge music was beginning to make its
first inroads in the charts and many of its prime movers, including Nirvana's
Kurt Cobain, cited Young as a major influence.
Using a barn on his Northern California ranch as a
studio, he rapidly recorded the aptly titled Ragged Glory with Crazy Horse,
whose guitar riffs and feedback driven sound showed his new admirers that he
could still cut it. Young then headed back out on the road with LA punk band
Social Distortion and alternative rock elder statesmen Sonic Youth as support,
much to the consternation of many of his old fans[2][3]. Yet the influence of
Sonic Youth could be clearly heard on the accompanying home video and live
album, Weld, which also included a bonus CD entitled Arc, a single
35-minute-long collage of feedback and guitar noise that Neil included,
evidently at the suggestion of Sonic Youth's Thurston Moore[4]. Arc was later
sold separately.
Young's next move was another return to country
music. Harvest Moon (1992) was the long awaited sequel to Harvest and reunited
him with some of the musicians from that session, as well as singers Linda
Ronstadt and James Taylor. The title track was a minor hit and the record was
reviewed and sold equally well, containing songs such as "From Hank to Hendrix"
and "Unknown Legend", a tribute to his wife. His resurgent popularity saw him
booked on MTV Unplugged in 1993. In 1992 he accompanied fellow Winnipegger Randy
Bachman on "Prairie Town," a song that recounts their days in the Winnipeg music
scene of the 1960s. That year, he contributed music to the soundtrack of the
Jonathan Demme movie Philadelphia, and his song "Philadelphia" was nominated for
the Academy Award for Best Song, losing out to Bruce Springsteen's contribution
to the same film. A summer tour covering both Europe and North America with
Booker T. and the MGs (with whom he played two songs at a 1992 Bob Dylan tribute
concert at Madison Square Garden) was widely praised as a triumph. On a few of
these dates, the show ended with a rendition of "Rockin' in the Free World"
played with Pearl Jam.
Young was back with Crazy Horse for 1994's Sleeps
with Angels, a much darker record. The title track told the story of Kurt
Cobain's death after Young had allegedly tried to contact the singer prior to
this event[citations needed]. Cobain had quoted Young's "It's better to burn out
than fade away" (a line from "My My, Hey Hey (Out of the Blue)") in his alleged
suicide note, causing Young to emphasise the line "'cause once you're gone you
can't come back" in live performances at the time. Other songs dealt with
drive-by shootings ("Driveby"), environmentalism ("Piece of Crap") and Young's
own vision of America (the archetypal car metaphor of "Trans Am"). Young was
inspired to make the record after viewing Cobain's performance on MTV Unplugged.
Still admired by the prime movers of grunge, Young eventually performed with
Pearl Jam at the MTV Music Awards during what was described as the highlight of
a lackluster show[5]. Their collaboration led to a joint tour, with the band and
producer Brendan O'Brien backing Young. The accompanying album, Mirror Ball
(1995), recorded as live in the studio captured their loose rock sound, and
featured the standout track "I'm the Ocean."
After composing an abstract, distorted feedback-led
guitar instrumental soundtrack to the Jim Jarmusch film Dead Man Young recorded
a series of loose jams with Crazy Horse that eventually appeared as the
critically denigrated Broken Arrow. The return to Crazy Horse was prompted by
the death of mentor, friend, and longtime producer David Briggs in late 1995.
The subsequent tours of Europe and North America in 1996 resulted in both a live
album and a tour documentary directed by Jim Jarmusch. Both releases took the
name Year of the Horse.
In 1997, Young participated in the H.O.R.D.E.
Festival's sixth annual tour.
In 1998, Young shared the stage with the rock band
Phish at the annual Farm Aid concert, and later offered them an opportunity to
headline both nights of the Bridge School Benefit concert. Phish passed on
Young's offer and also declined Young's later invitation to be his backing band
on a 1999 tour[6].
The decade ended with Looking Forward, another
reunion with Crosby, Stills and Nash. The subsequent tour of the United States
and Canada with the reformed super quartet was a huge success and brought in
earnings of $42.1 million, making it the eighth largest grossing tour of 2000.
Young's next album, Silver & Gold (2000), contained
a number of understated songs with personal lyrics, which was promoted through a
mini-tour of solo acoustic shows. This style was continued in Are You
Passionate? (2002), an album of love songs dedicated to his wife, Pegi.
