Neil Young
Neil Percival Young OC OM[1][2] (born November 12, 1945) is a Canadian and American[3] singer and songwriter. After embarking on a music career in Winnipeg in the 1960s, Young moved to Los Angeles, joining the folk-rock group Buffalo Springfield. Since the beginning of his solo career, often with backing by the band Crazy Horse, he has released critically acclaimed albums such as Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere (1969), After the Gold Rush (1970), Harvest (1972), On the Beach (1974), and Rust Never Sleeps (1979). He was also a part-time member of Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, with whom he recorded the chart-topping 1970 album Déjà Vu.
For the album, see Neil Young (album).
Neil Young
November 12, 1945
- Canadian
- American (from 2020)
Bernard Shakey
- Singer
- songwriter
- musician
- film director
- screenwriter
- environmentalist
1963–present
Carrie Snodgress (1970–1975)
3
- Scott Young (father)
Astrid Young (sister)
Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada
- Vocals
- guitar
- harmonica
- keyboards
His guitar work, deeply personal lyrics[4][5][6] and signature high tenor singing voice[7][8] define his long career. Young also plays piano and harmonica on many albums, which frequently combine folk, rock, country and other musical genres. His often distorted electric guitar playing, especially with Crazy Horse, earned him the nickname "Godfather of Grunge"[9] and led to his 1995 album Mirror Ball with Pearl Jam. More recently he has been backed by Promise of the Real.[10]
Young directed (or co-directed) films using the pseudonym "Bernard Shakey", including Journey Through the Past (1973), Rust Never Sleeps (1979), Human Highway (1982), Greendale (2003), CSNY/Déjà Vu (2008), and Harvest Time (2022). He also contributed to the soundtracks of the films Philadelphia (1993) and Dead Man (1995).
Young has received several Grammy and Juno Awards. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inducted him twice: in 1995 as a solo artist and in 1997 as a member of Buffalo Springfield.[11] In 2023, Rolling Stone named Young No. 30 on their list of 250 greatest guitarists of all time.[12] Young is also on Rolling Stone's list of the 100 greatest musical artists. 21 of his albums and singles have been certified Gold and Platinum in the U.S. by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA).[13] Young was awarded the Order of Manitoba in 2006[2] and was made an Officer of the Order of Canada in 2009.[1]
Early life (1945–1963)[edit]
Neil Young[14] was born on November 12, 1945, in Toronto, Canada.[15][16] His father, Scott Alexander Young (1918–2005), was a journalist and sportswriter who also wrote fiction.[17] His mother, Edna Blow Ragland "Rassy" Young (1918–1990) was a member of the Daughters of the American Revolution.[18] Although Canadian, his mother had American and French ancestry.[19] Young's parents married in 1940 in Winnipeg, Manitoba, and moved to Toronto shortly thereafter where their first son, Robert "Bob" Young, was born in 1942.
Shortly after Young's birth in 1945, the family moved to rural Omemee, Ontario, which Young later described fondly as a "sleepy little place".[20] Young contracted polio in the late summer of 1951 during the last major outbreak of the disease in Ontario, and as a result, became partially paralyzed on his left side.[21] After the conclusion of his hospitalization, the Young family wintered in Florida, whose milder weather they believed would help Neil's convalescence.[22] During that period, Young briefly attended Faulkner Elementary School in New Smyrna Beach, Florida. In 1952, upon returning to Canada, Young moved from Omemee to Pickering (1956), and lived for a year in Winnipeg (where he would later return), before relocating to Toronto (1957–1960). While in Toronto, Young briefly attended Lawrence Park Collegiate Institute as a first year student in 1959.[23] It is rumoured that he was expelled for riding a motorcycle down the hall of the school.[24]
