Neil Young
(vocals, guitar, banjo, keyboards, harmonica; born November 12, 1945)
Neil Young is one of rock and roll’s greatest songwriters and performers. In a career that extends back to his mid-Sixties roots as a coffeehouse folkie in his native
Several of his more modest-selling titles - for example, Tonight’s the Night, Comes a Time and Trans - contain some of his most trenchant performances. It is typical of Young that he followed his most polished and popular album, Harvest, with one of his most raw and uncommercial, Time Fades Away. While he’s avoided sticking to one style for very long, the unifying factors throughout Young’s peripatetic musical journey have been his unmistakable voice, his raw and expressive guitar playing, and his consummate songwriting skill.
In the early 1960s the Canadian-born Young performed as a self-accompanied folksinger on the
Young’s solo career took flight in 1969 with Neil Young, an album of pretty, brooding songs that included “The Loner.” This singer/songwriter debut was one of the first solo albums by a rock and roll figure, and it quietly presaged a major direction that music would take in the Seventies. In the more than 30 years since that album’s appearance, Young has recorded and toured tirelessly, releasing 35 albums. In addition to his prolific solo output, Young has undertaken occasional liaisons with Crosby, Stills and Nash (1970’s Déjà vu, 1988’s American Dream, 1999’s Looking Forward) and with Stephen Stills (1976’s Long May You Run, credited to the Stills-Young Band).
More lasting has been Young’s association with Crazy Horse, his steadiest backup band since 1969. Crazy Horse first turned up on Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere, Young’s second album, which contained the lengthy, jam-filled “Down by the River” and “Cowgirl in the Sand” and one of Young’s most memorable songs, “Cinnamon Girl.”
The group provided a solid, rocking base for Young’s songs and solos, and they’ve played with him on albums ranging from Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere and After the Gold Rush (1970) to Ragged Glory (1990) and
The original Crazy Horse included guitarist Danny Whitten, bass player Billy Talbot and drummer Ralph Molina. Whitten died of a heroin overdose in 1972, and his loss inspired much of the material on Young’s tempestuous and biographical Tonight’s the Night. Its release was delayed until 1975 out of fear it was too raw for the market Young had courted so successfully with Harvest (1972) and its #1 hit, “Heart of Gold.” Frank Sampedro joined Crazy Horse on guitar in 1976, making his debut on Young’s Zuma album. Young has termed his association with Crazy Horse “the essence of my musical life. This is the core, the smoldering thing I come back to over and over again....If I had never done anything else, the Crazy Horse stuff would just stand on its own.”
Over the years, Young has made his mark as an incorrigible artist with a distinctive, unvarnished style on electric guitar. His long, feedback-filled solos owe a debt to Jimi Hendrix, in spirit if not strictly in style. Young attributes his uncompromising approach to his early taste of success. The mass popularity he attained with “Heart of Gold,” a #1 hit in 1972, caused him to balk. “This song put me in the middle of the road,” he wrote in the liner notes to his retrospective Decade anthology. “Traveling there soon became a bore so I headed for the ditch. A rougher ride, but I saw more interesting people there.”
Nonetheless, one of his most successful albums, Rust Never Sleeps, was also one of his most uncompromising. Released in 1979, Rust Never Sleeps became an instant favorite of fans and critics. Mixing acoustic and electric numbers, it was largely inspired by the punk-rock insurgency – especially its anthemic title track, “Rust Never Sleeps (Hey Hey, My My [Into the Black])
. Rust Never Sleeps was followed by a concert video and double live album, Live Rust. At this point, Young was at a peak of popularity rivaling that of the early Seventies, when he was on top with After the Gold Rush and Harvest. Displaying no interest in repeating a formula, however, he followed Rust with the quiet, acoustic Hawks & Doves (1980) and the squalling, electric Re-ac-tor (1981).
Young’s ride became particularly bumpy during the Eighties, following his move from Reprise to Geffen Records. He veered somewhat recklessly from style to style, moving from computerized music made with sequencers and samplers (Trans) to backward-looking neo-rockabilly for the Reagan era (Everybody’s Rockin’) to a return to roots on the countrified
After his checkered tenure at Geffen Records, during which Young was actually sued by the label for allegedly releasing non-commercial records, Young returned to the Reprise label. Like a man unshackled, Neil Young released the buoyant, bluesy and horn-stoked This Note’s for You, which found him backed by the ten-man Bluenotes. The title track mocked corporate sponsorship and MTV. Ironically, though it had been banned by the music channel upon its release in 1988, “This Note’s for You” won MTV’s Best Video award a year later.
