 After
Neil Young left the Californian folk-rock band
Buffalo Springfield in 1968, he slowly
established himself as one of the most influential and idiosyncratic
singer/songwriters of his generation.
Neil Young's body of work ranks second only to
Bob Dylan in terms of depth, and he was able to sustain his critical
reputation, as well as record sales, for a longer period of time than
Dylan, partially because of his willfully perverse work ethic. From the
beginning of his solo career in the late '60s until the late '90s, he never
stopped writing, recording, and performing; his official catalog only
represented a portion of his work, since he kept countless tapes of unreleased
songs in his vaults. Just as importantly,
Neil Young continually explored new musical territory, from rockabilly and the
blues to electronic music. But these stylistic exercises only gained depth when
compared to his two primary styles: gentle folk and country-rock, and crushingly
loud electric guitar rock, which he frequently recorded with the Californian
garage band
Crazy Horse. Throughout his career,
Neil Young alternated between these two extremes, and both proved equally
influential; there were just as many singer/songwriters as there were grunge and
country-rock bands claiming to be influenced by
Neil Young. Despite his enormous catalog and influence,
Neil Young continued to move forward, writing new songs and exploring new music.
That restless spirit ensured that he was one of the few rock veterans as vital
in his old age as he was in his youth.
Born in Toronto, Canada,
Neil Young moved to Winnipeg with his mother following her divorce from his
sports-journalist father.
Neil Young began playing music in high school. Not only did he play in garage
rock outfits like
the Esquires, but he also played in local folk clubs and coffeehouses, where
he eventually met
Joni Mitchell and
Stephen Stills. During the mid-'60s, he returned to Toronto, where he played
as a solo folk act. By 1966, he joined the Mynah Birds, which also featured
bassist
Bruce Palmer and
Rick James. The group recorded a couple of singles for Motown that were
ignored. Frustrated by his lack of success,
Neil Young moved to Los Angeles in his Pontiac hearse, taking
Palmer along as support. Shortly after they arrived in L.A., they happened
to meet
Stills, and they formed
Buffalo Springfield, who quickly became one of the leaders of the
Californian folk-rock scene. Despite the success of
Buffalo Springfield, the group was plagued with tension, and
Neil Young quit the band several times before finally leaving to become a solo
artist in May of 1968. Hiring Elliot Roberts as his manager,
Neil Young signed with Reprise Records and released his eponymous debut album in
early 1969. By the time the album was released, he had begun playing with a
local band called
the Rockets, which featured guitarist Danny Whitten, bassist
Billy Talbot, and drummer Ralph Molina.
Neil Young renamed the group
Crazy Horse and had them support him on his second album, Everybody Knows
This Is Nowhere, which was recorded in just two weeks. Featuring such
Neil Young staples as "Cinnamon Girl" and "Down by the River," the album went
gold. Following the completion of the record, he began jamming with
Crosby, Stills & Nash, eventually joining the group for their spring 1970
album, Déjà Vu. Although he was now part of
Crosby, Stills & Nash,
Neil Young continued to record as a solo artist, releasing After the Gold Rush at
the end of the year. After the Gold Rush, with its accompanying single "Only
Love Can Break Your Heart," established
Neil Young as a solo star, and fame only increased through his association with
CSNY.
Although
Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young were a very successful act, they were also
volatile, and they had split by the spring 1971 release of the live Four Way
Street. The following year,
Neil Young had his first number one album with the mellow country-rock of
Harvest, which also featured his first (and only) number one single, "Heart of
Gold." Instead of embracing his success, he spurned it, following it with the
noisy, bleak live film Journey Through the Past. Both the movie and the
soundtrack received terrible reviews, as did the live album Time Fades Away, a
record recorded with
the Stray Gators that was released in 1973.
Both Journey Through the Past and Time Fades Away signaled that
Neil Young was entering a dark period in his life, but they only scratched the
surface of his anguish. Inspired by the overdose deaths of Danny Whitten in 1972
and his roadie Bruce Berry the following year,
Neil Young wrote and recorded the bleak, druggy Tonight's the Night late in 1973,
but declined to release it at the time. Instead, he released On the Beach, which
was nearly as harrowing, in 1974; Tonight's the Night finally appeared in the
spring of 1975. By the time of its release,
Neil Young had recovered, as indicated by the record's hard-rocking follow-up,
Zuma, an album recorded with
Crazy Horse and released later that year.
Neil Young's focus began to wander in 1976, as he recorded the duet album Long
May You Run with
Stephen Stills and then abandoned his partner midway through the supporting
tour. The following year he recorded the country-rock-oriented American Stars 'n
Bars, which featured vocals by
Nicolette Larson, who was also prominent on 1978's Comes a Time. Prior to
the release of Comes a Time,
Neil Young scrapped the country-rock album Homegrown and assembled the
triple-album retrospective Decade. At the end of 1978, he embarked on an arena
tour called Rust Never Sleeps, which was designed as a showcase for new songs.
