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Neil Young (born November 12, 1945Neil Young is a Canadian singer-songwriter who has become one of the most respected and influential musicians of his generation.

Young is recognizable for his high-pitched, nasal voice and for his deeply personal lyrics. Musically, most of Young’s work falls into one of two distinct s. The first is an acoustic, country-tinged folk rock, heard on such songs as "Heart of Gold," "Old Man" and "Long May You Run." The other is a grinding, lumbering form of hard rock, heard on songs like "Cinnamon Girl," "Southern Man" and "Rockin' in the Free World" and often recorded with the backing band Crazy Horse. He has also experimented with soul, swing, jazz, rockabilly, and electronica in his widely varied career.

Young came to prominence with folk rock band Buffalo Springfield in the mid-1960s. He reached his commercial peak during the singer-songwriter boom of the early 1970s with the albums and his role in the supergroup Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young. He has since fiercely refused commercial stardom, which has led him to create both durable, uncompromising music and outlandish experiments that have left critics, audiences and—in one notable case—his record label baffled.

Despite a lack of consistency, though some will say just because of it, Young is a widely influential and acclaimed performer. He has been inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. In 2000, the cable music channel VH1 listed The Top 100 Artists of Rock and Roll, ranking Young as number 30. He was also ranked number 30 on VH1's list of Top 100 Hard Rock Artists.

Under the pseudonym (2003). He is also an outspoken advocate for environmental issues and small farmers, and co-founded the benefit concert Farm Aid.

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Young was born in Toronto; his father was sportswriter and novelist Scott Young and his mother Rassy Young. After his parents' divorce, Young moved with his mother back to the family home of Winnipeg, Manitoba, and it was there that Young started his music career. His first bands were high school instrumental rock bands in Winnipeg (one of which, the Squires, had a local hit with "The Sultan"). He began to work the folk clubs in Winnipeg, where he befriended guitarist Stephen Stills and Joni Mitchell. Though he has since moved to the United States to further his music career, his connection to Manitoba is prevelant in many of his lyrics.

Before fame, Young spent a summer in Thunder Bay, Ontario, playing at local clubs and gigs.

In 1966, after an aborted record deal (on the Motown label) with the Rick James-fronted Mynah Birds, Young and bass player Bruce Palmer relocated to Los Angeles, where he again met Stills. With the American Richie Furay, they formed Buffalo Springfield, taking their name from a manufacturer of heavy equipment such as steamrollers. Playing a mixture of folk, country, psychedelia, and rock; and given a hard edge by the twin lead guitars of Stills and Young, Buffalo Springfield was a critical success, and the first record (1967) sold well, supported by a hit single in Stills' political "For What It's Worth."

During sessions for the follow-up, relations between the band deteriorated, with Stills and Young, the leaders of the group, pulling in opposite directions. The tensions led to the abandonment of the record, provisionally titled (1967). By then, Palmer had been arrested for possession of drugs and deported back to Canada, and Young had all but left the group; his compositions "Mr Soul", "Expecting to Fly", and the adventurous "Broken Arrow" are solo recordings in all but name. Despite that, the album was well received.

These three songs on can be seen as a model for Young's solo records. "Expecting to Fly" was a piece of confessional folk rock, of a kind with many other records that emerged from the singer-songwriter movement. On the other hand "Mr Soul" was pure rock and roll, driven by a fat guitar riff that owed more than a little to the Rolling Stones' "Satisfaction". "Broken Arrow" was a lushly produced ballad, with a string arrangement of the kind Young's producer, Jack Nitzsche, would dub "symphonic pop." Along with country music, Young's solo career would tend to flit among these disparate forms.

By 1968, the band had split up permanently. Due to contractual obligations, a final album , comprised of previously unused recordings, was released. At this point, Young had already signed a solo deal with Reprise Records (home of his compatriot, Joni Mitchell, with whom he shared a manager, Elliot Roberts).

