The horse (''Equus ferus caballus'') is one of two extant subspecies of ''Equus ferus'', or the wild horse. It is an odd-toed ungulate mammal belonging to the taxonomic family Equidae. The horse has evolved over the past 45 to 55 million years from a small multi-toed creature into the large, single-toed animal of today. Humans began to domesticate horses around 4000 BC, and their domestication is believed to have been widespread by 3000 BC. Horses in the subspecies ''caballus'' are domesticated, although some domesticated populations live in the wild as feral horses. These feral populations are not true wild horses, as this term is used to describe horses that have never been domesticated, such as the endangered Przewalski's Horse, a separate subspecies, and the only remaining true wild horse. There is an extensive, specialized vocabulary used to describe equine-related concepts, covering everything from anatomy to life stages, size, colors, markings, breeds, locomotion, and behavior.

Horses' anatomy enables them to make use of speed to escape predators and they have a well-developed sense of balance and a strong fight-or-flight instinct. Related to this need to flee from predators in the wild is an unusual trait: horses are able to sleep both standing up and lying down. Female horses, called mares, carry their young for approximately 11 months, and a young horse, called a foal, can stand and run shortly following birth. Most domesticated horses begin training under saddle or in harness between the ages of two and four. They reach full adult development by age five, and have an average lifespan of between 25 and 30 years.

Horse breeds are loosely divided into three categories based on general temperament: spirited "hot bloods" with speed and endurance; "cold bloods", such as draft horses and some ponies, suitable for slow, heavy work; and "warmbloods", developed from crosses between hot bloods and cold bloods, often focusing on creating breeds for specific riding purposes, particularly in Europe. There are more than 300 breeds of horses in the world today, developed for many different uses.

Horses and humans interact in a wide variety of sport competitions and non-competitive recreational pursuits, as well as in working activities such as police work, agriculture, entertainment, and therapy. Horses were historically used in warfare, from which a wide variety of riding and driving techniques developed, using many different styles of equipment and methods of control. Many products are derived from horses, including meat, milk, hide, hair, bone, and pharmaceuticals extracted from the urine of pregnant mares. Humans provide domesticated horses with food, water and shelter, as well as attention from specialists such as veterinarians and farriers.

Biology[link]

Specific terms and specialized language are used to describe equine anatomy, different life stages, colors and breeds.

Lifespan and life stages[link]

Depending on breed, management and environment, the modern domestic horse has a life expectancy of 25 to 30 years. Uncommonly, a few animals live into their 40s and, occasionally, beyond. The oldest verifiable record was "Old Billy", a 19th-century horse that lived to the age of 62. In modern times, Sugar Puff, who had been listed in the Guinness Book of World Records as the world's oldest living pony, died in 2007 at age 56.

Regardless of a horse or pony's actual birth date, for most competition purposes a year is added to its age each January 1 of each year in the Northern Hemisphere and each August 1 in the Southern Hemisphere. The exception is in endurance riding, where the minimum age to compete is based on the animal's actual calendar age.

The following terminology is used to describe horses of various ages: Foal: a horse of either sex less than one year old. A nursing foal is sometimes called a ''suckling'' and a foal that has been weaned is called a ''weanling''. Most domesticated foals are weaned at five to seven months of age, although foals can be weaned at four months with no adverse physical effects. Yearling: a horse of either sex that is between one and two years old. Colt: a male horse under the age of four. A common terminology error is to call any young horse a "colt", when the term actually only refers to young male horses. Filly: a female horse under the age of four. Mare: a female horse four years old and older. Stallion: a non-castrated male horse four years old and older. The term "horse" is sometimes used colloquially to refer specifically to a stallion. Gelding: a castrated male horse of any age.

In horse racing, these definitions may differ: For example, in the British Isles, Thoroughbred horse racing defines colts and fillies as less than five years old. However, Australian Thoroughbred racing defines colts and fillies as less than four years old.

Size and measurement[link]

The height of horses is measured at the highest point of the withers, where the neck meets the back. This point is used because it is a stable point of the anatomy, unlike the head or neck, which move up and down in relation to the body of the horse.

The English-speaking world measures the height of horses in hands and inches: one hand is equal to . The height is expressed as the number of full hands, followed by a point, then the number of additional inches, and ending with the abbreviation "h" or "hh" (for "hands high"). Thus, a horse described as "15.2 h" is 15 hands plus 2 inches, for a total of in height.

The size of horses varies by breed, but also is influenced by nutrition. Light riding horses usually range in height from and can weigh from . Larger riding horses usually start at about and often are as tall as , weighing from . Heavy or draft horses are usually at least high and can be as tall as high. They can weigh from about .

The largest horse in recorded history was probably a Shire horse named Mammoth, who was born in 1848. He stood 21.2½ hands high (), and his peak weight was estimated at . The current record holder for the world's smallest horse is Thumbelina, a fully mature miniature horse affected by dwarfism. She is tall and weighs .

Ponies[link]

Ponies are taxonomically the same animals as horses. The distinction between a horse and pony is commonly drawn on the basis of height, especially for competition purposes. However, height alone is not dispositive; the difference between horses and ponies may also include aspects of phenotype, including conformation and temperament.

The traditional standard for height of a horse or a pony at maturity is . An animal 14.2 h or over is usually considered to be a horse and one less than 14.2 h a pony, but there are many exceptions to the traditional standard. In Australia, ponies are considered to be those under , For competition in the Western division of the United States Equestrian Federation, the cutoff is The International Federation for Equestrian Sports, the world governing body for horse sport, uses metric measurements and defines a pony as being any horse measuring less than at the withers without shoes, which is just over 14.2 h, and , or just over 14.2½ h, with shoes.

Height is not the sole criterion for distinguishing horses from ponies. Breed registries for horses that typically produce individuals both under and over 14.2 h consider all animals of that breed to be horses regardless of their height. Conversely, some pony breeds may have features in common with horses, and individual animals may occasionally mature at over 14.2 h, but are still considered to be ponies.

Ponies often exhibit thicker manes, tails, and overall coat. They also have proportionally shorter legs, wider barrels, heavier bone, shorter and thicker necks, and short heads with broad foreheads. They may have calmer temperaments than horses and also a high level of equine intelligence that may or may not be used to cooperate with human handlers. Small size, by itself, is not an exclusive determinant. For example, the Shetland pony which averages , is considered a pony. Conversely, breeds such as the Falabella and other miniature horses, which can be no taller than , are classified by their registries as very small horses, not ponies.

Colors and markings[link]

Horses exhibit a diverse array of coat colors and distinctive markings, described by a specialized vocabulary. Often, a horse is classified first by its coat color, before breed or sex. Horses of the same color may be distinguished from one another by white markings, which, along with various spotting patterns, are inherited separately from coat color.

Many genes that create horse coat colors and patterns have been identified. Current genetic tests can identify at least 13 different alleles influencing coat color, and research continues to discover new genes linked to specific traits. The basic coat colors of chestnut and black are determined by the gene controlled by the Melanocortin 1 receptor, also known as the "extension gene" or "red factor," as its recessive form is "red" (chestnut) and its dominant form is black. Additional genes control suppression of black color to point coloration that results in a bay, spotting patterns such as pinto or leopard, dilution genes such as palomino or dun, as well as graying, and all the other factors that create the many possible coat colors found in horses.

Horses which have a white coat color are often mislabeled; a horse that looks "white" is usually a middle-aged or older gray. Grays are born a darker shade, get lighter as they age, but usually keep black skin underneath their white hair coat (with the exception of pink skin under white markings). The only horses properly called white are born with a predominantly white hair coat and pink skin, a fairly rare occurrence. Different and unrelated genetic factors can produce white coat colors in horses, including several different alleles of dominant white and the sabino-1 gene. However, there are no "albino" horses, defined as having both pink skin and red eyes.

Reproduction and development[link]

Gestation lasts approximately 340 days, with an average range 320–370 days, and usually results in one foal; twins are rare. Horses are a precocial species, and foals are capable of standing and running within a short time following birth. Foals are usually born in the spring. The estrous cycle of a mare occurs roughly every 19–22 days and occurs from early spring into autumn. Most mares enter an ''anestrus'' period during the winter and thus do not cycle in this period. Foals are generally weaned from their mothers between four and six months of age.

Horses, particularly colts, sometimes are physically capable of reproduction at about 18 months, but domesticated horses are rarely allowed to breed before the age of three, especially females. Horses four years old are considered mature, although the skeleton normally continues to develop until the age of six; maturation also depends on the horse's size, breed, sex, and quality of care. Larger horses have larger bones; therefore, not only do the bones take longer to form bone tissue, but the epiphyseal plates are larger and take longer to convert from cartilage to bone. These plates convert after the other parts of the bones, and are crucial to development.

Depending on maturity, breed, and work expected, horses are usually put under saddle and trained to be ridden between the ages of two and four. Although Thoroughbred race horses are put on the track as young as the age of two in some countries, horses specifically bred for sports such as dressage are generally not put under saddle until they are three or four years old, because their bones and muscles are not solidly developed. For endurance riding competition, horses are not deemed mature enough to compete until they are a full 60 calendar months (five years) old.

Anatomy[link]

Skeletal system[link]

The horse skeleton averages 205 bones. A significant difference between the horse skeleton and that of a human is the lack of a collarbone—the horse's forelimbs are attached to the spinal column by a powerful set of muscles, tendons, and ligaments that attach the shoulder blade to the torso. The horse's legs and hooves are also unique structures. Their leg bones are proportioned differently from those of a human. For example, the body part that is called a horse's "knee" is actually made up of the carpal bones that correspond to the human wrist. Similarly, the hock contains bones equivalent to those in the human ankle and heel. The lower leg bones of a horse correspond to the bones of the human hand or foot, and the fetlock (incorrectly called the "ankle") is actually the proximal sesamoid bones between the cannon bones (a single equivalent to the human metacarpal or metatarsal bones) and the proximal phalanges, located where one finds the "knuckles" of a human. A horse also has no muscles in its legs below the knees and hocks, only skin, hair, bone, tendons, ligaments, cartilage, and the assorted specialized tissues that make up the hoof.

Hooves[link]

The critical importance of the feet and legs is summed up by the traditional adage, "no foot, no horse". The horse hoof begins with the distal phalanges, the equivalent of the human fingertip or tip of the toe, surrounded by cartilage and other specialized, blood-rich soft tissues such as the laminae. The exterior hoof wall and horn of the sole is made of essentially the same material as a human fingernail. The end result is that a horse, weighing on average , travels on the same bones as would a human on tiptoe. For the protection of the hoof under certain conditions, some horses have horseshoes placed on their feet by a professional farrier. The hoof continually grows, and in most domesticated horses needs to be trimmed (and horseshoes reset, if used) every five to eight weeks, though the hooves of horses in the wild wear down and regrow at a rate suitable for their terrain.

Teeth[link]

Horses are adapted to grazing. In an adult horse, there are 12 incisors at the front of the mouth, adapted to biting off the grass or other vegetation. There are 24 teeth adapted for chewing, the premolars and molars, at the back of the mouth. Stallions and geldings have four additional teeth just behind the incisors, a type of canine teeth called "tushes". Some horses, both male and female, will also develop one to four very small vestigial teeth in front of the molars, known as "wolf" teeth, which are generally removed because they can interfere with the bit. There is an empty interdental space between the incisors and the molars where the bit rests directly on the gums, or "bars" of the horse's mouth when the horse is bridled.

An estimate of a horse's age can be made from looking at its teeth. The teeth continue to erupt throughout life and are worn down by grazing. Therefore, the incisors show changes as the horse ages; they develop a distinct wear pattern, changes in tooth shape, and changes in the angle at which the chewing surfaces meet. This allows a very rough estimate of a horse's age, although diet and veterinary care can also affect the rate of tooth wear.

Digestion[link]

Horses are herbivores with a digestive system adapted to a forage diet of grasses and other plant material, consumed steadily throughout the day. Therefore, compared to humans, they have a relatively small stomach but very long intestines to facilitate a steady flow of nutrients. A horse will eat of food per day and, under normal use, drink to of water. Horses are not ruminants, so they have only one stomach, like humans, but unlike humans, they can digest cellulose, a major component of grass. Cellulose digestion occurs in the cecum, or "water gut", which food goes through before reaching the large intestine. Horses cannot vomit, so digestion problems can quickly cause colic, a leading cause of death.

