Biography for
Neil Young (I) More at IMDbPro »

Date of Birth

12 November 1945, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Birth Name

Neil Percival Kenneth Robert Ragland Young

Nickname

Don Grungio
Godfather of Grunge

Height

6' (1.83 m)

Mini Biography

Neil Young is one of the most respected and prolific rock/folk guitarists of the late 20th century. Raised in Canada, he first became well-known as a guitarist and occasional vocalist for the band Buffalo Springfield. After the band's breakup, Young became a solo performer. However, he also has spent more than 30 years performing with the super-group Crosby Stills Nash & Young, as well as with the band Crazy Horse. He also recorded an album with the grunge band Pearl Jam in 1995. Besides his work as a musician, he has also been active in film. Young has produced and/or performed in such concert films as Rust Never Sleeps (1979), Year of the Horse (1997) and many more. He has also been involved with non-musical films, including Neil Young: Human Highway (1982) and Made in Heaven (1987).

IMDb Mini Biography By: jgp3553@excite.com

Spouse

Pegi Young

(2 August 1977 - present) 2 children

Trade Mark

His distinctive voice

Songs about personal and political themes

His Gibson Les Paul "Old Black"

Trivia

He has two sons with cerebral palsy: Zeke, born by a relationship with actress Carrie Snodgress, and Ben, born 1978, (with Pegi Young née Morton). He also has a daughter named Amber Jean (b. 1984), with Pegi.

Refused a million-dollar offer to appear at "Woodstock '94" on the basis of what he saw as its overemphasis on commercialism.

Has turned down every commercial endorsement he has been offered. He even wrote a song about his stance: "This Note's For You".

Lives in Northern California.

Some of his best known songs include "Cinnamon Girl", "Down by the River", "Heart of Gold", "After the Gold Rush", "Hey Hey, My My", and "Rockin' In The Free World".

1995: In his Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction speech, he thanked Kurt Cobain for inspiring him to renew his dedication to making music. Eddie Vedder, once the target of criticism by Cobain, introduced him.

In Spin magazine's list of the top 100 Alternative Albums in 1995, "Tonight's The Night" (1975) came in at #14, and "Rust Never Sleeps" (1979) came in at #61.

The melody for his song "Mother Earth (Natural Anthem)" is taken from the Old English folk song, "O Waly, Waly". He is known to close his concerts with this song.

Guitarist and singer for rock group Crosby Stills Nash & Young.

In the early 1960s he played in a rock band with future R&B artist Rick James in Canada. James was AWOL from the US Army and hiding out from the authorities. Prior to signing a record deal, he was extradited and jailed. Of course, Young and James never worked together musically after this.

1997: Inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (as a member of Buffalo Springfield).

Young, a lifelong devotee of model trains, read that Lionel Trains LLC, probably the most famous model-train manufacturer in the world, was going into bankruptcy and would probably have to shut down. Not wanting to see that happen, he invested his own money in the company, in which he is now a part-owner, and today the company is financially sound and thriving.

His songs "Southern Man" and "Alabama" were attacks on racism in the Southern US. The songs were "answered" by Lynyrd Skynyrd with their song "Sweet Home Alabama" (which in turn was "answered" by Warren Zevon's song "Play It All Night Long"). Some have interpreted Young's "Walk On" as an answer on his turn, although others think it's more likely the lyrics in "Walk On" refer to Crosby Stills Nash & Young. After Ronnie Van Zant and Steve Gaines of Lynyrd Skynyrd were killed in a plane crash (1977), Young performed a rare live version of "Alabama" at Bicentennial Park, Miami, FL, on 11/12/1977, for Children's Hospital Charity with The Gone With The Wind Orchestra and he changed the lyric chorus from "Alabama" to "Sweet Home Alabama".

Left Buffalo Springfield prior to their appearance on "The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson" (1962) in 1967. He was replaced for that gig, as well as their appearance at the Monterey Pop Festival, by his future bandmate in Crosby Stills Nash & Young, David Crosby.

Raised in Omemee, Ontario. Scott Young Public School in Omemee is named after his father.

He was voted the 34th Greatest Artist of all time in Rock 'n' Roll by Rolling Stone.