(January 1969), which contained a mix of songs similar to his Buffalo Springfield contributions; it received mixed reviews. The album is a promising debut; the track "The Loner" is still a staple of his live shows. Wanting a harder rock sound for his next record, Young recruited a few members of the band The Rockets, which had released a self-titled album in 1968. Danny Whitten, guitar; Billy Talbot, bass guitar; and Ralph Molina, drums took the name Crazy Horse (after the historical figure of the same name). Their album (May 1969), credited to "Neil Young with Crazy Horse", was recorded in just two weeks. The album is dominated by two lengthy jams, "Cowgirl in the Sand" and "Down by the River", both of which showcased the understanding between the musicians and Young's idiosyncratic guitar soloing.

Shortly after the release of , Young was recruited to join the supergroup Crosby, Stills, and Nash which became Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young with Neil on board. Over the next year with CSNY, he performed at Woodstock and recorded the classic album album, was written following the Kent State University killings that happened on May 4, 1970. The song was used frequently during anti-war rallies in the 1970s, and Young was still performing it 20 years later, by which time he often dedicated it to the Chinese students who had been killed at Tiananmen Square protests of 1989.

Crazy Horse, and Whitten in particular, were also in evidence on Young's next solo album, (1970), (which also featured the young Nils Lofgren as well as Stills and CSNY bassist Greg Reeves). The album was a commercial breakthrough, aided by his newfound fame in CSNY. The album contains some of his best work, covering subjects from the environmental concerns of the title track, redneck racism on "Southern Man" (which, along with the later song "Alabama", prompted the reply "Sweet Home Alabama" from Lynyrd Skynyrd) to the acoustic love songs of "Tell Me Why" and "I Believe in You." The single "Only Love Can Break Your Heart" was a minor hit.

With CSNY splitting up and Crazy Horse signing their own record deal, Young recruited a new group of country-music session musicians, whom he christened The Stray Gators, and recorded a country rock record in was a massive hit, producing the US number one single "Heart of Gold." Other songs returned to some usual Young themes: "Alabama" expressed similar sentiments to "Southern Man", "Words" featured a lengthy guitar workout with the band, and "The Needle and the Damage Done" chronicled Danny Whitten's descent into heroin addiction. The album's success caught Young off guard, and his first instinct was to back away from stardom. He would later write that "'Heart of Gold' put me in the middle of the road. Traveling there soon became a bore, so I headed for the ditch. A rougher ride but I saw more interesting people there."

On 8 September 1972, the Academy Award-nominated actress Carrie Snodgress gave birth to Neil Young's first child. The boy, Zeke Young, would later be diagnosed with cerebral palsy. The relationship with Snodgress lasted until 1975.

live album, it became evident that Danny Whitten could not function as a musician due to his drug abuse. On November 18, 1972, shortly after he was fired from the tour preparations, Whitten was found dead of an overdose of valium and alcohol, a lethal combination that he had always warned his friends against, prompting thoughts that it might have been suicide.

In the second half of 1973, Young formed The Santa Monica Flyers, with Crazy Horse's rhythm section augmented by Lofgren on guitar. Deeply affected by the drug-induced deaths of Whitten and roadie Bruce Berry, they recorded in 1973, a dark, maudlin record of unhinged blues and out-of-tune ballads that Reprise did not see fit to release until two years later. The album received mixed reviews at the time, but it is now generally well regarded by critics and seen by some as a precursor to punk rock. In Young's own opinion, it was the closest he ever came to art.

By the time (1974), another blues-influenced record but more focused, based loosely around the theme of the downside of fame and the Californian life it sold poorly, but both would become critical favourites and may represent Young's most original work. A review by Derek Svennungsen of the 2004 CD re-release calls it "mesmerizing, harrowing, lucid, and bleary". [1] The mood of these albums was reflected in the tour for , a drunken and frequently shambolic affair that divides fans to this day.