Senses[link]

The horse's senses are generally superior to those of a human. As prey animals, they must be aware of their surroundings at all times. They have the largest eyes of any land mammal, and are lateral-eyed, meaning that their eyes are positioned on the sides of their heads. This means that horses have a range of vision of more than 350°, with approximately 65° of this being binocular vision and the remaining 285° monocular vision. Horses have excellent day and night vision, but they have two-color, or dichromatic vision; their color vision is somewhat like red-green color blindness in humans, where certain colors, especially red and related colors, appear as a shade of green.

A horse's hearing is good, and the pinna of each ear can rotate up to 180°, giving the potential for 360° hearing without having to move the head. Their sense of smell, while much better than that of humans, is not their strongest asset; they rely to a greater extent on vision.

Horses have a great sense of balance, due partly to their ability to feel their footing and partly to highly developed proprioception—the unconscious sense of where the body and limbs are at all times. A horse's sense of touch is well developed. The most sensitive areas are around the eyes, ears, and nose. Horses sense contact as subtle as an insect landing anywhere on the body.

Horses have an advanced sense of taste that allows them to sort through fodder to choose what they would most like to eat, and their prehensile lips can easily sort even the smallest grains. Horses generally will not eat poisonous plants. However, there are exceptions and horses will occasionally eat toxic amounts of poisonous plants even when there is adequate healthy food.

Movement[link]

All horses move naturally with four basic gaits: the four-beat walk, which averages ; the two-beat trot or jog at (faster for harness racing horses); the canter or lope, a three-beat gait that is ; and the gallop. The gallop averages , but the world record for a horse galloping over a short, sprint distance is . Besides these basic gaits, some horses perform a two-beat pace, instead of the trot. There also are several four-beat "ambling" gaits that are approximately the speed of a trot or pace, though smoother to ride. These include the lateral rack, running walk, and tölt as well as the diagonal fox trot. Ambling gaits are often genetic in some breeds, known collectively as gaited horses. Often, gaited horses replace the trot with one of the ambling gaits.

Behavior[link]

Horses are prey animals with a strong fight-or-flight response. Their first reaction to threat is to startle and usually flee, although they will stand their ground and defend themselves when flight is impossible or if their young are threatened. They also tend to be curious; when startled, they will often hesitate an instant to ascertain the cause of their fright, and may not always flee from something that they perceive as non-threatening. Most light horse riding breeds were developed for speed, agility, alertness and endurance; natural qualities that extend from their wild ancestors. However, through selective breeding, some breeds of horses are quite docile, particularly certain draft horses. Horses are herd animals, with a clear hierarchy of rank, led by a dominant individual, usually a mare. They are also social creatures that are able to form companionship attachments to their own species and to other animals, including humans. They communicate in various ways, including vocalizations such as nickering or whinnying, mutual grooming, and body language. Many horses will become difficult to manage if they are isolated, but with training, horses can learn to accept a human as a companion, and thus be comfortable away from other horses. However, when confined with insufficient companionship, exercise, or stimulation, individuals may develop stable vices, an assortment of bad habits, mostly stereotypies of psychological origin, that include wood chewing, wall kicking, "weaving" (rocking back and forth), and other problems.

Intelligence and learning[link]

In the past, horses were considered unintelligent, with no abstract thinking ability, unable to generalize, and driven primarily by a herd mentality. However, modern studies show that they perform a number of cognitive tasks on a daily basis, meeting mental challenges that include food procurement and social system identification. They also have good spatial discrimination abilities. Studies have assessed equine intelligence in the realms of problem solving, learning speed, and knowledge retention. Results show that horses excel at simple learning, but also are able to solve advanced cognitive challenges that involve categorization and concept learning. They learn from habituation, desensitization, Pavlovian conditioning, and operant conditioning. They respond to and learn from both positive and negative reinforcement. Recent studies even suggest horses are able to count if the quantity involved is less than four.

Domesticated horses tend to face greater mental challenges than wild horses, because they live in artificial environments that stifle instinctive behavior while learning tasks that are not natural. Horses are creatures of habit that respond and adapt well to regimentation, and respond best when the same routines and techniques are used consistently. Some trainers believe that "intelligent" horses are reflections of intelligent trainers who effectively use response conditioning techniques and positive reinforcement to train in the style that fits best with an individual animal's natural inclinations. Others who handle horses regularly note that personality also may play a role separate from intelligence in determining how a given animal responds to various experiences.

Temperament[link]

Horses are mammals, and as such are "warm-blooded" creatures, as opposed to cold-blooded reptiles. However, these words have developed a separate meaning in the context of equine terminology, used to describe temperament, not body temperature. For example, the "hot-bloods", such as many race horses, exhibit more sensitivity and energy, while the "cold-bloods", such as most draft breeds, are quieter and calmer. Sometimes "hot-bloods" are classified as "light horses" or "riding horses", with the "cold-bloods" classified as "draft horses" or "work horses".

"Hot blooded" breeds include "oriental horses" such as the Akhal-Teke, Arabian horse, Barb and now-extinct Turkoman horse, as well as the Thoroughbred, a breed developed in England from the older oriental breeds. Hot bloods tend to be spirited, bold, and learn quickly. They are bred for agility and speed. They tend to be physically refined—thin-skinned, slim, and long-legged. The original oriental breeds were brought to Europe from the Middle East and North Africa when European breeders wished to infuse these traits into racing and light cavalry horses.

Muscular, heavy draft horses are known as "cold bloods", as they are bred not only for strength, but also to have the calm, patient temperament needed to pull a plow or a heavy carriage full of people. They are sometimes nicknamed "gentle giants". Well-known draft breeds include the Belgian and the Clydesdale. Some, like the Percheron, are lighter and livelier, developed to pull carriages or to plow large fields in drier climates. Others, such as the Shire, are slower and more powerful, bred to plow fields with heavy, clay-based soils. The cold-blooded group also includes some pony breeds.

"Warmblood" breeds, such as the Trakehner or Hanoverian, developed when European carriage and war horses were crossed with Arabians or Thoroughbreds, producing a riding horse with more refinement than a draft horse, but greater size and milder temperament than a lighter breed. Certain pony breeds with warmblood characteristics have been developed for smaller riders. Warmbloods are considered a "light horse" or "riding horse".

Today, the term "Warmblood" refers to a specific subset of sport horse breeds that are used for competition in dressage and show jumping. Strictly speaking, the term "warm blood" refers to any cross between cold-blooded and hot-blooded breeds. Examples include breeds such as the Irish Draught or the Cleveland Bay. The term was once used to refer to breeds of light riding horse other than Thoroughbreds or Arabians, such as the Morgan horse.

Sleep patterns[link]

Horses are able to sleep both standing up and lying down. In an adaptation from life in the wild, horses are able to enter light sleep by using a "stay apparatus" in their legs, allowing them to doze without collapsing. Horses sleep better when in groups because some animals will sleep while others stand guard to watch for predators. A horse kept alone will not sleep well because its instincts are to keep a constant eye out for danger.

Unlike humans, horses do not sleep in a solid, unbroken period of time, but take many short periods of rest. Horses spend four to fifteen hours a day in standing rest, and from a few minutes to several hours lying down. Total sleep time in a 24-hour period may range from several minutes to a couple of hours, mostly in short intervals of about 15 minutes each. The average sleep time of a domestic horse is said to be 2.9 hours per day.

Horses must lie down to reach REM sleep. They only have to lie down for an hour or two every few days to meet their minimum REM sleep requirements. However, if a horse is never allowed to lie down, after several days it will become sleep-deprived, and in rare cases may suddenly collapse as it involuntarily slips into REM sleep while still standing. This condition differs from narcolepsy, although horses may also suffer from that disorder.

Taxonomy and evolution[link]

The horse adapted to survive in areas of wide-open terrain with sparse vegetation, surviving in an ecosystem where other large grazing animals, especially ruminants, could not. Horses and other equids are odd-toed ungulates of the order Perissodactyla, a group of mammals that was dominant during the Tertiary period. In the past, this order contained 14 families, but only three—Equidae (the horse and related species), the tapir, and the rhinoceros—have survived to the present day.

The earliest known member of the Equidae family was the ''Hyracotherium'', which lived between 45 and 55 million years ago, during the Eocene period. It had 4 toes on each front foot, and 3 toes on each back foot. The extra toe on the front feet soon disappeared with the ''Mesohippus'', which lived 32 to 37 million years ago. Over time, the extra side toes shrank in size until they vanished. All that remains of them in modern horses is a set of small vestigial bones on the leg below the knee, known informally as splint bones. Their legs also lengthened as their toes disappeared until they were a hooved animal capable of running at great speed. By about 5 million years ago, the modern ''Equus'' had evolved. Equid teeth also evolved from browsing on soft, tropical plants to adapt to browsing of drier plant material, then to grazing of tougher plains grasses. Thus proto-horses changed from leaf-eating forest-dwellers to grass-eating inhabitants of semi-arid regions worldwide, including the steppes of Eurasia and the Great Plains of North America.

By about 15,000 years ago, ''Equus ferus'' was a widespread holarctic species. Horse bones from this time period, the late Pleistocene, are found in Europe, Eurasia, Beringia, and North America. Yet between 10,000 and 7,600 years ago, the horse became extinct in North America and rare elsewhere. The reasons for this extinction are not fully known, but one theory notes that extinction in North America paralleled human arrival. Another theory points to climate change, noting that approximately 12,500 years ago, the grasses characteristic of a steppe ecosystem gave way to shrub tundra, which was covered with unpalatable plants.

Wild species surviving into modern times[link]

A truly wild horse is a species or subspecies with no ancestors that were ever domesticated. Therefore, most "wild" horses today are actually feral horses, animals that escaped or were turned loose from domestic herds and the descendants of those animals. Only two never-domesticated subspecies, the Tarpan and the Przewalski's Horse, survived into recorded history and only the latter survives today.

The Przewalski's Horse (''Equus ferus przewalskii''), named after the Russian explorer Nikolai Przhevalsky, is a rare Asian animal. It is also known as the Mongolian Wild Horse; Mongolian people know it as the ''taki'', and the Kyrgyz people call it a ''kirtag''. The subspecies was presumed extinct in the wild between 1969 and 1992, while a small breeding population survived in zoos around the world. In 1992, it was reestablished in the wild due to the conservation efforts of numerous zoos. Today, a small wild breeding population exists in Mongolia. There are additional animals still maintained at zoos throughout the world.

The Tarpan or European Wild Horse (''Equus ferus ferus'') was found in Europe and much of Asia. It survived into the historical era, but became extinct in 1909, when the last captive died in a Russian zoo. Thus, the genetic line was lost. Attempts have been made to recreate the Tarpan, which resulted in horses with outward physical similarities, but nonetheless descended from domesticated ancestors and not true wild horses.

Periodically, populations of horses in isolated areas are speculated to be relict populations of wild horses, but generally have been proven to be feral or domestic. For example, the Riwoche horse of Tibet was proposed as such, but testing did not reveal genetic differences with domesticated horses. Similarly, the Sorraia of Portugal was proposed as a direct descendant of the Tarpan based on shared characteristics, but genetic studies have shown that the Sorraia is more closely related to other horse breeds and that the outward similarity is an unreliable measure of relatedness.

Other modern equids[link]

Besides the horse, there are seven other species of genus ''Equus'' in the Equidae family. These are the ass or donkey, ''Equus asinus''; the mountain zebra, ''Equus zebra''; plains zebra, ''Equus quagga''; Grévy's zebra, ''Equus grevyi''; the kiang, ''Equus kiang''; and the onager, ''Equus hemionus''.

Horses can crossbreed with other members of their genus. The most common hybrid is the mule, a cross between a "jack" (male donkey) and a mare. A related hybrid, a hinny, is a cross between a stallion and a jenny (female donkey). Other hybrids include the zorse, a cross between a zebra and a horse. With rare exceptions, most hybrids are sterile and cannot reproduce.

Domestication[link]

Domestication of the horse most likely took place in central Asia prior to 3500 BC. Two major sources of information are used to determine where and when the horse was first domesticated and how the domesticated horse spread around the world. The first source is based on palaeological and archaeological discoveries, the second source is a comparison of DNA obtained from modern horses to that from bones and teeth of ancient horse remains.

