Neil Young Biography

Even now, at 59-years-of-age, Neil Young could never be accused of mellowing out. He is one of the most influential singer/songwriters of his generation and a restless, irascible bugger to boot. His trademark, raw nasal tone and hippie-cowboy loner stance have helped shape rock and roll and he's continually explored new musical territory, from his trademark acoustic folk and country rock, to blues, rockabilly and electronic music. And as the founder of Neil Young and Crazy Horse, he gave birth to ear-bashing grunge.

Neil Young was born on 12 November 1945 in Toronto, Canada. Young moved to Winnipeg with his mother, Edna after she had split from Neil's sports journalist father. Young was an apathetic student and was more interested in the guitar than studies. He soon dropped out of school to concentrate on the band he'd formed, The Squires. Young, supported by his mum-cum-manager gained local notoriety with the band who played folk-rock music. After the Squires disbanded in the summer of 1965, Young recorded some demos for Elektra Records, but failed to secure a contract. Young returned to Toronto where he spent the rest of the year playing the Toronto coffeehouse circuit, alongside artists such as Joni Mitchell and Stephen Stills. Young then formed the Mynah birds with Bruce Palmer and future Motown star Rick 'Superfreak' James. The band released a couple of singles on the Motown label but were soon dropped when the label discovered Rick had dodged national service.

Neil then moved to Los Angeles in 1966 where he met up with his acquaintance from his coffee house gig days, Stephen Stills. Together they formed Buffalo Springfield. Despite being overshadowed by The Byrds and Dylan, the band still produced some memorable electric folk songs, 1966 single For What Its Worth, brought them some success but the band split up in 1968 after three albums.

Young signed to Frank Sinatra's label Reprise in 1968 as a solo artist. His eponymous debut solo album was released in 1969. It was an acoustic, fractured effort but emotive songs like The Old Laughing Lady and The Loner hinted at the genius to come. His follow up, Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere (1969), found Young in full control. Young hooked up with a hard bitten former bar band, Crazy Horse, for the bruising, powerful cuts, Down by The River and Cowgirl In The Sand.

By 1975 Young had divorced Snodgrass but spent a lot of time caring for his son Zeke. He reunited with Crazy Horse for that year's Zuma album, a raw, darkly resonant album that featured standout tracks such as Cortez The Killer. Following a disappointing album, Long May You Run, Young recorded the American Stars 'n' Bars album in 1977. The album featured one of Young's best-loved songs, the aching Like A Hurricane. By 1978 Young had remarried to the love of his life, Pegi Morton. But their first child, Ben was found to have severe cerebral palsy. Young and his wife spent 12 hours a day on mind exercises and the singer founded the Bridge School for cerebral palsied children in San Francisco which was financed by an annual series of all-star concerts arranged by Young. After the mellow, countrified Comes A Time album in 1978, Young again hooked up with Crazy Horse for 1979's Live Rust Never Sleeps. It was an electrifying set of passionate rock songs including My My Hey Hey, (Out Of The Blue) about Sex Pistol Johnny Rotten. The song contained the infamous song lyric %u201CIt%u2019s better to burn out than fade away,%u201D which was quoted by Kurt Cobain in his suicide note.

In the 80's, the effect of his children's illnesses began to take its toll emotionally and much of Young's work sounded directionless. After 1981's Reactor stiffed commercially, Young moved to Geffen Records where he recorded the vocoder- laden, Trans album in 1983. The album was an attempt to reflect his son's communication problems but Young's vocodered vocals rendered the lyrics unintelligible. Geffen Records then sued Young for making albums %u201Cnot commercial in nature and musically uncharacteristic.%u201D But when label boss David Geffen learned what the Young family were going through he apologised and rescinded the lawsuit. However, the remainder of Young's time at Geffen remained an artistically barren period where he made ill-advised forays into MOR with 1983's Everybody's Rockin' and rockabilly on 1988's This Note's For You, although the worthy title track did satirize rock stars endorsing commercial products.

Young was back on track however with 1989's Freedom album with tracks such as Rockin' In The Free World and Crime In The City marking his return to searing rock and roll. With Crazy Horse he recorded Ragged Glory in 1990, a frenetic guitar mash-up that would see Young being championed by exponents of the new grunge movement.

With his artistic rebirth complete, Young recorded the lilting, countrified set Harvest Moon in 1992 - a belated followup to 1972's Harvest. 1993's MTV Unplugged album saw Young attempting radically altered versions of his best known songs to great success. 1994 album Sleeps With Angels was a downbeat elegy to Kurt Cobain while Mirrorball was a fuzzy, unfocused collaboration with Pearl Jam. The instrumental soundtrack to the 1996 Johnny Depp film, Dead Man proved an interesting diversion before 1996's Broken Arrow album and 1997's Year Of The Horse. 2000's Silver & Gold was an enjoyable enough listen without hitting the heights of his past glories.

Young returned in 2004 with the ambitious concept album, Greendale. The album, and ensuing live shows told the storey of the fictional farming Green family and gave Young the chance to address issues ranging from political corruption to environmental damage. By the end of the live gigs, the band and the assembled cast playing out the tale were on stage frantically waving peace signs singing, 'Save the planet for another day.' In anybody else's hands it would have been downright corny.

Young is set to release his new album, Prairie Wind, in September 2005 and it%u2019s said to be a return to the acoustic tones of Harvest. Film director Jonathan Demme is also working on a live concert film that will be released later this year.

Today, the irascible elder statesman of rock eschews the trappings of fame and lives a rather reclusive life on his Northern California ranch. He declines most interviews, turning down Rolling Stone in particular because of its perfumed ad inserts: "I don't like the way the magazine smells," says the irascible old bugger.