Young reformed Crazy Horse as his backup band, this time with Frank Sampedro on guitar for 1975's , its songs mainly concerned failed relationships, with an exception being "Cortez the Killer", a retelling of the Spanish conquest of South America from the viewpoint of the Aztecs that caused the record to be banned in Franco's Spain. The next year he reunited with Stephen Stills for the album , credited to the Stills-Young band, but the accompanying concerts were cancelled mid-tour when Young walked out, later sending Stills a telegram that read: "Funny how some things that start spontaneously end that way. Eat a peach, Neil."

In 1976, Young performed with The Band, Joni Mitchell, and other rock musicians in the high profile all-star concert The Last Waltz. The release of Martin Scorsese's movie of the concert was delayed while Scorsese unwillingly re-edited it to deemphasise the lump of cocaine clearly visible hanging from Young's nose during his performance of "Helpless".

1977's . The record featured sweet harmonies from Emmylou Harris and Young protege Nicolette Larson. His next offering was a return to his country once again featured Nicolette Larson and also featured Crazy Horse making their first appearance since gave few clues as to Young's next step. Looking to avoid retreading the same musical paths, he set out on the lengthy "Rust Never Sleeps" tour, dividing each concert between a solo acoustic set and an electric set with Crazy Horse. A direct response to punk rock, the tour proved Young to be one of the few performers who understood the new trends and could adapt, although the recordings never really matched the intensity of the actual punk singles of the time. A new song, "Hey Hey, My My (Into the Black)" compared the changing public perceptions of Johnny Rotten and the recently deceased Elvis Presley, once dismissed as a dangerous influence himself but later hailed as an icon. It also coined the infamous phrase "It's better to burn out than fade away", which would return to haunt Young some years later. Rotten, meanwhile, returned the favor by playing one of Young's records on a London radio show. The accompanying albums (a mixture of old and new, and a genuine live record) captured the two sides of the concerts. A movie version of the concerts, also called "Rust Never Sleeps", was released in 1979, and directed by Young under the pseudonym Bernard Shakey.

Like many rock stars of the '60s and '70s, the 1980s were a lean time for Young both critically and commercially as he struggled to remain relevant. After providing the incidental music to the film (1981) was another set with Crazy Horse, with a mask of distortion and feedback obscuring a relatively weak selection of songs, but his strangest record of the decade came with 1982's . Recorded almost entirely electronically with the instruments and vocals modified by effects such as vocoder and a reliance on synthesizers, it is often considered Young's attempt to experiment with technology that might give his son Ben, who has severe cerebral palsy and cannot speak, a way to communicate. (In 1986, Young and wife Pegi would help found The Bridge School [2], and they continue to support it with an annual benefit concert). Fans, however, were baffled and the album, along with 1983's rockabilly- would lead record company head David Geffen to sue Young for making "unrepresentative" music (i.e. suing Young for not sounding like Neil Young). There has been speculation Young deliberately made a record that diverged from his classic sound because he was unhappy with Geffen, and that he knew fairly well that he was releasing an uncommercial record.

(1986Neil Young is entertaining as Neil uses synthesizers and other instruments related to the 80's and blends them with his own , he does not use them over abundantly, but nevertheless it is obviously the 80's. Young would later claim that he had grown so angry with Geffen that he was now producing music purely to watch it anger the bosses at Geffen Records. Even the resumption of his partnership with Crazy Horse on 1987's failed to raise him from the artistic doldrums. It was, however, enough to fulfill his contract with Geffen and enable him to switch labels.