The earliest archaeological evidence for the domestication of the horse comes from sites in Ukraine and Kazakhstan, dating to approximately 3500–4000 BC. By 3000 BC, the horse was completely domesticated and by 2000 BC there was a sharp increase in the number of horse bones found in human settlements in northwestern Europe, indicating the spread of domesticated horses throughout the continent. The most recent, but most irrefutable evidence of domestication comes from sites where horse remains were interred with chariots in graves of the Sintashta and Petrovka cultures c. 2100 BC.

Domestication is also studied by using the genetic material of present day horses and comparing it with the genetic material present in the bones and teeth of horse remains found in archaeological and palaeological excavations. The variation in the genetic material shows that very few wild stallions contributed to the domestic horse, while many mares were part of early domesticated herds. This is reflected in the difference in genetic variation between the DNA that is passed on along the paternal, or sire line (Y-chromosome) versus that passed on along the maternal, or dam line (mitochondrial DNA). There are very low levels of Y-chromosome variability, but a great deal of genetic variation in mitochondrial DNA. There is also regional variation in mitochondrial DNA due to the inclusion of wild mares in domestic herds. Another characteristic of domestication is an increase in coat color variation. In horses, this increased dramatically between 5000 and 3000 BC.

Before the availability of DNA techniques to resolve the questions related to the domestication of the horse, various hypothesis were proposed. One classification was based on body types and conformation, suggesting the presence of four basic prototypes that had adapted to their environment prior to domestication. Another hypothesis held that the four prototypes originated from a single wild species and that all different body types were entirely a result of selective breeding after domestication. However, the lack of a detectable substructure in the horse has resulted in a rejection of both hypotheses.

Feral populations[link]

Feral horses are born and live in the wild, but are descended from domesticated animals. Many populations of feral horses exist throughout the world. Studies of feral herds have provided useful insights into the behavior of prehistoric horses, as well as greater understanding of the instincts and behaviors that drive horses that live in domesticated conditions.

There are also semi-feral horses in many parts of the world, such as Dartmoor and the New Forest in the UK, where the animals are all privately owned but live for significant amounts of time in "wild" conditions on undeveloped, often public, lands. Owners of such animals often pay a fee for grazing rights.

Breeds[link]

The concept of purebred bloodstock and a controlled, written breed registry has come to be particularly significant and important in modern times. Sometimes purebred horses are incorrectly or inaccurately called "thoroughbreds". Thoroughbred is a specific breed of horse, while a "purebred" is a horse (or any other animal) with a defined pedigree recognized by a breed registry. Horse breeds are groups of horses with distinctive characteristics that are transmitted consistently to their offspring, such as conformation, color, performance ability, or disposition. These inherited traits result from a combination of natural crosses and artificial selection methods. Horses have been selectively bred since their domestication. An early example of people who practiced selective horse breeding were the Bedouin, who had a reputation for careful practices, keeping extensive pedigrees of their Arabian horses and placing great value upon pure bloodlines. These pedigrees were originally transmitted via an oral tradition. In the 14th century, Carthusian monks of southern Spain kept meticulous pedigrees of bloodstock lineages still found today in the Andalusian horse.

Breeds developed due to a need for "form to function", the necessity to develop certain characteristics in order to perform a particular type of work. Thus, thus a powerful but refined breed such as the Andalusian developed as riding horses with an aptitude for dressage. Heavy draft horses developed out of a need to perform demanding farm work and pull heavy wagons. Other horse breeds developed specifically for light agricultural work, carriage and road work, various sport disciplines, or simply as pets. Some breeds developed through centuries of crossing other breeds, while others descended from a single foundation sire, or other limited or restricted foundation bloodstock. One of the earliest formal registries was General Stud Book for Thoroughbreds, which began in 1791 and traced back to the foundation bloodstock for the breed. There are more than 300 horse breeds in the world today.

Interaction with humans[link]

Worldwide, horses play a role within human cultures and have done so for millennia. Horses are used for leisure activities, sports, and working purposes. The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) estimates that in 2008, there were almost 59,000,000 horses in the world, with around 33,500,000 in the Americas, 13,800,000 in Asia and 6,300,000 in Europe and smaller portions in Africa and Oceania. There are estimated to be 9,500,000 horses in the United States alone. The American Horse Council estimates that horse-related activities have a direct impact on the economy of the United States of over $39 billion, and when indirect spending is considered, the impact is over $102 billion. In a 2004 "poll" conducted by Animal Planet, more than 50,000 viewers from 73 countries voted for the horse as the world's 4th favorite animal.

Communication between human and horse is paramount in any equestrian activity; to aid this process horses are usually ridden with a saddle on their backs to assist the rider with balance and positioning, and a bridle or related headgear to assist the rider in maintaining control. Sometimes horses are ridden without a saddle, and occasionally, horses are trained to perform without a bridle or other headgear. Many horses are also driven, which requires a harness, bridle, and some type of vehicle.

Sport[link]

Historically, equestrians honed their skills through games and races. Equestrian sports provided entertainment for crowds and honed the excellent horsemanship that was needed in battle. Many sports, such as dressage, eventing and show jumping, have origins in military training, which were focused on control and balance of both horse and rider. Other sports, such as rodeo, developed from practical skills such as those needed on working ranches and stations. Sport hunting from horseback evolved from earlier practical hunting techniques. Horse racing of all types evolved from impromptu competitions between riders or drivers. All forms of competition, requiring demanding and specialized skills from both horse and rider, resulted in the systematic development of specialized breeds and equipment for each sport. The popularity of equestrian sports through the centuries has resulted in the preservation of skills that would otherwise have disappeared after horses stopped being used in combat.

Horses are trained to be ridden or driven in a variety of sporting competitions. Examples include show jumping, dressage, three-day eventing, competitive driving, endurance riding, gymkhana, rodeos, and fox hunting. Horse shows, which have their origins in medieval European fairs, are held around the world. They host a huge range of classes, covering all of the mounted and harness disciplines, as well as "In-hand" classes where the horses are led, rather than ridden, to be evaluated on their conformation. The method of judging varies with the discipline, but winning usually depends on style and ability of both horse and rider. Sports such as polo do not judge the horse itself, but rather use the horse as a partner for human competitors as a necessary part of the game. Although the horse requires specialized training to participate, the details of its performance are not judged, only the result of the rider's actions—be it getting a ball through a goal or some other task. Examples of these sports of partnership between human and horse include jousting, in which the main goal is for one rider to unseat the other, and buzkashi, a team game played throughout Central Asia, the aim being to capture a goat carcass while on horseback.

Horse racing is an equestrian sport and major international industry, watched in almost every nation of the world. There are three types: "flat" racing; steeplechasing, i.e. racing over jumps; and harness racing, where horses trot or pace while pulling a driver in a small, light cart known as a sulky. A major part of horse racing's economic importance lies in the gambling associated with it.

Work[link]

There are certain jobs that horses do very well, and no technology has yet developed to fully replace them. For example, mounted police horses are still effective for certain types of patrol duties and crowd control. Cattle ranches still require riders on horseback to round up cattle that are scattered across remote, rugged terrain. Search and rescue organizations in some countries depend upon mounted teams to locate people, particularly hikers and children, and to provide disaster relief assistance. Horses can also be used in areas where it is necessary to avoid vehicular disruption to delicate soil, such as nature reserves. They may also be the only form of transport allowed in wilderness areas. Horses are quieter than motorized vehicles. Law enforcement officers such as park rangers or game wardens may use horses for patrols, and horses or mules may also be used for clearing trails or other work in areas of rough terrain where vehicles are less effective.

Although machinery has replaced horses in many parts of the world, an estimated 100 million horses, donkeys and mules are still used for agriculture and transportation in less developed areas. This number includes around 27 million working in Africa alone. Some land management practices such as cultivating and logging can be efficiently performed with horses. In agriculture, less fossil fuel is used and increased environmental conservation occurs over time with the use of draft animals such as horses. Logging with horses can result in reduced damage to soil structure and less damage to trees due to more selective logging.

Entertainment and culture[link]

Modern horses are often used to reenact many of their historical work purposes. Horses are used, complete with equipment that is authentic or a meticulously recreated replica, in various live action historical reenactments of specific periods of history, especially recreations of famous battles. Horses are also used to preserve cultural traditions and for ceremonial purposes. Countries such as the United Kingdom still use horse-drawn carriages to convey royalty and other VIPs to and from certain culturally significant events. Public exhibitions are another example, such as the Budweiser Clydesdales, seen in parades and other public settings, a team of draft horses that pull a beer wagon similar to that used before the invention of the modern motorized truck.

Horses are frequently seen in television and films. They are sometimes featured as a major character in films about particular animals, but also used as visual elements that assure the accuracy of historical stories. Both live horses and iconic images of horses are used in advertising to promote a variety of products. The horse frequently appears in coats of arms in heraldry, in a variety of poses and equipment. The mythologies of many cultures, including Greco-Roman, Hindu, Islamic, and Norse, include references to both normal horses and those with wings or additional limbs, and multiple myths also call upon the horse to draw the chariots of the Moon and Sun. The horse also appears in the 12-year cycle of animals in the Chinese zodiac related to the Chinese calendar.

Therapeutic use[link]

People of all ages with physical and mental disabilities obtain beneficial results from association with horses. Therapeutic riding is used to mentally and physically stimulate disabled persons and help them improve their lives through improved balance and coordination, increased self-confidence, and a greater feeling of freedom and independence. The benefits of equestrian activity for people with disabilities has also been recognized with the addition of equestrian events to the Paralympic Games and recognition of para-equestrian events by the International Federation for Equestrian Sports (FEI). Hippotherapy and therapeutic horseback riding are names for different physical, occupational, and speech therapy treatment strategies that utilize equine movement. In hippotherapy, a therapist uses the horse's movement to improve their patient's cognitive, coordination, balance, and fine motor skills, whereas therapeutic horseback riding uses specific riding skills.

Horses also provide psychological benefits to people whether they actually ride or not. "Equine-assisted" or "equine-facilitated" therapy is a form of experiential psychotherapy that uses horses as companion animals to assist people with mental illness, including anxiety disorders, psychotic disorders, mood disorders, behavioral difficulties, and those who are going through major life changes. There are also experimental programs using horses in prison settings. Exposure to horses appears to improve the behavior of inmates and help reduce recidivism when they leave.

Warfare[link]

Horses in warfare have been seen for most of recorded history. The first archaeological evidence of horses used in warfare dates to between 4000 to 3000 BC, and the use of horses in warfare was widespread by the end of the Bronze Age. Although mechanization has largely replaced the horse as a weapon of war, horses are still seen today in limited military uses, mostly for ceremonial purposes, or for reconnaissance and transport activities in areas of rough terrain where motorized vehicles are ineffective. Horses have been used in the 21st century by the Janjaweed militias in the War in Darfur.

Products[link]

Horses are raw material for many products made by humans throughout history, including byproducts from the slaughter of horses as well as materials collected from living horses.

Products collected from living horses include mare's milk, used by people with large horse herds, such as the Mongols, who let it ferment to produce kumis. Horse blood was once used as food by the Mongols and other nomadic tribes, who found it a convenient source of nutrition when traveling. Drinking their own horses' blood allowed the Mongols to ride for extended periods of time without stopping to eat. The drug Premarin is a mixture of estrogens extracted from the urine of pregnant mares (pregnant mares' urine), and was previously a widely used drug for hormone replacement therapy. The tail hair of horses can be used for making bows for string instruments such as the violin, viola, cello, and double bass.

Horse meat has been used as food for humans and carnivorous animals throughout the ages. It is eaten in many parts of the world, though consumption is taboo in some cultures, and a subject of political controversy in others. Horsehide leather has been used for boots, gloves, jackets, baseballs, and baseball gloves. Horse hooves can also be used to produce animal glue. Horse bones can be used to make implements. Specifically, in Italian cuisine, the horse tibia is sharpened into a probe called a ''spinto'', which is used to test the readiness of a (pig) ham as it cures. In Asia, the saba is a horsehide vessel used in the production of kumis.