Called Carrie Snodgress after he'd seen her in the movie Diary of a Mad Housewife (1970). In "A Man Needs A Maid", he sings: "I fell in love with the actress / She was playing a part I could understand". The relationship lasted until 1975.

April 2005: Hospitalized to remove a brain aneurysm.

1970: Wrote the song "Ohio" shortly after the infamous Kent State shootings.

Wrote an infamous dark trilogy "Time Fades Away", "On The Beach" and "Tonight's The Night" after the death of friends of Danny Whitten and Bruce Berrett, although he has said that "On The Beach" has a positive message.

His favorite albums of his own are "Trans", "Everybody's Rockin'" and "Tonight's The Night", in that order.

In the 1960s, prior to Buffalo Springfield, Young played in an R&B act called the Mynah Birds. The singer was Rick James.

While he has been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame with Buffalo Springfield and as a solo artist, he was not inducted with Crosby Stills Nash & Young.

Despite having lived in the U.S since the 1960s, he has never applied for U.S Citizenship and has no plans to do so.

Son of Edna and Scott Young.

Lives on a 1500 acre ranch in La Honda, California. he also has homes in Florida and Hawaii.

Personal Quotes

Live music is better.

It's better to burn out than to fade away.

Remember when you used to watch TV in the '60s and you'd see Perry Como in a cashmere sweater? That's what rock'n'roll is becoming. It's your parents' music.

My my, hey hey. Rock and roll is here to stay.

All that stuff about heavy metal and hard rock, I don't subscribe to any of that. It's all just music. I mean, the heavy metal from the '70s sounds nothing like the stuff from the '80s, and that sounds nothing like the stuff from the '90s. Who's to say what is and isn't a certain type of music?

[when asked if punk rock influenced his 1979 album "Rust Never Sleeps] No, I wasn't really influenced by that scene. Most of the songs on that album had been written well before The Sex Pistols were ever heard of. "The Thrasher" was pretty much me writing about my experiences with Crosby Stills & Nash in the mid-'70s. Do you know Lynyrd Skynyrd almost ended up recording "Powderfinger" before my version came out? We sent them an early demo of it because they wanted to do one of my songs.

[about his 1974 tour] "Oh, that was a fabulous tour, one of my best. Over in England, The Rainbow . . . Bristol was the best ever . . . the Festival Hall . . . those were magical gigs. I did an encore at the latter with nobody there but Ahmet Ertegun, who owns Atlantic Records. I said, "Ahmet, I played so good tonight I think I deserve my own private encore". So we went out and played "Tonight's The Night" for the fourth time that evening [bursts out laughing] with no one left in the theater.

[on Kurt Cobain, who quoted the Young song "My My, Hey Hey (Out of the Blue)" in his suicide note] The fact that he left the lyrics to my song right there with him when he killed himself left a profound feeling on me, but I don't think he was saying I have to kill myself because I don't want to fade away. I don't think he was interpreting the song in a negative way. It's a song about artistic survival, and I think he had a problem with the fact that he thought he was selling out, and he didn't know how to stop it. He was forced to do tours when he didn't want to, forced into all kinds of stuff. I was trying to get a hold of him - because I had heard some of the things he was doing to himself - just to tell him it's OK not to tour, it's OK not to do these things, just take control of your life and make your music. Or, hey, don't make music. But as soon as you feel like you're out there pretending, you're fucked. I think he knew that instinctively, but he was young and he didn't have a lot of self-control. And who knows what other personal things in his life were having a negative impression on him at the time?

(when asked who's the greatest musician of all time) Bob Dylan, I'll never be Bob Dylan. He's the master. If I'd like to be anyone, it's him. And he's a great writer, true to his music and done what he feels is the right thing to do for years and years and years. He's great. He's the one I look to. I'm always interested in what he's doing now, or did last, or did a long time ago that I didn't find out about. The guy has written some of the greatest poetry and put it to music in a way that it touched me, and other people have done that, but not so consistently or as intensely. Like me, he waits around and keeps going, and he knows that he doesn't have the muse all the time, but he knows that it'll come back and it'll visit him and he'll have his moment.

As soon as you start talking about mystique, you have none.

I never met Johnny Rotten, but I like what he did to people.

Where Are They Now

(April 2002) After recently coming back on tour with Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young he has released his solo album "Are you Passionate" and is soon going on tour to promote it.

(July 2008) La Honda, California

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