In the
aftermath of 9/11
Young's 2001 single "Let's Roll", was a tribute to
the victims of the September 11 terrorist attacks, and the passengers and crew
on Flight 93 in particular. At the "America: A Tribute to Heroes" concert he
performed a cover version of John Lennon's "Imagine". In 2002, Q magazine named
Neil Young in their list of the "50 Bands To See Before You Die."
Young hauled out his concept album Greendale in
2003 -- about an extended family in a small town called Greendale, and how
they're torn apart by a murder. Greendale the album version was recorded with
Crazy Horse members Billy Talbot and Ralph Molina. This tale of the Green family
also resulted in a movie called Greendale, written and directed by Young (again
using his "Bernard Shakey" pseudonym) and starring a few of his friends that act
out and lip sync the songs from the album. The film was indeed thoroughly
experimental, from Young's rambling on-stage between-song narratives, to his
reading apparent transcriptions of these ramblings in the liner notes. "When I
was writing this I had no idea what I was doing, so I was just as surprised as
you are," Young said later. Young toured extensively with the Greendale material
throughout 2003 and 2004, first with a solo, acoustic version in Europe, then
with a full-cast stage show in North America, Japan, and Australia. While
audience reaction was sometimes mixed (drunken requests for "Southern Man" being
an aesthetic impediment at most Young performances), the live stage version of
Greendale was for many critics the most satisfying incarnation of the material,
and bootlegs of the shows have been widely traded. The second half of each
concert consisted of high-decibel renditions of Young classics such as "Hey Hey,
My My," "Cinnamon Girl," "Powderfinger," and Rockin' in the Free World, as well
as rarities such as "The Losing End," "The Old Country Waltz," and "Danger
Bird."
Young spent the latter portion of 2004 giving a
series of intimate acoustic concerts in various cities with his wife, Pegi, who
is a trained vocalist.
Recent
events
On March 31, 2005, Young was admitted to a hospital
in New York for treatment for a brain aneurysm. He was treated successfully by a
minimally invasive neuroradiology procedure. Prior to undergoing the procedure,
he wrote the first eight songs of a new album, Prairie Wind, in Nashville, with
session musicians that included regular Young sideman Ben Keith on lap and pedal
steel guitars. The last two songs on the album were written after his aneurysm
procedure. Many of the songs, such as "Fallin' Off the Face of the Earth," seem
to be inspired by Young's brush with mortality, the recent death of his father
(who suffered senile dementia), as well as a connection with his Manitoba roots.
Two days after the procedure, Young was forced to cancel a scheduled appearance
on the Juno Awards telecast in Winnipeg when the area where the surgeons did his
procedure (via the femoral artery) suddenly began to bleed.
He next performed on July 2, 2005, at the close of
the Live 8 concert in Barrie, Ontario. He presented a new song, a soft hymn
called "When God Made Me," and ended with "Rockin' In The Free World." He began
his set with a cover of the Canadian folk classic "Four Strong Winds" by Ian &
Sylvia Tyson.
On September 28, 2005, Prairie Wind was released as
a regular CD, a special limited-edition CD and DVD package, and on vinyl. In an
interview given to Time magazine, Young revealed that he had planned to keep the
news of his aneurysm private until he had the bleeding scare, after which he
decided to make news of his condition public.
In 2006, Neil Young: Heart of Gold, a film made by
Jonathan Demme, premiered at the Sundance Film Festival. Filmed over two nights
at the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville, Tennessee during the premiere of Prairie
Wind, it includes both new and old songs as well as behind-the scenes-commentary
by Young, his wife Pegi and others.
In April 2006, Young confirmed on his website[7]
that he was going to release an album full of protest songs, titled Living With
War, one of whose songs is titled "Let's Impeach the President." Recorded using
his famous Les Paul electric guitar, "Old Black", along with Chad Cromwell
(drums), Rick Rosas (bass) and Tommy Brea (trumpet), it was intended to be a
stinging rebuke of President George W. Bush and the War in Iraq. The album was
recorded in a two week period in April, and was then made available over the
internet from 28 April 2006 before being released as a CD on 5 May. Living With
War was Young's most talked about release for years, creating heated political
debate and a return to form with perhaps his most critically-acclaimed album
since the early 1990s 'Godfather of Grunge' era when he was hailed as major
influences on grunge pioneers Pearl Jam and seminal indie band Sonic Youth among
others.
In April 2006, it was announced that Crosby,
Stills, Nash & Young would embark on their "Freedom Of Speech Tour '06" with
Chad Cromwell and Rick Rosas making up the rhythm section. The tour will see
them play dates all across North America. The entire Living With War album is
being performed on the tour, in addition to other CSN and Neil Young classics
such as "Ohio" and "Rockin' in the Free World."