Care[link]

Horses are grazing animals, and their major source of nutrients is good-quality forage from hay or pasture. They can consume approximately 2% to 2.5% of their body weight in dry feed each day. Therefore, a adult horse could eat up to of food. Sometimes, concentrated feed such as grain is fed in addition to pasture or hay, especially when the animal is very active. When grain is fed, equine nutritionists recommend that 50% or more of the animal's diet by weight should still be forage.

Horses require a plentiful supply of clean water, a minimum of to per day. Although horses are adapted to live outside, they require shelter from the wind and precipitation, which can range from a simple shed or shelter to an elaborate stable.

Horses require routine hoof care from a farrier, as well as vaccinations to protect against various diseases, and dental examinations from a veterinarian or a specialized equine dentist. If horses are kept inside in a barn, they require regular daily exercise for their physical health and mental well-being. When turned outside, they require well-maintained, sturdy fences to be safely contained. Regular grooming is also helpful to help the horse maintain good health of the hair coat and underlying skin.

See also[link]

Glossary of equestrian terms

References[link]

Sources[link]

Category:Livestock Category:Equus Category:Animal-powered transport Category:National symbols of Burkina Faso Category:National symbols of Lesotho Category:National symbols of Mongolia Category:National symbols of Nigeria Category:National symbols of Turkmenistan Category:Herbivorous animals Category:Sequenced genomes Category:Animals described in 1758 Category:Horse subspecies

kbd:Шы am:ፈረስ ang:Hors ar:حصان an:Equus caballus arc:ܣܘܣܝܐ ast:Caballu gn:Kavaju av:Чу ay:Kawallu az:Ev atı bn:ঘোড়া bjn:Kuda zh-min-nan:Bé map-bms:Jaran be:Конь свойскі be-x-old:Конь bg:Кон bar:Roß bo:རྟ། bs:Konj br:Marc'h bxr:Морин ca:Cavall cv:Лаша cs:Kůň sn:Bhiza co:Cavaddu cy:Ceffyl da:Hest pdc:Gaul de:Hauspferd nv:Łį́į́ʼ et:Hobune el:Άλογο eml:Cavàl myv:Лишме es:Equus ferus caballus eo:Ĉevalo ext:Equus ferus caballus eu:Zaldi fa:اسب fo:Ross fr:Cheval fy:Hynder ga:Capall gv:Cabbyl gd:Each gl:Cabalo gu:ઘોડો hak:Mâ xal:Мөрн ko:말 (동물) haw:Lio hi:घोड़ा hr:Domaći konj io:Kavalo id:Kuda ia:Cavallo ik:Tuttuqpak os:Бæх is:Hestur it:Equus caballus he:סוס הבית jv:Jaran ka:ცხენი ks:گُر csb:Domôcy kóń kk:Ат kw:Margh rw:Ifarashi sw:Farasi kv:Вӧв ht:Chwal ku:Hesp mrj:Имни lbe:Чу la:Equus caballus lv:Mājas zirgs lt:Arklys lij:Cavallo li:Taam peerd ln:Farása lmo:Equus ferus caballus hu:Ló mk:Коњ mg:Soavaly ml:കുതിര mt:Żiemel mr:घोडा arz:حصان ms:Kuda cdo:Mā mdf:Лишме nah:Cahuāyoh nl:Paard (dier) nds-nl:Peerd cr:ᑳᐸᓚᑲᔅᐧᑫᐤ new:सल ja:ウマ frr:Hingst no:Hest nn:Hest nrm:J'va oc:Equus caballus mhr:Имне pfl:Gaul pnb:گھوڑا ps:آس koi:Вӧв pcd:Kvau nds:Peerd pl:Koń pt:Cavalo ro:Cal qu:Kawallu rue:Кінь ru:Домашняя лошадь sah:Ат se:Heabuš sg:Mbarata sc:Caddu sco:Horse stq:Hoangst (Suugediert) sq:Kali scn:Cavaddu simple:Horse sk:Kôň (podrod) sl:Domači konj szl:Kůń so:Faras srn:Asi (pardi) sr:Домаћи коњ sh:Domaći konj su:Kuda fi:Hevonen sv:Häst tl:Kabayo ta:குதிரை tt:Ат te:గుర్రము th:ม้า tg:Асп chr:ᏐᏈᎵ chy:Mo'éhno'ha tr:At udm:Вал uk:Кінь свійський ur:گھوڑا ug:ئات vep:Hebo vec:Caval vi:Ngựa fiu-vro:Hopõn wa:Tchivå war:Kabayo yi:פערד zh-yue:馬 diq:Estor bat-smg:Arklīs zh:马

name	Little Red
background	group_or_band
origin	Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
genre	Pop, rock
years active	2005 – present
label	Liberation Music
associated acts	The GreasersThe HondasMajor Tom and The Atoms
website	Little Red Music
current members	Adrian BeltrameDominic ByrneQuang DinhTaka Honda
past members	Tom Hartney }}

Little Red is a rock band from Melbourne, Australia consisting of Adrian Beltrame (guitar, vocals), Dominic Byrne (guitar, vocals), Quang Dinh (bass, vocals), and Taka Honda (drums).

Biography[link]

The band was formed in 2005 and were featured on Triple J Unearthed. The band won the 2008 Australia-wide 'Garage to V' competition held by Virgin Mobile to win a slot at all shows of the Australian V Festival in 2008, while the band has also performed at the Falls Festival, Meredith Music Festival, the Big Day Out, the Pyramid Rock Festival and the Laneway Festival.

Little Red's songs "Waiting", "Coca-Cola" and "Witch Doctor" have all received regular play on Australian nation-wide radio station Triple J, while "Coca-Cola" was also included on the official soundtrack of Australian TV series ''Underbelly'', and was voted #47 on the 2008 Triple J Hottest 100.

The band independently released in Australia an album entitled ''Listen to Little Red'' on 28 June 2008, which debuted at number 29 on the ARIA Charts. The album was licensed for release outside of Australia by the UK independent Lucky Number Music and was released on 16 November 2009 in the UK and early 2010 internationally.

In September, 2010, the band released a second album, ''Midnight Remember'', featuring their latest single, "Rock It" which gained a gold accreditation and second place in Triple J's Hottest 100 of 2010, with the album's second single "Slow Motion" securing 79th position.

On 21 April 2011 they released a music video to "All Mine," also from Midnight Remember on youtube, through the Liberation Music record label's account.

Touring[link]

Headlined their 'All Mine' National Tour featuring Worlds End Press & Passport For Amy 2011

Toured with Blondie and The Pretenders, Evening On The Green 2010

Big Day Out 2011

Pyramid Rock 2010/2011

Splendour in the Grass July/August 2010

Toured with Kasabian in July 2010

Headline tour of Australia supported by Ground Components in April/May 2009

Headline tour of Australia - University Tour - in October 2008

Toured with Vampire Weekend on their national Australian tour in August 2008

Headline tour of Australia - album tour - in August/September 2008 supported by The Holidays and Andy Bull

Toured with The Panics on their national album tour in May 2008

Toured with Spoon in January 2008

Toured with Operator Please on their national Australian tour in April 2008

Toured with Art of Fighting in September 2007

Discography[link]

Albums[link]

''Listen to Little Red'' — Hooch Hound/Shock (28 June 2008) AUS #29 — Lucky Number/Lucky Number Music (2009) ''Midnight Remember'' — Liberation (September 2010) AUS #5

EPs[link]

''Get Ready! EP''

Singles[link]

"Coca Cola"/"It's Alright" — Neon Gold/Lucky Number/Lucky Number Music (2009)

"Waiting"/"Wait Is Over" — Neon Gold/Lucky Number/Lucky Number Music (2009)

"Rock It" (2010) AUS #19

"Slow Motion" (2010)

"All Mine" (2011)

References[link]

External links[link]

Little Red video interview @ VFestival

Category:Australian rock music groups Category:Victoria (Australia) musical groups Category:Musical groups established in 2005

}}

Andreas Helgstrand (born October 2, 1977) is an award-winning Danish dressage rider who is most known for riding the 9-year-old mare Blue Hors Matiné (d. January 25, 2010) at the Grand Prix level. Helgstrand has also represented Denmark in Olympic dressage events in 2004 and at the World Equestrian Games. Helgstrand was part of the Bronze winning Danish team at the Olympic games in Beijing 2008.

Helgstrand competed in the 2006 World Equestrian Games on December 20 in Aachen, Germany. He rode Matiné in his freestyle dressage test, where he opened the routine with a double canter pirouette. Both Helgstrand and Matiné performed wonderfully, receiving high marks from the judges. A video of the routine can be found on YouTube.

See also[link]

Denmark at the 2004 Summer Olympics

External links[link]

Interview with Helgstrand

Footage of Helgstrand and Blue's silver medal dressage routine on YouTube

sports-reference

Category:Dressage riders Category:Living people Category:1977 births Category:Danish equestrians Category:Olympic equestrians of Denmark Category:Equestrians at the 2004 Summer Olympics Category:Equestrians at the 2008 Summer Olympics Category:Olympic bronze medalists for Denmark Category:Olympic medalists in equestrian

ca:Andreas Helgstrand da:Andreas Helgstrand it:Andreas Helgstrand pl:Andreas Helgstrand sv:Andreas Helgstrand uk:Андреас Гельґстранд

"The Man" is a slang phrase that may refer to the government or to some other authority in a position of power. In addition to this derogatory connotation, it may also serve as a term of respect and praise.

The phrase "the Man is keeping me down" is commonly used to describe oppression. The phrase "stick it to the Man" encourages resistance to authority, and essentially means "fight back" or "resist", either openly or via sabotage.

History[link]

The earliest recorded use of the term "the Man" in the American sense dates back to a letter written by a young Alexander Hamilton in September 1772, when he was 15. In a letter to his father James Hamilton, published in the Royal Dutch-American Gazette, he described the response of the Dutch governor of St. Croix to a hurricane that raked that island on August 31, 1772. "Our General has issued several very salutary and humane regulations and both in his publick and private measures, has shewn himself the Man." In the Southern U.S. states, the phrase came to be applied to any man or any group in a position of authority, or to authority in the abstract. From about the 1950s the phrase was also an underworld code word for police, the warden of a prison or other law enforcement or penal authorities.

It was also used as a term for a drug dealer in the 1950s and 1960s and can be seen in such media as Curtis Mayfield's "No Thing On Me", William Burroughs's novel ''Naked Lunch'', and in the Velvet Underground song "I'm Waiting for the Man", in which Lou Reed sings about going to Uptown Manhattan, specifically Lexington Avenue and 125th Street, to buy heroin.

The use of this term was expanded to counterculture groups and their battles against authority, such as the Yippies, which, according to a May 19, 1969 article in ''U.S. News and World Report'', had the "avowed aim ... to destroy 'The Man', their term for the present system of government". The term eventually found its way into humorous usage, such as in a December 1979 motorcycle ad from the magazine ''Easyriders'' which featured the tagline, "California residents: Add 6% sales tax for The Man."

In present day, the phrase has been popularized in commercials and cinema, featuring particularly prominently as a recurring motif in the 2003 film School of Rock.

Use as praise[link]

The term has also been used as an approbation or form of praise. This may refer to the recipient's status as the leader or authority within a particular context, or it might be assumed to be a shortened form of a phrase like "He is the man (who is in charge)." One example of this usage dates to 1879 when Otto von Bismarck commented, referring to Benjamin Disraeli's pre-eminent position at the Congress of Berlin, "The old Jew, he is the man."

In more modern usage, it can be a superlative compliment ("you da man!") indicating that the subject is currently standing out amongst his peers even though they have no special designation or rank, such as a basketball player who is performing better than the other players on the court. It can also be used as a genuine compliment with an implied, slightly exaggerated or sarcastic tone, usually indicating that the person has indeed impressed the speaker but by doing something relatively trivial.

See also[link]

Absentee landlord

Big Brother (''Nineteen Eighty-Four'')

New World Order (conspiracy theory)

Ruling class

The Establishment

Power elite

Corrections officer

YTMND

Notes[link]

References[link]

Lighter, J.E. (Ed.). (1997). ''Random House Dictionary of American Slang''. New York: Random House.

