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 Bob 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, 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,
Neil 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
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, 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 & Nash, eventually joining the group
for their spring 1970 album, Deja Vu. Although he was now part of Crosby, Stills
& 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 & 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 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.
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 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 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, 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, 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 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 follow-up, 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 & 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, 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. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Music Guide.