In September 2006, the first release from his long
awaited Archives project was announced. Live at the Fillmore East features a
live set with Crazy Horse including Danny Whitten from 1970. Young has stated in
interviews that the release will be followed by a much larger box set of
recordings from his early career.
In October 2006, it was announced[8] that a
remastered version of Living With War, titled Living With War - Raw', would be
made available for digital download on November 7th. It was also announced
CD/DVD set of the remastered album will be released on December 19th. The DVD
will include videos directed by Young of every song on the album, and contain
footage of the Iraq War, demonstrations in the US, and Al Gore's An Inconvenient
Truth.
Young currently lives on a 1500-acre ranch in
Woodside, California, called Broken Arrow. He also has a home in Fort
Lauderdale, Florida.
Achievements
Young was inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of
Fame in 1982. He has been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame twice:
first in 1995 for his solo work, with an induction speech given by Eddie Vedder,
and again in 1997 as a member of Buffalo Springfield.
He has also directed three movies under his
pseudonym Bernard Shakey, and released them through his own Shakey Pictures
imprint: Journey Through the Past (1973), Human Highway (1982) (starring new
wave band Devo), and Greendale (2003). The bonus DVDs included in both versions
of Greendale and in Prairie Wind are also directed by Young under the Bernard
Shakey alias, and all of Young's home video and DVD releases have been
co-released under the Shakey Pictures imprint.
As one of the founders of Farm Aid, he remains on
their board of directors. For one weekend each October, in Mountain View,
California, he and his wife host the Bridge School Concerts, which have been
drawing international talent and sell-out crowds for nearly two decades with
some of the biggest names in rock having performed at the event including Bruce
Springsteen, David Bowie, The Who, Pearl Jam, Sonic Youth and Sir Paul
McCartney. The concerts are a benefit for the Bridge School, which develops and
uses advanced technologies to aid in the instruction of children with
disabilities. Young's involvement stems at least partially from the fact that
both of his sons have cerebral palsy and his daughter, like Young himself, has
epilepsy.
Young was nominated for an Oscar in 1994 for his
song "Philadelphia" from the film Philadelphia (Bruce Springsteen ended up
winning the award for his song "Streets of Philadelphia" from the same film). In
his acceptance speech, Springsteen said that "the award really deserved to be
shared by the other nominee's song." That same night, Tom Hanks accepted the
Oscar for Best Actor and gave credit for his inspiration to the song
"Philadelphia".
Young owns Vapor Records, who have signed such
artists as Jonathan Richman, Tegan and Sara and Catatonia. Since 1995 he has
been part owner of Lionel, LLC, a company that makes toy trains and railroads.
Young has twice received honorary doctorates. First
in 1992, an Honorary Doctorate of Music from Lakehead University in Thunder Bay,
Ontario and secondly in 2006, an Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters from San
Francisco State University. The latter honor was shared with his wife Pegi for
their creation of the Bridge School.
In a "100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time" list in
the June 1996 issue of Mojo magazine, Young was ranked number 9.
In 2000, Young was inducted into Canada's Walk of
Fame.
In 2001, Young was awarded the Spirit of Liberty
award from the civil liberties group People for the American Way.
In a "Greatest Living Songwriters" list in 2006 by
Paste Magazine Young was ranked number 2 behind Bob Dylan.
Instruments
Neil Young is a collector of second-hand guitars,
but in recording and performing, he frequently uses just a few instruments. As
explained by his longtime guitar technician Larry Cragg in the film Neil Young:
Heart of Gold, they include:
1953 Gibson R6 Les Paul Goldtop – Nicknamed "Old
Black", this is Young's primary electric guitar and is featured on Rust Never
Sleeps and most other albums. Old Black got its name from a purely amateur
paintjob applied to the originally-gold body of the instrument, sometime before
Neil acquired the guitar in the late 1960s. In 1972, a mini-humbucker pickup
from a Gibson Firebird guitar was installed into the lead/treble position,
replacing a P-90 as standard on Les Paul guitars from that era. This pickup,
severely microphonic, is considered a crucial component of Neil's sound. A
Bigsby tremelo unit was installed as early as 1969 on the guitar, and can be
heard clearly during the opening of "Cowgirl in the Sand" from Everybody Knows
This is Nowhere.
Martin D-45 – His primary steel-string acoustic
guitar; used to write "Old Man" and many other hit songs.