Category:Slang expressions Category:Stock characters Category:English idioms Category:Pejorative terms for people Category:Military-industrial complex

de:The Man (Begriff)

name	Neil Young
landscape	yes
background	solo_singer
birth name	Neil Percival Young
alias	Bernard Shakey, Phil Perspective, Shakey Deal, Clyde Coil, Ol' Neil, Joe Canuck, Joe Yankee, Marc Lynch, Pinecone Young
birth date	November 12, 1945
birth place	Toronto, Ontario, Canada
origin	Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada
genre	Rock, folk rock, country rock, experimental rock, hard rock
occupation	Musician, songwriter, producer, director, screenwriter
instrument	Guitar, vocals, harmonica, piano, keyboards, banjo, ukulele
years active	1960–present
label	Reprise, Motown, Geffen
associated acts	The Squires, The Mynah Birds, Buffalo Springfield, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, Crazy Horse, The Stray Gators, The Stills-Young Band, The Ducks, Northern Lights, Pearl Jam, Booker T. Jones, Leon Russell, Elton John
url
notable instruments	"Old Black"Martin D-45"Hank"Gretsch White Falcon }}

Neil Percival Young, OC, OM (born November 12, 1945) is a Canadian singer-songwriter who is widely regarded as one of the most influential musicians of his generation.

Young began performing as a solo artist in Canada in 1960, before moving to California in 1966, where he co-founded the band Buffalo Springfield along with Stephen Stills and Richie Furay, and later joined Crosby, Stills & Nash as a fourth member in 1969. He forged a successful and acclaimed solo career, releasing his first album in 1968; his career has since spanned over 40 years and 34 studio albums, with a continual and uncompromising exploration of musical styles. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame website describes Young as "one of rock and roll’s greatest songwriters and performers". He has been inducted into the Hall of Fame twice: first as a solo artist in 1995, and second as a member of Buffalo Springfield in 1997.

Young's work is characterized by his distinctive guitar work, deeply personal lyrics and signature alto or high tenor singing voice. Although he accompanies himself on several different instruments, including piano and harmonica, his idiosyncratic electric and clawhammer acoustic guitar playing are the defining characteristics of a varyingly ragged and melodic sound. While Young has experimented with differing music styles, including swing and electronic music throughout a varied career, his best known work usually falls into two primary styles: acoustic (folk and country rock) and electric (amplified hard rock, very often in collaboration with the band Crazy Horse). Young has also adopted elements from newer styles such as alternative rock and grunge. His influence on the latter caused some to dub him the "Godfather of Grunge".

Young has directed (or co-directed) a number of films using the pseudonym Bernard Shakey, including ''Journey Through the Past'' (1973), ''Rust Never Sleeps'' (1979), ''Human Highway'' (1982), ''Greendale'' (2003), and ''CSNY/Déjà Vu'' (2008). He is currently working on a documentary about electric car technology, tentatively titled ''Linc/Volt''. The project involves a 1959 Lincoln Continental converted to hybrid technology, which Young plans to drive to Washington, D.C. as an environmentalist example to lawmakers there.

Young is an outspoken advocate for environmental issues and the welfare of small farmers, having co-founded in 1985 the benefit concert Farm Aid. In 1986, Young helped found The Bridge School, an educational organization for children with severe verbal and physical disabilities, and its annual supporting Bridge School Benefit concerts, together with his wife Pegi Young (née Morton). Young has three children: sons Zeke (born during his relationship with actress Carrie Snodgress) and Ben, who were diagnosed with cerebral palsy, and daughter Amber Jean who, like Young himself, has epilepsy. Young lives on his ranch in La Honda, California. Although he has lived in northern California since the 1970s and sings as frequently about U.S. themes and subjects as he does about his native country, he retains Canadian citizenship, having no desire to relinquish it. On July 14, 2006, Young was awarded the Order of Manitoba, and on December 30, 2009, was made an Officer of the Order of Canada.

Life and career[link]

Early years (1945–1966)[link]

Neil Percival Young was born in Toronto General Hospital, Toronto, Ontario, at 6:45 am on 12 November 1945. His father, Scott Alexander Young (1918–2005), was a journalist and sportswriter who would later rise to prominence in Canada for his work. His mother, Edna Blow Ragland "Rassy" Young (1918–1990), was of American, French, and Irish ancestry, and a "member of the Daughters of the American Revolution". They married in 1940 in Winnipeg, Manitoba, with their first son, Robert 'Bob' Young, being born in 1942.

Shortly after Neil's birth in 1945, the family decided to move to the rural town of Omemee, Ontario, which Neil would later fondly describe as a "sleepy little place". Omemee later established the Youngtown Museum in tribute to Young. Young was diagnosed with diabetes as a child, and also suffered from a bout of polio in 1951, in what was the last major outbreak of the disease in Ontario. This was in fact the same epidemic in which singer-songwriter Joni Mitchell, then aged nine, also contracted the virus.

Following his recovery, the Young family went on holiday to Florida in the United States in 1952, and upon returning to Canada soon decided to move away from Omemee and into the city of Toronto, before relocating to Pickering, which was just east of Toronto, and then again to north Toronto soon afterward. It was during this period that Young began to take an interest in popular music that he heard on the radio, and also began to rear chickens in order to sell their eggs.

When Neil was twelve, his father, who had been having a number of extra-marital affairs, left his mother, and she subsequently asked for, and received, a divorce some years later, in 1960. Due to the breakup of the family, Neil went to live with his mother, who moved back to Winnipeg, Manitoba, while his brother Bob stayed with his father in Toronto. During the mid-fifties, at around the age of ten or eleven, Young was drawn to a variety of musical genres including rock and roll, rockabilly, doo-wop, R&B;, country, and western pop. He would listen to pop music broadcast on the CHUM radio station via his transistor radio. Young has stated in interviews that growing up he idolized Elvis Presley and strived to be just like him, later referencing him in a number of his lyrics. Other early musical influences included Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Fats Domino, The Chantels, The Monotones, Ronnie Self, The Fleetwoods, Jerry Lee Lewis, Johnny Cash, and Gogi Grant. He first began to play music himself on a plastic ukulele, before, as he would later relate, going on to "a better ukulele to a banjo ukulele to a baritone ukulele – everything but a guitar."

Neil and his mother settled into the working class area of Fort Rouge, Winnipeg where the shy, dry-humoured youth enrolled at Earl Grey Junior High School. It was there that he formed his first band, The Jades, and met Ken Koblun, later to join him in The Squires. While attending Kelvin High School in Winnipeg, he played in several instrumental rock bands. Young's first stable band was called The Squires, with Ken Koblun, Jeff Wuckert and Bill Edmondson on drums, who had a local hit called "The Sultan." Young dropped out of high school and also played in Fort William (now part of the city of Thunder Bay, Ontario), where they recorded a series of demos produced by a local producer named Ray Dee, whom Young called "the original Briggs." While there, Young first encountered Stephen Stills. In the 2006 film ''Heart of Gold'', Young relates how he used to spend time as a teenager at Falcon Lake, Manitoba, where he would endlessly plug coins into the jukebox to hear Ian Tyson's "Four Strong Winds".

After leaving the Squires, Neil worked folk clubs in Winnipeg, where he first met Joni Mitchell. Mitchell recalls Young as having been highly influenced by Bob Dylan at the time. Here he wrote some of his earliest and most enduring folk songs such as "Sugar Mountain", about lost youth. Mitchell wrote "The Circle Game" in response. Winnipeg band The Guess Who (Randy Bachman being their lead guitarist) had a Top 40 Canadian hit with Young's "Flying on the Ground is Wrong", which was Young's first major hit as a songwriter.

In 1965 Young toured Canada as a solo artist. In 1966, while in Toronto, he joined the Rick James-fronted Mynah Birds. The band managed to secure a record deal with the Motown label, but as their first album was being recorded, James was arrested for being AWOL from the Naval Reserve. After the Mynah Birds disbanded, Young and bass player Bruce Palmer relocated to Los Angeles. Young admitted in a 2009 interview that he was in the United States illegally until receiving a green card in 1970.

Buffalo Springfield (1966–1968)[link]

Once they reached Los Angeles, Young and Palmer met up with Stephen Stills, Richie Furay, and Dewey Martin to form Buffalo Springfield. A mixture of folk, country, psychedelia, and rock, lent a hard edge by the twin lead guitars of Stills and Young, made Buffalo Springfield a critical success, and their first record ''Buffalo Springfield'' (1966) sold well after Stills' topical song "For What It's Worth" became a hit, aided by Young's melodic harmonics played on electric guitar.

Distrust of their management, as well as the arrest and deportation of Palmer, exacerbated the already strained relations among the group members and led to Buffalo Springfield's demise. A second album, ''Buffalo Springfield Again'', was released in late 1967, but two of Young’s three contributions were solo tracks recorded apart from the rest of the group.

In many ways, these three songs on ''Buffalo Springfield Again'', "Mr. Soul", "Expecting To Fly", and "Broken Arrow", are harbingers of much of Young's later work in that, although they all share deeply personal, almost idiosyncratic lyrics, they also present three very different musical approaches to the arrangement of what is essentially an original folk song. "Mr Soul" is the only Young song of the three that all five members of the group performed together. In contrast, "Broken Arrow" was confessional folk-rock of a kind that would characterize much of the music that emerged from the singer-songwriter movement. Young’s experimental production intersperses each verse with snippets of sound from other sources, including opening the song with a sound bite of Dewey Martin singing "Mr. Soul" and closing it with the thumping of a heartbeat. "Expecting to Fly" was a lushly produced ballad similar to the baroque pop of the mid-1960s, featured a string arrangement that Young's co-producer for the track, Jack Nitzsche, would dub "symphonic pop."

In May 1968, the band split up for good, but in order to fulfill a contractual obligation, a final album ''Last Time Around'' was released, primarily from recordings made earlier that year. Young contributed the songs "On the Way Home" and "I Am a Child", singing lead on the latter. In 1997, the band was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame; Young did not appear at the ceremony. The three surviving members, Furay, Stills and Young, appeared together as Buffalo Springfield at Young's annual Bridge School Benefit on 23–24 October 2010 and are planning a reunion tour for early 2012.

Going solo, Crazy Horse & CSNY (1968–1970)[link]

:''Main articles: Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young and Crazy Horse'' After the breakup of Buffalo Springfield, Young signed a solo deal with Reprise Records, home of his colleague and friend Joni Mitchell, with whom he shared a manager, Elliot Roberts, who manages Young to this day. Young and Roberts immediately began work on Young's first solo record, ''Neil Young'' (November 1968), which received mixed reviews. In a 1970 interview, Young deprecated the album as being "overdubbed rather than played," and the quest for music that expresses the spontaneity of the moment has long been a feature of his career. Nevertheless, the album contains some songs that remain a staple of his live shows, most notably "The Loner".

For his next album, Young recruited three musicians from a band called The Rockets: Danny Whitten on guitar, Billy Talbot on bass guitar, and Ralph Molina on drums. These three took the name Crazy Horse (after the historical figure of the same name), and ''Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere'' (May 1969), is credited to "Neil Young with Crazy Horse." Recorded in just two weeks, the album opens with one of Young's most familiar songs, "Cinnamon Girl," and is dominated by two more, "Cowgirl in the Sand" and "Down by the River," that feature lengthy jams showcasing Young's idiosyncratic guitar soloing accompanied sympathetically by Crazy Horse. Young reportedly wrote all three songs on the same day, while nursing a high fever of in bed.

Shortly after the release of ''Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere'', Young reunited with Stephen Stills by joining Crosby, Stills, & Nash, who had already released one album as a trio. Young was originally offered a position as a sideman, but agreed to join only if he received full membership, and the group – winners of the 1969 "Best New Artist" Grammy Award – was renamed Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young. The quartet debuted in Chicago on August 16, 1969, and later performed at the famous Woodstock Festival, during which Young skipped the acoustic set and refused to be filmed during the electric set, even telling the cameramen: "One of you fuckin' guys comes near me and I'm gonna fuckin' hit you with my guitar". During the making of their first album, ''Déjà Vu'', the musicians frequently argued, particularly Young and Stills, who both fought for control. Stills continued throughout their lifelong relationship to criticize Young, saying that he "wanted to play folk music in a rock band". Despite the tension, Young's tenure with CSN&Y; coincided with the band's most creative and successful period, and greatly contributed to his subsequent success as a solo artist.