Young’s career became more clearly focused, though no less given to willful shifts in style, mood and volume, with the release of Freedom 1989. Considered a return to form and his most vital work since Rust Never Sleeps, it included acoustic and electric versions of “Rockin’ in the Free World.” From there, Young entered the Nineties full of fire and drive. He kicked off the decade with Ragged Glory, which reunited him with Crazy Horse, and collaborated with alternative-rock heroes Pearl Jam on 1995’s Mirror Ball. He also nodded to his most popular album, 1972’s Harvest, by releasing a sequel, Harvest Moon, in 1992. Songs like “From Hank to Hendrix” and the title track assessed a generation’s coming of age and paid tribute to the enduring verities of friends, family and unconditional love. In the Nineties, Young’s studio releases were often followed by tours, live albums and video documentaries, revealing his relish for the energy and spontaneity of the stage.
Throughout his self-described “bumpy ride,” Young has consistently demonstrated the unbridled passion of an artist who understands that self-renewal is the only way to avoid burning out. For this reason, he has remained one of the most significant artists of the rock and roll era.
TIMELINE
November 12, 1945: Neil Young is born in
January 23, 1969: In the wake of Buffalo Springfield’s demise, Neil Young releases his self-titled first solo album, which fails to make Billboard’s Top 200 album chart
May 27, 1969: Only five months after his debut album, Neil Young releases ‘Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere,’ the first of many with Crazy Horse.
March 17, 1970: ‘Deja Vu,’ by
September 16, 1970: Neil Young’s third solo album, ‘After the Gold Rush,’ is released. It peaks at #8 and yields a major hit, “Only Love Can Break Your Heart.”
March 11, 1972: Neil Young’s fourth solo album, ‘Harvest,’ tops the album charts for the first of two weeks. Having sold more than 4 million copies, it remains his best-selling album.
March 18, 1972: “Heart of Gold,” by Neil Young—and featuring Linda Ronstadt and James Taylor on harmony vocals—tops the singles charts.
May 3, 1972: “Old Man,” by Neil Young, peaks at #31 on the pop chart. It is the third and last time Young will crack the Top Forty
October 14, 1973: ‘Time Fades Away’, the first of three consecutive Neil Young albums that break with the mellow sound of the best-selling ‘Harvest,’ is released.
August 15, 1974: Neil Young taps into the spirit of Seventies malaise with ‘On the Beach,’ which ‘Rolling Stone’ calls “the most despairing album of the decade.”
July 16, 1975: Neil Young’s ‘Tonight’s the Night,’ an inspired by and dedicated to a pair of musical acquaintances who died of drug overdoses, is released.
November 25, 1976: Neil Young performs “Helpless” at ‘The Last Waltz,’ the Band’s farewell concert.
December 17, 1977: ‘Decade,’ a triple-album Neil Young retrospective personally assembled by the artist, is released.
October 18, 1978: ‘Comes a Time’, by Neil Young, is released.
One of Young’s most personal and intimate works, it peaks at #7 – a chart showing surpassed only by 1972’s Harvest (#1) and 1995’s Mirror Ball (#5)
July 19, 1979: ‘Rust Never Sleeps,’ by Neil Young, is released. It peaks at #8 and is certified platinum (one million sales) a year later.
November 19, 1981: ‘Re-ac-tor,’ Neil Young’s 16th and final album for Reprise Records – until his return to the label in 1988 – is released.
January 13, 1983: Neil Young kicks off his association with a new label, Geffen Records, with ‘Trans,’ an album of heavily synthesized, computer-generated songs interspersed with breezy love songs. It reaches #17, his best showing until ‘Harvest Moon’ peaks at #16 in 1992.
September 20, 1985: ‘
April 21, 1988: Marking his return to Reprise Record, Neil Young releases ‘This Note’s for You,’ a bluesy, swinging album featuring a full horn section.
September 6, 1989: MTV presents “The 1989 MTV Video Music Awards” live from the Universal Amphitheatre in
September 22, 1989: Neil Young releases ‘Freedom,’ his best album in a decade. A blistering performance of the opening track, “Rockin’ in the Free World,” on ‘Saturday Night Live’ is regarded as one of that show’s best performances.
September 23, 1990: ‘Ragged Glory,’ an electric return to form by Neil Young and Crazy Horse, is released.
October 24, 1992: Twenty years after the release of his milestone ‘Harvest,’ Neil Young issues a sequel, ‘Harvest Moon.’ It becomes his first million-seller since 1979’s ‘Rust Never Sleeps.’
July 15, 1993: Neil Young’s ‘Unplugged’ CD and video are released. Recorded on February 7th in
March 21, 1994: Neil Young’s Grammy-nominated “
July 25, 1994: Neil Young releases ‘Sleeps With Angels,’ whose harder-edged sound nods to
January 12, 1995: Neil Young is inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame at the tenth annual induction dinner. Eddie Vedder of Pearl Jam is his presenter.
May 26, 1995: Neil Young’s ‘Mirror Ball,’ an album recorded in
May 27, 1996: ‘
April 25, 2000: Neil Young releases ‘Silver & Gold,’ one of his most intimate and personal albums.
November 21, 2000: ‘Road Rock Volume 1,’ a live album credited to Neil Young, Friends & Relatives, is released.
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