Half of the concert featured
Neil Young solo, the other half featured him with
Crazy Horse. That was the pattern that Rust Never Sleeps, released in the
summer of 1979, followed. The record was hailed as a comeback, proving that
Neil Young was one of the few rock veterans who attacked punk rock head-on. That
fall he released the double album Live Rust and the live movie Rust Never
Sleeps.
Rust Never Sleeps restored
Neil Young to his past glory, but he perversely decided to trash his goodwill in
1980 with Hawks & Doves, a collection of acoustic songs that bore the influence
of conservative, right-wing politics. In 1981,
Neil Young released the heavy rock album Re*ac*tor, which received poor reviews.
Following its release, he left Reprise for the fledgling Geffen Records, where
he was promised lots of money and artistic freedom.
Neil Young decided to push his Geffen contract to the limit, releasing the
electronic Trans, where his voice was recorded through a computerized vocoder,
later that year. The album and its accompanying, technology-dependent tour were
received with bewildered, negative reviews. The rockabilly of Everybody's
Rockin' (1983) was equally scorned, and
Neil Young soon settled into a cult audience for the mid-'80s.
Over the course of the mid-'80s,
Neil Young released three albums that were all stylistic exercises. In 1985, he
released the straight country Old Ways, which was followed by the new
wave-tinged Landing on Water the following year. He returned to
Crazy Horse for 1987's Life, but by that time, he and Geffen had grown sick
of each other, and he returned to Reprise in 1988. His first album for Reprise
was the bluesy, horn-driven This Note's for You, which was supported by an
acclaimed video that satirized rock stars endorsing commercial products. At the
end of the year, he recorded a reunion album with
Crosby, Stills & Nash called American Dream, which was greeted with savagely
negative reviews.
American Dream didn't prepare any observer for the critical and commercial
success of 1989's Freedom, which found
Neil Young following the half-acoustic/half-electric blueprint of Rust Never
Sleeps to fine results. Around the time of its release,
Neil Young became a hip name to drop in indie rock circles, and he was the
subject of a tribute record titled The Bridge in 1989. The following year,
Neil Young reunited with
Crazy Horse for Ragged Glory, a loud, feedback-drenched album that received
his strongest reviews since the '70s. For the supporting tour,
Neil Young hired the avant rock band
Sonic Youth as his opening group, providing them with needed exposure while
earning him hip credibility within alternative rock scenes. On the advice of
Sonic Youth,
Neil Young added the noise collage EP Arc as a bonus to his 1991 live album,
Weld.
Weld and the
Sonic Youth tour helped position
Neil Young as an alternative and grunge rock forefather, but he decided to
abandon loud music for its 1992 follow-up, Harvest Moon. An explicit sequel to
his 1972 breakthrough, Harvest Moon became
Neil Young's biggest hit in years, and he supported the record with an appearance
on MTV Unplugged, which was released the following year as an album. Also in
1993, Geffen released the rarities collection Lucky Thirteen. The following
year, he released Sleeps with Angels, which was hailed as a masterpiece in some
quarters. Following its release,
Neil Young began jamming with
Pearl Jam, eventually recording an album with the Seattle band in early
1995. The resulting record, Mirror Ball, was released to positive reviews in the
summer of 1995, but it wasn't the commercial blockbuster it was expected to be;
due to legal reasons,
Pearl Jam's name was not allowed to be featured on the cover.
In the summer of 1996, he reunited with
Crazy Horse for Broken Arrow and supported it with a brief tour. That tour
was documented in
Jim Jarmusch's 1997 film The Year of the Horse, which was accompanied by a
double-disc live album. In 1999,
Neil Young reunited with
Crosby, Stills & Nash for the first time in a decade, supporting their
Looking Forward LP with the supergroup's first tour in a quarter century. A new
solo effort, Silver & Gold, followed in the spring of 2000. In recognition of
his 2000 summer tour,
Neil Young released the live album Road Rock, Vol. 1 the following fall,
showcasing a spectacular two-night account of
Neil Young's performance at the Red Rocks Amphitheater in Morrison, CO, in
September 2000. A DVD version titled Red Rocks Live was issued that December,
including 12 tracks initially unavailable on Road Rock, Vol. 1.
Neil Young's next studio project was his most ambitious yet, a concept album
about small-town life titled Greendale that he also mounted as a live dramatic
tour and indie film. In early 2005, he was diagnosed with a potentially deadly
brain aneurysm. Undergoing treatment didn't slow
Neil Young down as he continued to write and record his next project. The
acoustically based Prairie Wind appeared in the fall, with a concert film --
based around the album and directed by
Jonathan Demme -- promised for the following year. 2006 also saw the release
of the controversial Living with War, a collection of protest songs against the
war in Iraq that featured titles such as "Let's Impeach the President," "Shock
and Awe," and "Lookin' for a Leader." ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Music Guide
Contact Grabow for more information or to book
Neil Young for your next corporate or private event.
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