"Ohio" was written following the Kent State massacre on May 4, 1970, and was a staple of anti-war rallies in the 1970s. The song was quickly recorded by CSNY and immediately released as a single, even though CSNY's "Teach Your Children" was still climbing the singles charts. In the late 1970s and for much of the 1980s, Young refrained from performing "Ohio" live, as he considered the song to be dated. In the wake of the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre, Young revived the song in concert, often dedicating it to the Chinese students who were killed in the massacre. Crosby, Stills & Nash, as a trio, also returned the song to their live repertoire around the same time, even though Young had provided the lead vocals on the original recording.

''After the Gold Rush'', acoustic tour and ''Harvest'' (1970-1972)[link]

Later in the year, Young released his third solo album, ''After the Gold Rush'' (1970), which featured, among others, a young Nils Lofgren, Stephen Stills, and CSNY bassist Greg Reeves. Young also recorded some tracks with Crazy Horse, but dismissed them early in the sessions. The eventual recording was less amplified than ''Everybody Knows This is Nowhere'', with a wider range of sounds. Young's newfound fame with CSNY made the album his commercial breakthrough as a solo artist, and it contains some of his best known work, including "Tell Me Why" and "Don't Let It Bring You Down," the country-influenced singles "Only Love Can Break Your Heart" and "When You Dance," and the title track, played on piano, with dream-like lyrics that ran a gamut of subjects from drugs and interpersonal relationships to environmental concerns. Young’s bitter condemnation of racism in the heavy blues rock song "Southern Man" (along with a later song entitled "Alabama") was also controversial with southerners in an era of desegregation, prompting Lynyrd Skynyrd to decry Young by name in the lyrics to their hit "Sweet Home Alabama". However, Young said he was a fan of Skynyrd's music, and the band's front man Ronnie Van Zant was later photographed wearing a ''Tonight's the Night'' T-shirt on the cover of an album.

In the autumn of 1970, Young began a solo acoustic tour of North America, during which he played a variety of his Buffalo Springfield and CSNY songs on guitar and piano, along with material from his solo albums and a number of new songs. Some songs premiered by Young on the tour, like "Journey through the Past", would never find a home on a studio album, while other songs, like "See the Sky About to Rain", would only be released in coming years. With CSNY splitting up and Crazy Horse having signed their own record deal, Young's tour, now entitled "Journey Through the Past", continued into early 1971, and its focus shifted more to newer songs he had been writing; he famously remarked that having written so many, he could not think of anything to do but play them. Many gigs were sold out, including concerts at Carnegie Hall and a pair of acclaimed hometown shows at Toronto's Massey Hall, which were taped for a planned live album. The show became legendary among Young fans, and the recordings were officially released nearly 40 years later as an official bootleg in Young's Archive series.

Near the end of his tour, Young performed one of the new acoustic songs on the ''Johnny Cash on Campus'' TV show. "The Needle and the Damage Done", a somber lament on the pain caused by heroin addiction, had been inspired in part by the heavy heroin use of Crazy Horse member Danny Whitten, who eventually died of an overdose. While in Nashville for the Cash taping, Young made a sudden connection with a new group of country-music session musicians, whom he christened The Stray Gators, and began playing with them; Linda Ronstadt and James Taylor also began to work with the group. Against the advice of his producer David Briggs, he scrapped plans for the imminent release of the live acoustic recording and quickly recorded much of his new material with the Stray Gators in Nashville, later adding two recordings made with an orchestra in London. The result was Young's fourth album, ''Harvest'' (1972), which would prove to be a massive hit. The only remnant left of the original concept was the album's live acoustic performance of the harrowing "Needle."

Young's more settled personal life was reflected in the rest of the ''Harvest'' album's mellow, pastoral tone. After his success with CSNY, Young had been able to purchase a ranch in rural Northern California (where he has lived since), writing the song "Old Man" in honor of the land's longtime caretaker, Louis Avila. On September 8, 1972, the actress Carrie Snodgress, with whom he had been living, gave birth to Neil Young's first child. (The boy, Zeke, was later diagnosed with cerebral palsy.) Young fell in love with Snodgress after seeing her in a movie, ''Diary of a Mad Housewife''; Young wrote about this experience in the song "A Man Needs a Maid". Originally, for example in his Massey Hall concert, Young had played a fragment of another new song, "Heart of Gold," as part of "A Man Needs a Maid," but eventually, he separated the songs. "Heart of Gold," now played on guitar and harmonica, was released as the first single from ''Harvest'', became a US number one single and remains the only No. 1 hit in his long career. "Old Man" was also immensely popular.

The album's recording had been almost accidental. Its mainstream success caught Young off guard, and his first instinct was to back away from stardom. In the ''Decade'' compilation, Young chose to include his greatest hits from the period, but his handwritten liner notes famously described "Heart of Gold" as the song that "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."

The "Ditch" Trilogy and personal struggles (1972–1974)[link]

Although a new tour had been planned to follow up on the success of ''Harvest'', it became apparent during rehearsals that Danny Whitten could not function due to drug abuse. On November 18, 1972, shortly after he was fired from the tour preparations, Whitten was found dead of an overdose. Young described the incident to ''Rolling Stone''’s Cameron Crowe in 1975: "[We] were rehearsing with him and he just couldn't cut it. He couldn't remember anything. He was too out of it. Too far gone. I had to tell him to go back to L.A. 'It's not happening, man. You're not together enough.' He just said, 'I've got nowhere else to go, man. How am I gonna tell my friends?' And he split. That night the coroner called me from L.A. and told me he'd OD'd. That blew my mind. I loved Danny. I felt responsible. And from there, I had to go right out on this huge tour of huge arenas. I was very nervous and ... insecure."

On the tour, Young struggled with his voice and with the constantly changing band lineups, and called David Crosby and Graham Nash to help perform some of the music. The album assembled in the aftermath of this incident, ''Time Fades Away'' (1973), has often been described by Young as "[his] least favorite record," and it is one of only two of Young’s early recordings that has yet to be officially re-released on CD (the other being the soundtrack album ''Journey Through the Past''). Nevertheless, Young and his band tried several new musical approaches in this period. ''Time Fades Away'', for instance, was recorded live, although it was an album of new material, an approach Young would repeat with more success later on. ''Time'' was the first of three consecutive commercial failures which would later become known collectively to fans as the "Ditch Trilogy", as contrasted with the more middle-of-the-road pop of ''Harvest''. These subsequent albums were seen as more challenging expressions of Young's inner conflicts on achieving success, expressing both the specific struggles of his friends and himself, and the decaying idealism of his generation in America at the time.

In the second half of 1973, Young formed The Santa Monica Flyers, with Crazy Horse's rhythm section augmented by Nils Lofgren on guitar. Deeply affected by the drug-induced deaths of Whitten and roadie Bruce Berry, Young recorded an album specifically inspired by the incidents, ''Tonight's the Night''. The album's dark tone and rawness led Reprise to delay and Young had to pressure them for two years before they would release it. While his record company delayed the release, Young recorded another album, ''On the Beach'' (1974), which presented a more melodic, acoustic sound at times, including a recording of the older song "See the Sky About to Rain", but dealt with similarly dark themes such as the collapse of 1960s folk ideals, the downside of success and the underbelly of the Californian lifestyle. Like ''Time Fades Away'', it sold poorly but eventually became a critical favorite, presenting some of Young's most original work. A review of the 2003 re-release on CD of ''On the Beach'' described the music as "mesmerizing, harrowing, lucid, and bleary".

After completing ''On the Beach'', Young reunited with ''Harvest'' producer Elliot Mazer to record another acoustic album, ''Homegrown''. Most of the songs were written after Young's breakup with Carrie Snodgress, and thus the tone of the album was somewhat dark. Though ''Homegrown'' was reportedly entirely complete, Young decided, not for the first or last time in his career, to drop it and release something else instead, in this case, ''Tonight's the Night'', at the suggestion of Band bassist Rick Danko. Young further explained his move by saying: "It was a little too personal ... it scared me".

Reunions, retrospectives and ''Rust Never Sleeps'' (1975–1979)[link]

Young reformed Crazy Horse with Frank Sampedro on guitar as his backup band for his eighth album, ''Zuma'' (1975). Many of the songs are overtly concerned with failed relationships, and even the epic "Cortez the Killer", a retelling of the Spanish conquest of Mexico from the viewpoint of the Aztecs, may also be heard as an allegory of love lost. The song's deeply emotional lyrics and searing guitar solos made it one of Young's most enduring songs in concert over the next several decades. ''Zuma'''s closing track, "Through My Sails," was the only released fragment from aborted sessions with Crosby, Stills and Nash for another group album. The following year, Young reunited with Stephen Stills for the album ''Long May You Run'' (1976), credited to The Stills-Young Band; the follow-up tour was ended midway through by Young, who sent Stills a telegram that read: "Funny how some things that start spontaneously end that way. Eat a peach, Neil."

In 1976, Young performed with Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell, and numerous other rock musicians in the high profile all-star concert ''The Last Waltz'', the final performance by The Band. The release of Martin Scorsese's movie of the concert was delayed while Scorsese unwillingly re-edited it to obscure the lump of cocaine that was clearly visible hanging from Young's nose during his performance of "Helpless." ''American Stars 'N Bars'' (1977) contained two songs originally recorded for the ''Homegrown'' album, "Homegrown" and "Star of Bethlehem," as well as newer material, including the future concert staple "Like a Hurricane". Performers on the record included Linda Ronstadt, Emmylou Harris and Young protégé Nicolette Larson along with Crazy Horse. In 1977, Young also released the compilation ''Decade'', a personally selected set of songs spanning every aspect of his work, including a handful of previously unreleased songs. The record's sequencing, unusually for the time, resembled a live setlist and included less commercial album favorites alongside Young's greatest radio hits.

''Comes a Time'' (1978), Young's first entirely new solo recording since the mid 1970s, also featured Nicolette Larson and Crazy Horse and became Young's most commercially accessible album in quite some time, marked by a return to Young's folk roots, including a cover of Ian Tyson's "Four Strong Winds," a song Young associated with his childhood in Canada. In 1978 much of the filming was done for Young's film ''Human Highway'', which took its name from one of the album's songs. Over four years Young would spend US$3,000,000 of his own money on production. This also marked the beginning of his brief collaboration with the post-punk band Devo, whose members appeared in the film.

Young set out in 1978 on the lengthy "Rust Never Sleeps" tour, in which he played a wealth of new material. Each concert was divided into a solo acoustic set and an electric set with Crazy Horse. The electric sets, more furiously distorted than Young's work in the past, were later seen as a response to punk rock. One new song, "Hey Hey, My My (Into the Black)", was a centerpiece of the new material, and Young played it in both acoustic and electric renditions. Its blunt, but cryptic, lyrics have been among Young's most widely quoted ever since, addressing fame, commerce and rock n' roll, which according to Young's opening lines, "can never die." Young also compared the rise of Johnny Rotten with that of the recently deceased "King" Elvis Presley, who himself had once been disparaged as a dangerous influence only to later become an icon. Rotten returned the favour by playing one of Young's records on a London radio show, an early sign of Young's eventual embrace by a number of punk-influenced alternative musicians.

Young's two accompanying albums ''Rust Never Sleeps'' (new material, culled from live recordings, but featuring studio overdubs) and ''Live Rust'' (a mixture of old and new, and a genuine concert recording) captured the two sides of the concerts, with solo acoustic songs on side A, and fierce, uptempo, electric songs on side B. A movie version of the concerts, also called ''Rust Never Sleeps'' (1979), was directed by Young under the pseudonym Bernard Shakey. Young worked with rock artist Jim Evans to create the poster art for the film, using the "Star Wars" Jawas as a theme. Young's work since ''Harvest'' had alternated between being rejected by mass audiences and being seen as backward-looking by critics, sometimes both at once, and now he was suddenly viewed as relevant by a new generation, who began to discover his earlier work. Readers and critics of ''Rolling Stone'' voted him Artist of the Year for 1979 (along with The Who), selected ''Rust Never Sleeps'' as Album Of The Year, and voted him Male Vocalist of the Year as well. The Village Voice named ''Rust Never Sleeps'' as the year's winner in the Pazz & Jop Poll, a survey of nationwide critics, and honored Young as the Artist of the Decade.

