Neil Young

Vinyl Discography:

Biography:

That Neil Young is a pop music icon needs no explanation: Young is in his sixth decade. He recently wrote his autobiography, but he's far from finished.
I've been a Neil Young fan since the late sixties. My father gave me my first single, "Expecting to Fly," in a sheet music store in Tilburg called Spiero. It took about ten years for a Young solo album to join the collection: 1978's "Comes a Time." In his book "Waging Heavy Peace," Young writes that it's his most successful solo album. What a coincidence to be playing such an album! Now's a good time to read his biography.

Stuff man

From the very first pages, Neil Young takes you on a journey into the world of his past and present. In the opening chapters, he writes about his desire to record with Crazy Horse again. That this desire would culminate in Psychedelic Pill is now history. This album can be considered one of the master and his band's best.
Young writes candidly about being a "stuffman," or collector. Model trains and cars from the 1950s are sought-after collectibles, as are manuscripts, photographs, tape recordings, records, and clothing, as he writes in the book he wrote in Hawaii. His close friendship with Stephen Stills surfaces early in his career and continues to this day. Young also talks about his love life, his children, and his health. Both of these last topics are not without their worries and have an impact on his life. Naturally, the common thread is his ever-lasting musical career. His friendship with fellow musician Bruce Springsteen is also discussed, as is the kinship they felt after the death of their musical companions; Young lost Ben Keith around the same time Springsteen lost his "brother" Clarence Clemons. It touched both men deeply.

Some facts recur throughout the book. Sometimes as a glimpse into the future, sometimes in chronological order, and occasionally as a flashback. Young plays leapfrog with time: the time in his memory, the timeline of the book, and the time in which he lives as he writes. This makes this biography an enjoyable read, framed by a moment in the life of the master himself.

Numerous projects

It's no secret that Young was a heavy marijuana user. But at times, it was also cocaine, such as during the legendary Woodstock, which even negatively impacted the playing of Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, resulting in one of their worst performances ever, according to Young. When he started writing this book, he had just gotten clean and was still discovering whether he could compose songs without weed. That he ultimately succeeded beyond any doubt must be a huge victory for him in the new clean phase of his life.
Besides music, Young is involved in numerous projects, such as Lincvolt, which develops an electric car, and the Pure Tone project—now renamed Pono (Hawaiian for "just and good")—which makes studio-quality music available on a streaming service within a revenue model for the artists. Young patiently reflects on the driving forces behind these projects and his personal motivation for participating. His business partner Elliott Roberts is always there to advise him.

The music remains central, including the collaborations with fellow artists. His musical sister, as Young calls her, Linda Ronstadt, regularly reappears in his career, as do Nicolette Larsson and Emmylou Harris. Towards the end of the book, the timelines intertwine. This biography occasionally reads like a truly gripping book. Young will reveal more about this in a future article. Anyone familiar with his musical oeuvre will enjoy reading this book, which will certainly not be his last.