Martin D-28 – Nicknamed "Hank" after its previous
owner, Hank Williams. The guitar came into Young's possession after Hank
Williams, Jr. had traded it to another owner for some shotguns and it went
through a succession of other owners until it was located by Young's longtime
friend Grant Boatwright. It is Young's primary guitar for the album, Prairie
Wind and is used on Neil Young: Heart of Gold.
1927 Gibson Mastertone – A six-string banjo, tuned
like a guitar. It has been used on many recordings and was played by James
Taylor on "Old Man".
Various vintage Fender Deluxe amplifiers – Neil's
preferred amplifier for electric guitar is the dimunitive Fender Deluxe,
specifically a Tweed-era model from 1959. Neil purchased his first vintage
Deluxe in 1967 for $50 and has since acquired nearly 450 different examples, all
from the same era, but he maintains that it's the original model that sounds
superior, and is a crucial component to his trademark sound. A notable and
unique accessory to Young's Deluxe is the Whizzer, a device created specifically
for Young, which physically changes the amplifier's settings to pre-set
combinations. It has gone through many incarnations, and now includes effects
pedals hardwired into its circuitry.
Gretsch 6120 (Chet Atkins) – Before Neil bought Old
Black, this was his primary electric guitar used during his Buffalo Springfield
days.
Gretsch White Falcon – Late '50s hollow body that
Neil purchased near the end of the Buffalo Springfield era; in 1969 Neil
acquired a stereo version from Stills (same vintage--see photo, top right), and
this guitar is featured prominently during Neil's early '70s period, and can be
heard on tracks like "Ohio," "Southern Man," "Alabama," "L.A.," others.
Trivia
Main article: Neil Young trivia
Two of the domesticated buffalo used in the
production of the film Dances With Wolves were borrowed from Neil Young.
An edited version of Young's song "Rockin' in the
Free World" plays in the ending credits of the Michael Moore documentary
Fahrenheit 9/11.
If Young had been inducted into the Rock & Roll
Hall of Fame for his work with Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young in 1997, he would
have been the first person inducted on three separate occasions. Currently the
only person with this honor is Eric Clapton, who acheived his third induction in
2000.
Discography
Main article: Neil Young discography
See also the discographies for Buffalo Springfield
and Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young
Biographies
Don't Be Denied: the Canadian Years, John Einarson,
published by Quarry Press in 1992, ISBN 1-55082-044-3
Neil Young, the Rolling Stones Files: the Ultimate
Compendium of Interviews, Articles, Facts, and Opinions from the Files of
Rolling Stone, published by Rolling Stone Press in 1994, ISBN 0-7868-8043-0
A Dreamer of Pictures, David Downing, published by
Bloomsbury in 1994, ISBN 0-7475-1881-5
Neil and Me, Scott Young, published by McClelland
and Stewart in 1997, ISBN 0-7710-9099-4
Neil Young: Zero to Sixty: A Critical Biography,
Johnny Rogan, published by Omnibus Press in 2000, ISBN 0-9529540-4-4
Neil Young, Sylvie Simmons, published by MOJO Books
in 2001, ISBN 184195084
Shakey: Neil Young's Biography, Jimmy McDonough,
published by Random House in 2002, ISBN 0-679-42772-4
References
Neil Young Nation, by Kevin Chong; published by
Greystone Books, 2005, ISBN 1-55365-116-2
Shakey: Neil Young's Biography, Jimmy McDonough
Hyperrust Never Sleeps, The Unofficial Neil Young
Pages, http://hyperrust.org/
The Faber Encyclopedia of Rock, Phil Hardy, Dave
Laing (editors)
Neil on himself: Neil Young: In His Own Words, by
Michael Heatley; published by Omnibus Press, 1997, ISBN 0-7119-6161-1
Neil on himself: Greendale, The Book, by Neil
Young, James Mazzeo; published by Sanctuary Publishing, 2004, ISBN 1-86074-622-5
web Neil Young Bibliography
"Clanging New York Subways, Screeches Intact, Go
Miniature ", by Michael Brick; New York Times, September 21, 2006
Notes
-
^
http://hyperrust.org/Words/Shakey.html
-
^ http://www.bridgeschool.org/
-
^
http://www.rollingstone.com/news/profile/story/9102786/neil_young_the_rs_interview
-
^ Jimmy McDonough, Shakey: Neil
Young's Biography (Random House, 2002) 430
-
^
http://www.independent.com/a&e/soundfury904.htm
-
^
http://www.exclaim.ca/index.asp?layid=22&csid1=1741
-
^ http://www.neilyoung.com
-
^
http://www.marketwire.com/mw/release_html_b1?release_id=174244
****
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