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Neil
Young
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. 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, 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, Young
alternated between these two extremes, and both proved
equally influential; there were just as many simpy singer-songwriters
as there were grunge and country-rock bands claiming to
be influenced by Neil Young. Despite his enormous catalog
and influence, Young continued to move forward, writing
new songs and exploring new music in his fourth decade
as a performing artist. 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. 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,
which were ignored. Frustrated by his lack of success,
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 Young quit the band several times before finally leaving
to become a solo artist in May of 1968. Hiring Elliot
Roberts as his manager, 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. 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 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 and Nash, eventually joining the group for their
spring 1970 album, Deja Vu. Although he was now part of
Crosby, Stills and Nash, 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
Young as a solo star, and fame only increased through
his association with CSN&Y.
Although Crosby, Stills, Nash and 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, 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 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, 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, 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.
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, 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
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 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 had restored 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, 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. 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 Young soon settled
into a cult audience for the mid-'80s.
Over the course of the mid-'80s, 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
and Nash called American Dream, which was greeted with
savagely negative reviews.
Ameican Dream didn't prepare any observer for the critical
and commercial success of 1989's Freedom, which found
Young following the half-acoustic/half-electric blueprint
of Rust Never Sleeps to fine results. Around the time
of its release, Young became a hip name to drop in indie
rock circles, and he was the subject of a tribute record
title The Bridge in 1989. The following year, 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, 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,
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 followup, Harvest Moon.
An explicit sequel to his 1972 breakthrough, Harvest Moon
became 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, 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, Young reunited with Crosby, Stills and
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 and Gold,
followed in the spring of 2000. In recognition of his
2000 summer tour, Young released the live album Road Rock
- Vol. 1 the following fall, showcasing a spectacular
two night account of Young's performance at the Red Rocks
Amphitheater in Morrison, Colorado in September 2000.
A DVD version titled Red Rocks Live was issued that December,
including 12 tracks initially unavailable on Road Rock
-- Vol. 1. --Stephen Thomas Erlewine
Source:
AllMusicGuide.com -->
Neil-Young.com
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