Young became interested in popular music he heard on the radio.[25] When Young was twelve, his father, who had had several extramarital affairs, left his mother. She asked for a divorce, which was granted in 1960.[26] She moved back to Winnipeg and Young went to live with her there, while his brother Bob stayed with their father in Toronto.[27]
During the mid-1950s, Young listened to rock 'n roll, rockabilly, doo-wop, R&B, country, and western pop. He idolized Elvis Presley and later referred to him in a number of his songs.[28] Other early musical influences included Link Wray,[29] Lonnie Mack,[30] Jimmy Gilmer and the Fireballs, The Ventures, Cliff Richard and the Shadows,[31] Chuck Berry, Hank Marvin, Little Richard, Fats Domino, The Chantels, The Monotones, Ronnie Self, the Fleetwoods, Jerry Lee Lewis, Johnny Cash, Roy Orbison and Gogi Grant.[32] Young began to play music himself on a plastic ukulele, before, as he would later relate, going on to "a better ukulele to a banjo ukulele to a baritone ukulele – everything but a guitar."[33]
Career[edit]
Early career (1963–1966)[edit]
Young and his mother settled into the working-class area of Fort Rouge, Winnipeg, where he enrolled at Earl Grey Junior High School. It was there that he formed his first band, the Jades, and met Ken Koblun. While attending Kelvin High School in Winnipeg, he played in several instrumental rock bands, eventually dropping out of school in favour of a musical career.[34] Young's first stable band was the Squires, with Ken Koblun, Jeff Wuckert and Bill Edmondson on drums, who had a local hit called "The Sultan". Over a three-year period the band played hundreds of shows at community centres, dance halls, clubs and schools in Winnipeg and other parts of Manitoba. The band also played in Fort William (now part of the city of Thunder Bay, Ontario), where they recorded a series of demos produced by a local producer, Ray Dee, whom Young called "the original Briggs," referring to his later producer David Briggs.[35] While playing at The Flamingo, Young met Stephen Stills, whose band The Company was playing the same venue, and they became friends.[36] The Squires primarily performed in Winnipeg and rural Manitoba in towns such as Selkirk, Neepawa, Brandon and Giroux (near Steinbach), with a few shows in northern Ontario.[37]
After leaving the Squires, Young worked folk clubs in Winnipeg, where he first met Joni Mitchell.[38] Mitchell recalls Young as having been highly influenced by Bob Dylan at the time.[39] Young said Phil Ochs was "a big influence on me," telling a radio station in 1969 that Ochs was "on the same level with Dylan in my eyes."[40] Here he wrote some of his earliest and most enduring folk songs such as "Sugar Mountain", about lost youth. Mitchell wrote "The Circle Game" in response.[41] The Winnipeg band The Guess Who (with Randy Bachman as lead guitarist) had a Canadian Top 40 hit with Young's "Flying on the Ground is Wrong", which was Young's first major success as a songwriter.[42]
In 1965, Young toured Canada as a solo artist. In 1966, while in Toronto, he joined the Rick James-fronted Mynah Birds. The band managed to secure a record deal with the Motown label, but as their first album was being recorded, James was arrested for being AWOL from the Navy Reserve.[43] After the Mynah Birds disbanded, Young and the bass player Bruce Palmer decided to pawn the group's musical equipment and buy a Pontiac hearse, which they used to relocate to Los Angeles.[44] Young admitted in a 2009 interview that he was in the United States illegally until he received a "green card" (permanent residency permit) in 1970.[45]
Personal life[edit]
Homes and residency[edit]
Young's family was from Manitoba, where both his parents were born and married. Young himself was born in Toronto, Ontario, and lived there at various times in his early life (1945, 1957, 1959–1960, 1966–1967), as well as Omemee (1945–1952) and Pickering, Ontario (1956) before settling with his mother in Winnipeg, Manitoba (1958, 1960–1966), where his music career began and which he considers his "hometown".[182] After becoming successful, he bought properties in California. Young had a home in Malibu, California, which burned to the ground in the 2018 Woolsey Fire.[183] Young had lived outside Canada from 1967, before returning in 2020.
