#12 -- Neil Young

My Personal Take On His 49-Years-And-Counting Career

"Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere" is a top-ten album for me, perhaps even top-five.  Its jamming is astonishing, its melancholy is calm and its ambiance is sing-round-the-campfire western.  The cover art may be my favorite: it shows Young in jeans and checkered plaid, leaning gracefully against a tree, his dog the center of attention.  Combined with his contemporaneous work with Crosby, Stills and Nash, songs like "Country Girl", "Round & Round" and "Helpless" have been the soundtrack to my life.

And Young has found ways to stay relevant ever since "Hello Cowgirl In The Sand".  Like CSN&Y's "Ohio", which was released soon after the Kent State shootings, Young has felt it important to reflect the times.  His "On The Beach" from 1974, for example, has a newspaper's front page visible; it reads: "Nixon Resigns".

I followed his output through the 70's, then sporadically thereafter.  Even when he was into his controversial 'grunge' phase, I found songs to like (I bought and thoroughly enjoyed his "Ragged Glory" from 1990, for example).

Young is one of the few performers I've seen live, and most importantly, in very small venues.  Frankly, I was "blown away" by the crazy horse, himself, in action.  Warning: his amazingly inventive guitar work does involve contorted facial expressions, perhaps part of his epileptic burden; instead, just listen.  

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Each band or performer is graded on four things:
  1.  Innovation
  2.  Influence in my life--as a typical American
  3.  Integrity: the band's approach to music (just making a buck or honing a craft?)  
  4.  Immortality--am I, a typical American--still eager to hear their music

9/10/8/8 = 35 out of a perfect 40

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In the mid-1970s, some frineds and I went to a Stephen Stills concert in Palo Alto, California that was good; but when Neil Young showed up in the second half, the crowd simply went wild at their good fortune.