Neil Young. Different facets of creativity

2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25

By the fall of 1970, thanks to the success of his solo album After the gold rush and the Crosby Stills, Nash and Young record Deja Vu, Neil Young was finally able to buy his dream home: a 140-acre ranch in California. The singer said then in an interview: "I spent all my money on this, but now no one can take away my place of residence."

Fourth album

He spent the next year working on his next record. The album was named Harvest.

Most of the songs on this CD were recorded in Nashville and London. To create a track called Words and several other compositions, the musician chose a more original place. Neil Young invited his bandmates to work on the aforementioned songs in an old barn that was on his ranch.

The song called "Alabama" is essentially a continuation of his own composition Southern man from the album After the gold rush. In her hard formdenounces racism in the American South.

This song received a lot of attention in the press. Many musicians also expressed their opinion about this work. The most original response to this song came from Lynyrd Skynyrd. One of the band's songs contains these lines: "I hope Neil Young understands that the southerners do not need him in any way."

Lynyrd Skynyrd member Ronnie Van Zant commented on this response: "We wrote Alabama as a joke and didn't even think much about the lyrics. The lyrics just came to mind. We just laughed heartily and said: " Well, isn't that funny? We love Neil Young and we love his music." By saying this, the artist meant that they did not mean to offend anyone with their song.

Musician's story

Photos from the recording of the Harvest album began to appear recently on various Internet resources. And in August of this year, Neil Young himself posted several images on his website, along with an author's essay in which he describes the creation of the record. The musician also expresses regret that all his colleagues on this record have already left this world. "I miss my friends, because they all died. But the music that they played while they were here with us on Earth," he writes, "I am happy that I knew them and we worked together to create songs".

Neil Young was one of the most famous Canadian musicians in his youth, and he remains sotoday.

He is a vocalist and songwriter. A whole army of his fans all over the world has been admiring his unique tenor voice, original guitar playing style and soulful lyrics for more than 50 years.

Style

Neil Young (photo of the singer can be found in the article) often connected sound effects to the guitar, such as Distortion. That's why he was nicknamed the Father of Grunge.

By the way, he is directly related to this genre, since in 1995 he recorded an album together with members of the legendary band Pearl Jam. This team is known to be one of the three most popular grunge groups.

Not only music

Besides his main occupation, the artist also works in the film industry. Under the pseudonym Bernard Shakey, he participated as a producer in the creation of 5 films. Young is the author of the soundtrack for films called "Philadelphia" in 1993 and "Dead Man", which was filmed a few years later.

Early life

The hero of this article was born on November 12, 1945 in Toronto. His father was a journalist and sportswriter. He also wrote fiction. The mother of the future musician, in addition to Canadian, also had French and American roots.

Music treatment

In early childhood, Young became interested in music. Then his idol was Little Richard. Later, he became an equally devoted fan of Elvis Presley. This passion was reflected in his own work. In several songs, he mentions the king of rock and roll.

Game oninstruments

Neil Young's first instrument was the ukulele. He himself later admitted: "I played a simple ukulele, as well as a bass ukulele and a ukulele-banjo, in a word, everything except the guitar."

After his parents divorced, he moved to New York with his mother, where the family settled in a working-class area. There he went to school and began to play in several groups that performed mainly instrumental compositions. He soon dropped out for a future musical career.

During a concert of one of his bands, Neil Young met Stefan Silva, whose band also performed on this stage.

Roots of poetry

After leaving his original band Squares, Young began performing in nightclubs. There he met Joni Mitchell. This singer says that at that time Neil Young was fond of the work of Bob Dylan. Inspired by his writings, he wrote one of his most famous early songs, "Manatee". The song Johnny Mitchell Circle game is the answer to it.

Canadian group The Guess Who then performed several songs of the young composer.

Different faces

Fans about Neil Young's songs say that the depth of their lyrics can only be compared with the works of Bob Dylan. The artist manages to maintain such a reputation for many decades. This is also due to his ongoing creative activity.

From the late sixties to the present day, he regularly released new discs, without allowing himself longbreaks. In total, more than 30 Neil Young solo albums have been released. The official catalog of his discs is only a small part of all the works of the musician, because he has a lot of unreleased recordings.

In addition, the singer is constantly expanding the boundaries of his work. Neil Young writes compositions in various genres: from blues to modern electronic music. But his two main elements have always remained: on the one hand - soft folk and country rock and loud, crushing guitar rock, which he sometimes recorded with the band Crazy Horse - on the other. The singer combines these opposites in his work all his life.