Neil Young was born in Toronto. Now, he doesn't make a big deal of this...I mean, having seen him several times in Toronto, I can't say he whips out a longer set or anything for the hometown faithful...but that's because his heart is elsewhere. It's in his music. He spent his childhood in the blissful Northern Ontario town of Omemee (turn left at the T-intersection that divides Omemee and Buckhorn) and, after his mom Rassy's divorce from sports journalist Scott Young, he fled to Winnipeg. The Winnipeg scene of the early 1960s was corrosive and diverse. Consider that the twin talents of Young and guitarist Randy Bachman (he of the solo of the BEST version of "Shakin' All Over", recorded in a Winnipeg TV studio by Chad Allan and the Expressions) loomed large over the snowy town. Neil gigged from Winnipeg to Port Arthur (home of young Paul Shaffer) to Yorkville as a folkie, a surf instrumentalist, a rock 'n' roll convert and a guy with a funky side. Among his endeavours were the Squires, the Mynah Birds (with Rick James on vocals and the great Bruce Palmer on bass), and his own solo ventures. Tiring of Canada (believe me folks, it's a small and limited conservative country!), he and Bruce packed off in his Pontiac hearse and headed for California. They were looking for Stephen Stills, whom Young had befriended up north months before. Frustrated, Young and Palmer decided to leave LA, but got caught in a traffic jam on Sunset Boulevard. Stills and Richie Furay were behind them, convinced that the Ontario plates meant the hearse was Neil's. They were right. They pulled over and formed Buffalo Springfield on the spot. The band became immediately popular, had but one large hit (Stills' uncharacteristically precise "For What it's Worth") and acrimony set in. Young wrote some amazing material ("Mr. Soul", "Expecting to Fly", "Flying on the Ground is Wrong", "I Am a Child") but was dissuaded from singing much of it because the group's initial producers, Brian Stone and Charles Greene, didn't like Young's voice. And, this is the sticking point with most people: They are under the wrong impression that Young sings off-key. No, he doesn't. Listen to the material. Even on the drunkenness of "Mellow My Mind", he hits all the right notes. Anyway, Young split from Springfield several times, bailing from Monterey Pop (he hated festivals) among other things. The solo career started in 1969, with the weird overdub extravaganza that was "Neil Young" to the wonderful jamming with Crazy Horse that is "Everybody Knows This is Nowhere". He was hitting his stride when Stills recruited him to join the bloated CSN. You can say a lot of things about Young, a very wilful character, but one thing is: He ain't dumb. When CSN added the Y for Woodstock, Young refused to take the stage until he was assured that he would not be filmed. Wise move. "Deja Vu" by CSNY became huge, as did the pointed Young single "Ohio", about the National Guard murder of four Kent State student protesters. From there, commercial success: "After the Gold Rush" and "Harvest" are in most people's record collections. Then, absolute brilliance. He deliberately sabotaged the emptiness of fame with scathing (and truly rewarding) records such as "Time Fades Away" (still unavailable on CD), "On the Beach" (my personal fave), "Tonight's the Night". Long after the heroin death of Horse guitarist Danny Whitten, a new configuration formed for the bracing "Zuma", with the complex and staggering epic "Cortez the Killer". "Zuma" is a dangerous and brutally honest piece of work, punk in every sense of the word. After that, some confusion: the patchwork of "American Stars 'n' Bars", the fabulous retrospective "Decade", and the so-so country rock of "Comes a Time". "Rust Never Sleeps", movie and album drawn from a 1978 concert tour, has a protean power that will never die. A true classic. Enter the 1980s, and political and personal upheaval. There was some bizarre support of the evil Ronald Reagan. There were albums that were released without fanfare: the folk and country "Hawks and Doves" and the crunching "re-ac-tor". (Both are fine, though idiosyncratic, works.) Young concentrated on methods of education and therapy for his second child with cerebral palsy, young Ben. He moved to Geffen records and released the strangest albums of his career: the Kraftwerk electronics of "Trans" (in retrospect, a deeply funny and moving record); the rockabilly of "Everybody's Rockin'" (good videos); the synthesized overload of "Landing on Water" (some great songs buried under bad production); the country of "Old Ways" and the Crazy Horse rock of "Life" (both have their moments, but are generally limp). Leaving Geffen in a hail of lawsuits, Young jumped back with the horny fun of "This Note's for You" and a real masterpiece, "Freedom". After that, another five-star record: the Crazy Horse force of "Ragged Glory". He looked poised to return to top form in the 1990s: "Harvest Moon" was earnest and satisfying; "Unplugged" marked time pleasantly; "Sleeps with Angels" was genuinely tortured and deliberately bookended the harrowing "Tonight's the Night"; "Mirror Ball" turns up some of Young's best songs ever, but they're buried under the unsubtle playing of Pearl Jam and the TERRIBLE mix by producer Brendan O'Brien. If Neil ever remixes this album, it will stand as one of his greatest ever. During this time, Neil and his devoted and hard-working wife Pegi established the Bridge School for children with CP. You should visit the site; they do excellent work there. Records became haphazard again. "Broken Arrow", with Crazy Horse, seemed like an arbitrary pulling of old tapes. The following tour was documented by Jim Jarmusch as "The Year of the Horse". It has some marvellous moments, including an absolutely mind-blowing segue of "Like a Hurricane" from 1976 to 1996, but it received savage reviews from rock 'n' roll know-nothings and faux academics such as that bloated moron, Roger Ebert, who rated the film the worst of the year. (The man just doesn't understand the redemptive power of rock 'n' roll.) Since then, the output has been inconsistent. I loved the personal touches of "Silver and Gold", was indifferent to the overall happiness of "Are You Passionate?", but can't get enough of the angry concept album "Greendale", which pillories the media, the presidency and the state of the dying United States -- while reinforcing the hope that lies in today's youth. This is a deeply important record that radio programmers are deliberately ignoring. Over the years, there have been CSNY reunions featuring blistering live shows and indifferent albums (it is Young, now, who carries the can on tour). Live, there are myriad albums to choose from. My faves are "Time Fades Away", "Rust Never Sleeps", "Live Rust", "Arc/Weld", and portions of "Road Rock vol. 1". Picking Neil Young for the new intitiate is tough slogging....what you might see as gold could be someone else's garbage, and vice-versa. The key to understanding Neil Young is simple: He is not a boy. He is a man. He is responsible. He is an artist. He feels he can say what he wants, and stands to criticism as a result. He has passion, and he cares. He is a family man. And, my favourite of all, he will never rescind his Canadian citizenship. His catalogue holds up to anyone else's in the history of the medium, and that includes Elvis, Little Richard, Dylan, Beatles, Zeppelin (who quote Neil TWICE on their fabulous new double DVD!), the Pistols, Bikini Kill, Sly and the Family Stone, Velvet Underground, Rocket from the Tombs and all the other greatest groups of this long history of rock 'n' roll. I've seen him live 13 times, and he's never let me down. I expect to still be going to Neil Young concerts in 20 years. Because the guy just won't die.
Bio written by: The_Other_Window |
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