Signing for Warner Brothers and returning to Reprise Records, Young produced (1988) with a new band, The Bluenotes, whose name rights were owned by musician Harold Melvin. The addition of a brass section provided a new jazzier sound and the title track became his first hit single of the decade. Accompanied by a witty video which parodied corporate rock, the pretensions of advertising and Michael Jackson in particular, the song was initially banned by MTV (although the Canadian music channel, MuchMusic ran it immediately) before being put into heavy rotation and finally given the MTV Video Music Award for Best Video of the Year for 1989. Strangely, there were sound problems during Young's acceptance speech. As a result of the album's release, Melvin himself sued Young over use of the Bluenotes name. Following the lawsuit, Young renamed his back-up group "Ten Men Workin'" for the balance of the accompanying concert tour that followed. In something of a renaissance, Young also provided a few highlights on that year's CSNY reunion completed the return to form, a mixture of acoustic and electric rock dealing with the state of the US and the world in 1989, alongside Young's best love songs for some time and a version of the standard "On Broadway". "Rockin' in the Free World", two versions of which bookended the album, again caught the mood (becoming a anthem during the fall of the Berlin Wall, a few months after the record's release). Like Bruce Springsteen's "Born in the USA", the anthemic use of this song was based on largely ignoring the verses, which evoke social problems and implicitly criticize American government policies. By 1990, grunge music was beginning to make its first inroads in the charts and many of its prime movers, including Nirvana's Kurt Cobain, were citing Young as an influence, which led elements of the press to give him the somewhat dubious title "The Godfather of Grunge".

with Crazy Horse, whose guitar riffs and feedback driven sound showed his new admirers that he could still cut it. Though the music was not quite as intense as the actual grunge bands themselves, no one could mistake Young's "Country Home" for "Smells Like Teen Spirit". Young then headed back out on the road with alternative rock elder statesmen Sonic Youth as support. Their influence could be clearly heard on the accompanying home video and live album, was later sold separately.

Typically, Young's next move was another return to country music. and reunited him with some of the musicians from that session, including Linda Ronstadt. Despite being out of step with fashion again, the title track was a minor hit and the record was reviewed well, and sold equally well, containing fine songs such as "From Hank to Hendrix" and "Unknown Legend", a tribute to his wife, and his resurgent popularity saw him booked on , and his song "Philadelphia" was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Song, losing out to Bruce Springsteen's contribution to the same film. A summer tour covering both Europe and North America with Booker T. and the MGs (with whom he played two songs at a 1992 Bob Dylan tribute concert at Madison Square Garden) was widely praised as a triumph. On a few of these dates, the show ended with a rendition of "Rockin' in the Free World" played with Pearl Jam.

Young was back with Crazy Horse for 1994's , a much darker record. The title track told the story of Kurt Cobain's suicide, after Young had tried to contact the singer prior to his death. Cobain had quoted Young's "It's better to burn out than fade away" (a line from "Hey Hey, My My (Into The Black)") in his suicide note. Other songs dealt with drive-by killings ("Driveby"), environmentalism ("Piece of Crap") and Young's own vision of America (the archetypal car metaphor of "Trans Am"). Still admired by the prime movers of grunge, Young performed with Pearl Jam at the MTV Music Awards, which led to a joint tour, with the band and producer Brendan O'Brien backing Young. The accompanying album, (1995), recorded as live in the studio captured their loose rock sound.

After composing an abstract, distorted feedback-led guitar instrumental soundtrack to the Jim Jarmusch film Young recorded a series of loose jams with Crazy Horse that eventually appeared as the disappointing . This return to Crazy Horse was prompted by the death of mentor, friend, and long time producer David Briggs in late 1995. The subsequent tours of Europe and North America in 1996 resulted in both a live album and a tour documentary directed by Jim Jarmusch. Both releases took the name .

In 1998, Young shared the stage with legendary rock band Phish at the annual Farm Aid concert. Weeks later, he invited them to headline both nights of the Bridge School Benefit concert. Young asked Phish to be his backing band for a 1999 European tour, but they declined. He remains close with the band today.

The decade ended with , another reunion with Crosby, Stills and Nash. The subsequent tour of the United States and Canada with the reformed super quartet was a huge success and brought in earnings of $42.1 million, making it the eighth largest grossing tour of 2000.

Neil's next album, the subtle, understated, acoustic (2000), was a marked improvement. It was also his most personal record for a long time, which he underscored with a mini-tour of mesmerizing solo acoustic shows. He continued his trend towards personal music with 11

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