Neil Young
Since co-founding Buffalo Springfield in 1966 (and then splitting
after two albums), Neil Young has rarely stopped moving.
Born in Toronto in November 1945, Neil Perceval
Young worked in Canada as a folk singer before teaming up
with Steve Stills in Buffalo Springfield.
When the band split in
1968 he took up solo performances again and recorded a self-titled
album, which he followed with Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere (1969)
for which he used a backing group which he named Crazy Horse.
Young was invited to join Crosby, Stills &
Nash, and his
songs Helpless and Country Girl were the most
impressive on the band's Deja Vu album.
At the same time
he cut another solo album, After The Goldrush, where he
proved his abilities as a songwriter who regarded lyrical content
to be as important as the music.
Between September 1973 and July 1975 he delivered three of the
most challenging and unforgiving albums of his career.
Referred to
retrospectively by fans as the Doom Trilogy, all three sprang from
a protracted dark-night-of-the-soul. Time Fades Away is a
ragged, dislocated live document of a nightmarish tour. Tonight's
The Night is a stark, tequila-soaked wake for Danny Whitten,
his friend and ex-Crazy Horse guitarist, who overdosed on the
proceeds of Young's severance cheque. And On The Beach sees
Young analyse his place in the darkness of end-of-an-era
California and in the process produce the missing link between
Lennon's Plastic Ono Band and punk.
If circumstances hadn't already dictated the direction of his
music - drug deaths; a tour where his band and crew turned on him;
ill health; relationship problems during which he split with
actress Carrie Snodgress; the diagnosis of their son Zeke's
cerebral palsy - then the success of Harvest (a Number 1
album) seemed to spur Young to reinvent himself even more
remarkably than usual.
As if seeking salvation, Young regrouped with Crosby, Stills
& Nash for a tour in the summer of 1974.
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