Experimental years (1980–1988)[link]

The 1980s were often difficult times for Young, both personally and professionally. At the start of the decade, distracted by domestic medical concerns relating to his second disabled son, Ben, Young had little time to spend on writing and recording. After providing the incidental music to a 1980 biopic of Hunter S. Thompson entitled ''Where the Buffalo Roam'', Young released ''Hawks & Doves'', a short record pieced together from sessions going back to 1974. Young did not tour in support of either album; in total, he played only one show, a set at the 1980 Bread and Roses Festival in Berkeley, between the end of his 1978 tour with Crazy Horse and the start of his tour with the Trans Band in mid-1982.

The 1982 album ''Trans'', which incorporated vocoders, synthesizers, and electronic beats, was Young's first for new label Geffen Records (distributed at the time by Warner Bros. Records, whose parent Warner Music Group owns most of Young's solo and band catalog) and represented a distinct stylistic departure. Young later revealed that an inspiration for the album was the theme of technology and communication with his son Ben, who has severe cerebral palsy and cannot speak. An extensive tour preceded the release of the album, and was documented by the video ''Neil Young in Berlin'', which saw release in 1986. MTV played the video for "Sample and Hold" in light rotation. The entire song contained "robot vocals" by Neil and Nils Lofgren of the E-Street Band.

Young's next album, 1983's ''Everybody's Rockin''', included several rockabilly covers and clocked in at less than twenty-five minutes in length. Young was backed by the Shocking Pinks for the supporting U.S. tour. ''Trans'' had already drawn the ire of label head David Geffen for its lack of commercial appeal, and with ''Everybody's Rockin''' following only seven months later, Geffen Records sued Young for making music "unrepresentative" of himself. The album was also notable as the first for which Young made commercial music videos – Tim Pope directed the videos for "Wonderin'" and "Cry, Cry, Cry". Also premiered in 1983, though little seen, was the eclectic full-length comedy film ''Human Highway'', co-directed and co-written by Young, and starring Young, Dean Stockwell, Russ Tamblyn, Dennis Hopper and members of Devo.

1984 was the first year without a Neil Young album since the start of Young's musical career with Buffalo Springfield in 1966. Young's lack of productivity was largely due to the ongoing legal battle with Geffen, although he was also frustrated that the label had rejected his 1982 country album ''Old Ways''. It was also the year when Young's third child, his second with wife Pegi, was born: his daughter Amber Jean, a child who was later diagnosed with inherited epilepsy. Young spent most of 1984 and all of 1985 touring for ''Old Ways'' with his country band, the International Harvesters. The album was finally released in an altered form midway through 1985. Young also appeared at that year's Live Aid concert in Philadelphia, collaborating with Crosby, Stills and Nash for the quartet's first performance for a paying audience in over ten years.

Young's last two albums for Geffen were more conventional in genre, although they incorporated production techniques like synthesizers and echoing drums that were previously uncommon in Young's music. Young recorded 1986's ''Landing on Water'' without Crazy Horse, but reunited with the band for the subsequent year-long tour and final Geffen album, ''Life'', which emerged in 1987. Young's album sales dwindled steadily throughout the eighties; today ''Life'' remains his all-time-least successful studio album, with an estimated four hundred thousand sales worldwide.

Switching back to his old label Reprise Records, Young continued to tour relentlessly, assembling a new blues band called The Bluenotes in mid-1987 (a legal dispute with musician Harold Melvin forced the eventual rechristening of the band as Ten Men Working midway through the tour). The addition of a brass section provided a new jazzier sound, and the title track of 1988's ''This Note's For You'' became Young's first hit single of the decade. Accompanied by a video that parodied corporate rock, the pretensions of advertising, and Michael Jackson, the song was initially unofficially banned by MTV for mentioning the brand names of some of their sponsors. Young wrote an open letter, "What does the M in MTV stand for: music or money?" Despite this, the video was eventually named best video of the year by the network in 1989. By comparison, the major music cable network of Young's home nation, Muchmusic, ran the video immediately.

Young reunited with Crosby, Stills and Nash to record the 1988 album ''American Dream'' and play two benefit concerts late in the year, but the group did not embark upon a full tour. The album was only the second-ever studio record for the quartet.

Return to prominence (1989–1999)[link]

Young's 1989 single "Rockin' in the Free World", which hit #2 on the U.S. mainstream-rock charts, and accompanying album, ''Freedom'', rocketed him back into the popular consciousness after a decade of sometimes-difficult genre experiments. The album's lyrics were often overtly political; "Rockin' in the Free World" deals with homelessness, terrorism, and environmental degradation, implicitly criticizing the government policies of President George H.W. Bush.

The use of heavy feedback and distortion on several ''Freedom'' tracks was reminiscent of the ''Rust Never Sleeps'' album, and foreshadowed the imminent rise of grunge. The rising stars of the genre, including Nirvana's Kurt Cobain and Pearl Jam's Eddie Vedder, frequently cited Young as a major influence, contributing to his popular revival. A tribute album called ''The Bridge: A Tribute to Neil Young'' was released in 1989, featuring covers by alternative and grunge acts including Sonic Youth, Nick Cave, Soul Asylum, Dinosaur Jr, and the Pixies.

Young's 1990 album ''Ragged Glory'', recorded with Crazy Horse in a barn on his Northern California ranch, continued this distortion-heavy aesthetic. Young toured for the album with Orange County, California country-punk band Social Distortion and alternative rock pioneers Sonic Youth as support, much to the consternation of many of his old fans. ''Weld'', a two-disc live album documenting the tour, was released in 1991. Sonic Youth's influence was most evident on ''Arc'', a 35-minute collage of feedback and distortion spliced together at the suggestion of Sonic Youth's Thurston Moore and originally packaged with some versions of ''Weld''.

1992's ''Harvest Moon'' marked an abrupt return to the country and folk-rock stylings of ''Harvest'' and reunited him with some of the musicians from that album, including singers Linda Ronstadt and James Taylor. The title track was a minor hit and the record was well received by critics, winning the Juno Award for Album of the Year in 1994. Young also contributed to Randy Bachman's nostalgic 1992 tune "Prairie Town," and garnered a 1993 Academy Award nomination for his song "Philadelphia", from the soundtrack of the Jonathan Demme movie of the same name. An ''MTV Unplugged'' performance and album emerged in 1993. Later that year, Young collaborated with Booker T. and the M.G.s for a summer tour of Europe and North America. Some European shows ended with a rendition of "Rockin' in the Free World" played with Pearl Jam, foreshadowing their eventual full-scale collaboration two years later.

In 1994 Young again collaborated with Crazy Horse for ''Sleeps with Angels'', a record whose dark, sombre mood was influenced by Kurt Cobain's death earlier that year: the title track in particular dealt with Cobain's life and death, without mentioning him by name. Cobain had quoted Young's lyric "It's better to burn out than fade away" (a line from "My My, Hey Hey") in his suicide note. Young had reportedly made repeated attempts to contact Cobain prior to his death. Still enamored with the grunge scene, Young reconnected with Pearl Jam in 1995 for the live-in-the-studio album ''Mirror Ball'' and a tour of Europe with the band and producer Brendan O'Brien backing Young. 1995 also marked Young's induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, where he was inducted by Eddie Vedder.

:"Young has consistently demonstrated the unbridled passion of an artist who understands that self-renewal is the only way to avoid burning out. For this reason, he has remained one of the most significant artists of the rock and roll era." – Rock and Roll Hall of Fame website.

Young's next collaborative partner was filmmaker Jim Jarmusch, who asked Young to compose a soundtrack to his 1995 black and white western film ''Dead Man''. Young's instrumental soundtrack was improvised while he watched the film alone in a studio. The death of longtime mentor, friend, and producer David Briggs in late 1995 prompted Young to reconnect with Crazy Horse the following year for the album and tour ''Broken Arrow''. A Jarmusch-directed concert film and live album of the tour, ''Year of the Horse'', emerged in 1997. From 1996–97 Young and Crazy Horse toured extensively throughout Europe and North America, including a stint as part of the H.O.R.D.E. Festival's sixth annual tour.

In 1998, Young renewed his collaboration with the rock band Phish, sharing the stage at the annual Farm Aid concert and then at Young's Bridge School Benefit, where he joined headliners Phish for renditions of "Helpless" and "I Shall Be Released." Phish declined Young's later invitation to be his backing band on his 1999 North American tour.

The decade ended with the release in late 1999 of ''Looking Forward'', another reunion with Crosby, Stills and Nash. The subsequent tour of the United States and Canada with the reformed super quartet earned US$42.1 million, making it the eighth largest grossing tour of 2000.

Renewed activism and brush with death (2000s)[link]

Neil Young continued to release new material at a rapid pace through the first decade of the new millennium. The studio album ''Silver & Gold'' and live album ''Road Rock Vol. 1'' were released in 2000 and were both accompanied by live concert films. His 2001 single "Let's Roll" was a tribute to the victims of the September 11 attacks, and the effective action taken by the passengers and crew on Flight 93 in particular. At the "America: A Tribute to Heroes" benefit concert for the victims of the attacks, Young performed John Lennon's "Imagine" and accompanied Eddie Vedder and Mike McCready on "Long Road", a Pearl Jam song that was written with Young during the ''Mirrorball'' sessions. "Let's Roll" was included on 2002's ''Are You Passionate?'', an album mostly composed of mellow love songs dedicated to Young's wife, Pegi, backed by Booker T & the MGs.

In 2003, Young released ''Greendale'', a concept album recorded with Crazy Horse members Billy Talbot and Ralph Molina. The songs loosely revolved around the murder of a police officer in a small town in California and its effects on the town's inhabitants. Under the pseudonym "Bernard Shakey", Young directed an accompanying film of the same name, featuring actors lip-synching to the music from the album. He toured extensively with the ''Greendale'' material throughout 2003 and 2004, first with a solo, acoustic version in Europe, then with a full-cast stage show in North America, Japan, and Australia. Young began using biodiesel on the 2004 Greendale tour, powering his trucks and tour buses with the fuel. "Our Greendale tour is now ozone friendly," he said. "I plan to continue to use this government approved and regulated fuel exclusively from now on to prove that it is possible to deliver the goods anywhere in North America without using foreign oil, while being environmentally responsible." Young spent the latter portion of 2004 giving a series of intimate acoustic concerts in various cities with his wife, who is a trained vocalist and guitar player.

In March 2005, while working on the ''Prairie Wind'' album in Nashville, Young was diagnosed with a brain aneurysm. He was treated successfully with a minimally invasive neuroradiological procedure, performed in a New York hospital on March 29, but two days afterwards he passed out on a New York street from bleeding from the femoral artery, which surgeons had used to access the aneurysm. The complication forced Young to cancel his scheduled appearance at the Juno Awards telecast in Winnipeg, but within months he was back on stage, appearing at the close of the Live 8 concert in Barrie, Ontario, on July 2. During the performance, he debuted a new song, a soft hymn called "When God Made Me". Young's brush with death influenced ''Prairie Wind'''s themes of retrospection and mortality. The album's live premiere in Nashville was immortalized by filmmaker Jonathan Demme in the 2006 film ''Neil Young: Heart of Gold''.

Young's renewed activism manifested itself in the 2006 album ''Living With War'', which like the much earlier song "Ohio," was recorded and released in less than a month as a direct result of current events. In early 2006, three years after the US invasion of Iraq, the sectarian war and casualties there were escalating. While doing errands on a visit to his daughter, Young had seen a newspaper photo of wounded US veterans on a transport plane to Germany, and noticing that the same paper devoted little actual coverage to the story, he was unable to get the image out of his head, realizing the suffering caused to families by the war had not truly registered to him and most Americans who were not directly affected by it. Young broke down crying, and immediately got his guitar out and began to write multiple songs at once. Within a few days he had completed work and assembled a band. He later said he had restrained himself for a long time from writing any protest songs, waiting for someone younger, with a different perspective, but no one seemed to be saying anything.