Young owned Broken Arrow Ranch, a property of about 1,000 acres[184] near La Honda, California, which he purchased in 1970 for US$350,000 (US$2.7 million in 2023 dollars);[72] the property was subsequently expanded to thousands of acres.[185][186] He moved out and gave Pegi Young the ranch after their divorce in 2014. Young's son Ben lives there.[61]
Young announced in 2019 that his application for United States citizenship had been held up because of his use of marijuana. In 2020, the issue was resolved and he became a United States citizen.[187][188][189][190] Almost immediately upon gaining US citizenship, Young returned to living in Canada for the first time in over half-a-century, as he and Daryl Hannah moved to a cottage near Omemee, the town where he had originally lived from shortly after his birth until the age of 7.[191][192]
Relationships and family[edit]
Young married his first wife, restaurant owner Susan Acevedo, in December 1968. They were together until October 1970, when she filed for divorce.[193]
From late 1970 to 1975, Young was in a relationship with actress Carrie Snodgress. The song "A Man Needs a Maid" from Harvest is inspired by his seeing her in the film Diary of a Mad Housewife. They met soon afterward and she moved in with him on his ranch in northern California. They have a son, Zeke, who was born September 8, 1972. He has been diagnosed with cerebral palsy.[194][195]
Young met future wife Pegi Young (née Morton) in 1974 when she was working as a waitress at a diner near his ranch, a story he tells in the 1992 song "Unknown Legend". They married in August 1978[196] and had two children together, Ben and Amber. Ben has been diagnosed with cerebral palsy,[195] and Amber has been diagnosed with epilepsy.[195] The couple were musical collaborators and co-founded the Bridge School in 1986.[197][198] On July 29, 2014, Young filed for divorce after 36 years of marriage.[61] Pegi died on January 1, 2019.[199]
Young has been in a relationship with actress and director Daryl Hannah since 2014.[200] Young and Hannah were reported to have wed on August 25, 2018, in Atascadero, California.[201] Young confirmed his marriage to Hannah in a video released on October 31, 2018.[202]
Young has been widely reported to be the godfather of actress Amber Tamblyn;[203] in a 2009 interview with Parade, Tamblyn explained that "godfather" was "just a loose term" for Young, Dennis Hopper, and Dean Stockwell, three famous friends of her father, Russ Tamblyn, who were important influences on her life.[204]
Charity work[edit]
Young is an environmentalist[205] and outspoken advocate for the welfare of small farmers, having co-founded in 1985 the benefit concert Farm Aid. He worked on LincVolt, the conversion of his 1959 Lincoln Continental to hybrid electric technology, as an environmentalist statement.[206][207] In 1986, Young helped found the Bridge School,[208] an educational organization for children with severe verbal and physical disabilities, and its annual supporting Bridge School Benefit concerts, together with his then wife Pegi Young.[209]
Young is a member of the Canadian charity Artists Against Racism.[210]
Business ventures[edit]
Young was part owner of Lionel, LLC, a company that makes toy trains and model railroad accessories.[211] In 2008 Lionel emerged from bankruptcy and his shares of the company were wiped out. He was instrumental in the design of the Lionel Legacy control system for model trains,[211] and remains on the board of directors of Lionel.[212] He has been named as co-inventor on seven US patents related to model trains.[213]
Young has long held that the digital audio formats in which most people download music are deeply flawed, and do not provide the rich, warm sound of analog recordings. He claims to be acutely aware of the difference, and compares it with taking a shower in tiny ice cubes versus ordinary water.[214] Young and his company PonoMusic developed Pono, a music download service and dedicated music player focusing on "high-quality" uncompressed digital audio.[215] It was designed to compete against highly compressed MP3 type formats. Pono promised to present songs "as they first sound during studio recording".[216][217][218] The service and the sale of the player were launched in October 2014.[219][220]
Legacy and influence[edit]
Young's political outspokenness and social awareness influenced artists such as Blind Melon, Phish, Pearl Jam, and Nirvana. Young is referred to as "the Godfather of Grunge" because of the influence he had on Kurt Cobain and Eddie Vedder and the entire grunge movement. Vedder inducted Young into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1995, citing him as a huge influence. Young is cited as being a significant influence on the experimental rock group Sonic Youth, and Thom Yorke of Radiohead. Yorke recounted of first hearing Young after sending a demo tape into a magazine when he was 16, who favorably compared his singing voice to Young's. Unaware of Young at that time, he bought After the Gold Rush (1970), and "immediately fell in love" with his work, calling it "extraordinary".[227]
The Australian rock group Powderfinger named themselves after Young's song "Powderfinger" from Rust Never Sleeps (1979). The members of the Constantines have occasionally played Neil Young tribute shows under the name Horsey Craze.[228]
Jason Bond, an East Carolina University biologist, discovered a new species of trapdoor spider in 2007 and named it Myrmekiaphila neilyoungi after Young,[229] his favorite singer.[230]