Neil Young Biography

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.
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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 & 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, 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.

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NEIL YOUNG BIOGRAPHY