Most of the album's songs rebuked the Bush administration's policy of war by examining its human costs to soldiers, their loved ones, and civilians, but Young also included a few songs on other themes, and an outright protest titled, "Let's Impeach the President", in which he stated that Bush had lied to lead the country into war. Young's lyrics in another song named Illinois Senator Barack Obama, who had not declared any intention to run for president at the time and was widely unexpected to be able to win either the Democratic Party nomination or a general election, as potentially a replacement for Bush. That summer, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young reunited for the supporting "Freedom Of Speech Tour '06", in which they played Young's new protest songs alongside the group's older material, meeting with both enthusiasm and anger from different fans, some of whom were supportive of Bush politically. ''CSNY Déjà Vu'', a concert film of the tour directed by Young himself, was released in 2008, along with an accompanying live album.

While Young had never been a stranger to eco-friendly lyrics, themes of environmentalist spirituality and activism became increasingly prominent in his work throughout the 1990s and 2000s, especially on ''Greendale'' and ''Living With War''. The trend continued on 2007's ''Chrome Dreams II'', with lyrics exploring Young's personal eco-spirituality. Also in 2007, Young accepted an invitation to participate in ''Goin' Home: A Tribute to Fats Domino'', contributing his version of "Walking to New Orleans".

In 2008, Young revealed his latest project, the production of a hybrid-engine 1959 Lincoln called Lincvolt. A new album loosely based on the Lincvolt project, ''Fork in the Road'', was released on April 7, 2009. The album, partly composed of love songs to the car, also commented on the economic crisis, with one narrator attacking the Wall Street bailouts enacted in late 2008. Unfortunately, the car caught fire in November 2010, in a California warehouse, and along the way it burned an estimated US$850,000 worth of Young's rock and roll memorabilia collection. Initial reports suggest the fire might have been triggered by an error in the vehicle's plug-in charging system. Young blamed the fire on human error and said he and his team were committed to rebuilding the car. "The wall charging system was not completely tested and had never been left unattended. A mistake was made. It was not the fault of the car", he said.

A Jonathan Demme concert film from a 2007 concert at the Tower Theater in Upper Darby, Pennsylvania, called the ''Neil Young Trunk Show'' premiered on March 21, 2009, at the South by Southwest (SXSW) Film Conference and Festival in Austin, Texas. It was featured at the Cannes Film Festival on May 17, 2009 and was released in the US on March 19, 2010 to critical acclaim.

Young's most recent album appearance was on the album ''Potato Hole'', released on April 21, 2009 by Memphis organ player Booker T. Jones, of Booker T. & the MGs fame. Young plays guitar on nine of the album's ten instrumental tracks, alongside Drive-By Truckers, who already had three guitar players, giving some songs on the album a total of five guitar tracks. Jones contributed guitars on a couple of tracks.

Young continues to tour extensively. In 2009, he headlined the Glastonbury Festival in Pilton, England, at Hard Rock Calling in London (where he was joined onstage by Paul McCartney for a rendition of "A Day in the Life") and, after years of unsuccessful booking attempts, the Isle of Wight Festival in addition to performances at the Big Day Out festival in New Zealand and Australia and the Primavera Sound Festival in Barcelona.

New performances (2010s)[link]

On January 22, 2010, Young performed "Long May You Run" on the final episode of ''The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien''. On the same night, he and Dave Matthews performed the Hank Williams song "Alone and Forsaken", for the ''Hope for Haiti Now: A Global Benefit for Earthquake Relief'' charity telethon, in response to the 2010 Haiti earthquake. Young also performed "Long May You Run" at the closing ceremony of the 2010 Olympic winter games in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. In May 2010, it was revealed Young had begun working on a new studio album produced by Daniel Lanois. This was announced by David Crosby, who said that the album "will be a very heartfelt record. I expect it will be a very special record." On May 18, 2010, Young embarked upon a North American solo tour to promote his then upcoming album, ''Le Noise'', playing a mix of older songs and new material. Although billed as a solo acoustic tour, Young also played some songs on electric guitars, including Old Black. Young continued his Twisted Road tour with a short East Coast venture during spring 2011. Young also contributed vocals to the Elton John–Leon Russell album ''The Union'', singing the second stanza on the track "Gone to Shiloh" and providing backing vocals.

In September 2011, Jonathan Demme's third documentary film on the singer songwriter, ''Neil Young Journeys'', premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival. Like Demme's earlier work with Young, most of the film consists of a simply filmed live performance, in this case, Young's homecoming show in May 2011 at Toronto's Massey Hall, four decades after he first played at the iconic venue. Playing old songs, as well as new ones from ''Le Noise'', Young performs solo on both electric and acoustic instruments. His performance is a counterpoint to Demme's footage of Young's return to Omemee, Ontario, the small town near Toronto where he grew up, which has now become physically unrecognizable, though he vividly recalls events from his childhood there.

Young currently lives near La Honda, California, on his Broken Arrow Ranch, named after one of his early Buffalo Springfield songs. The original parcel was purchased in 1970 for US$350,000 cash and has grown to thousands of acres.

On January 22, 2012, the Master Class at Slamdance Festival featured Coffee with Neil Young & Jonathan Demme for their new film ''Journeys''. A report from the event by Bob & Kim C. revealed that Neil Young has been recording with Crazy Horse. One album is complete and they are working on another.

Neil Young and Crazy Horse performed a full-on grunge version of the Beatles' "I Saw Her Standing There" for Paul McCartney's MusiCares Person of the Year dinner on February 10, 2012, in Hollywood.

Neil Young & Crazy Horse released the album Americana . Its release is scheduled for June 5, 2012.This will be Young's first collaboration with Crazy Horse since the Greendale album and tour in 2003 and 2004. The record is a tribute to national anthems that jumps from "This Land Is Your Land" to "Clementine"

Archives project[link]

As far back as 1988, Young spoke in interviews of his efforts to compile his unreleased material and to remaster his existing catalog. The collection was eventually titled the Neil Young Archives Series. The first installment, entitled ''The Archives Vol. 1 1963–1972'', was originally planned for a 2007 release but was delayed, and released on June 2, 2009.

Three performances from the ''Performance Series'' of the archives were released individually before ''The Archives Vol. 1''. ''Live at the Fillmore East'', a selection of songs from a 1970 gig with Crazy Horse, was released in 2006. ''Live at Massey Hall 1971'', a solo acoustic set from Toronto's Massey Hall, saw release in 2007. ''Sugar Mountain - Live At Canterbury House 1968'', an early solo performance and, chronologically, the first disc in the performance series, emerged late in 2008.

In an interview in 2008, Neil Young discussed ''Toast'', an album originally recorded with Crazy Horse in San Francisco in 2000 but never released. The album will be part of the ''Special Edition Series'' of the Archives. No release date currently exists for ''Toast''. The album ''A Treasure,'' with live tracks from 1985 sessions with the International Harvesters, during a time when he was being sued by Geffen Records, was released in June 2011.

On July 14, 2009, Young's first four solo albums were reissued as remastered HDCD discs and digital downloads as discs 1–4 of the ''Original Release Series'' of the Archives.

Awards and recognitions[link]

2011 Juno Awards Artist of the Year, Adult Alternative Album of the Year, and Allan Waters Humanitarian Award

2011 Grammy Awards Best Rock Song "Angry World" – Neil Young, songwriter

2010 Grammy Awards Best Art Direction On A Boxed/Special Limited Edition Package "Archives Volume One 1963-1973" – Neil Young, Gary Burden, Jenice Heo

Canadian Music Hall of Fame, 1982

Rock and Roll Hall of Fame He has been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame twice. First in 1995 for his solo work, with an induction speech given by Eddie Vedder, and again in 1997 as a member of Buffalo Springfield.

As one of the original founders of Farm Aid, he remains an active member of the board of directors. For one weekend each October, in Mountain View, California, he and his wife host the Bridge School Concerts, which have been drawing international talent and sell-out crowds for nearly two decades with some of the biggest names in rock having performed at the event including Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, Bruce Springsteen, David Bowie, The Who, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails, Tom Waits, Thom Yorke of Radiohead, R.E.M, Foo Fighters, Metallica, Pearl Jam, Sonic Youth, The Smashing Pumpkins, Paul McCartney and Dave Matthews. The concerts are a benefit for the Bridge School, which develops and uses advanced technologies to aid in the instruction of children with disabilities. Young's involvement stems at least partially from the fact that both of his sons have cerebral palsy and his daughter, like Young himself, has epilepsy.

Young was nominated for an Oscar in 1994 for his song "Philadelphia" from the film ''Philadelphia''. Bruce Springsteen won the award for his song "Streets of Philadelphia" from the same film. In his acceptance speech, Springsteen said that "the award really deserved to be shared by the other nominee's song." That same night, Tom Hanks accepted the Oscar for Best Actor and gave credit for his inspiration to the song "Philadelphia".

He was part owner of Lionel, LLC, a company that makes toy trains and model railroad accessories. In 2008 Lionel emerged from bankruptcy and his shares of the company were wiped out. At this time his status with Lionel is unknown, according to Lionel CEO Jerry Calabrese he is still a consultant for Lionel. He was instrumental in the design of the Lionel Legacy control system for model trains and it is believed he will continue to develop the system. Young has been named as co-inventor on seven U.S. Patents related to model trains.

Young has twice received honorary doctorates. He received an Honorary Doctorate of Music from Lakehead University in Thunder Bay, Ontario in 1992, and an Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters from San Francisco State University in 2006. The latter honour was shared with his wife Pegi for their creation of the Bridge School. In 2006, Young was given Manitoba's highest civilian honour, when he was appointed to the Order of Manitoba. In 2009, he was then given Canada's highest civilian honour, when he was appointed to the Order of Canada.

''Rolling Stone'' magazine in 2000, ranked Young thirty-fourth in its list of the 100 greatest artists of all time, and in 2003, included five of his albums in its list of 500 greatest albums of all time. In 2000, Young was inducted into Canada's Walk of Fame. In 2006, ''Paste'' magazine compiled a "Greatest Living Songwriters" list; Young was ranked second behind Bob Dylan. (While Young and Dylan have occasionally played together in concert, they have never collaborated on a song together, or played on each others' records). He ranked thirty-ninth on ''VH1's 100 Greatest Artist of Hard Rock'' that same year. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame explained that while Young has "avoided sticking to one style for very long, the unifying factors throughout Young’s peripatetic musical journey have been his unmistakable voice, his raw and expressive guitar playing, and his consummate songwriting skill."

Young's political outspokenness and social awareness influenced artists such as Blind Melon, Phish, Pearl Jam, and Nirvana. Young is referred to as "the Godfather of Grunge" because of the influence he had on Kurt Cobain and Eddie Vedder and the entire grunge movement. Eddie Vedder of Pearl Jam inducted Young into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1995, citing him as a huge influence. Young is cited as being a significant influence on experimental rock artists Sonic Youth, Jesse Marchant, and Thom Yorke of Radiohead. Yorke recounted of first hearing Young after sending a demo tape into a magazine when he was 16, who favourably compared his singing voice to Young's. Unaware of Young at that time, he bought ''After the Gold Rush'', and "immediately fell in love" with his work, calling it "extraordinary". Dave Matthews lists Neil Young as one of his favorite and most inspirational songwriters and covers his songs on occasion. The British Indie band The Bluetones named their number one debut album after the song "Expecting to Fly" (written by Young when still with Buffalo Springfield) and have covered the song while touring. Young also inspired Oasis singer-songwriter Noel Gallagher, with Gallagher covering "My My, Hey Hey (Into the Black)" on the live album ''Familiar to Millions''.

The Australian rock group Powderfinger named themselves after Young's song "Powderfinger" from ''Rust Never Sleeps''. The members of the Constantines have occasionally played Neil Young tribute shows under the name Horsey Craze. While in Winnipeg on November 2, 2008 during the Canadian leg of his tour, Bob Dylan visited Young's former home in River Heights, where Young spent his teenage years. Dylan was interested in seeing the room where some of Young's first songs were composed.

Jason Bond, an East Carolina University biologist, discovered a new species of trapdoor spider in 2007 and named it ''Myrmekiaphila neilyoungi'' after Young, his favorite singer.

In 2001, Young was awarded the Spirit of Liberty award from the civil liberties group People for the American Way. Young was honored as the MusiCares Person of the Year on January 29, 2010, two nights prior to the 52nd Annual Grammy Awards. He was also nominated for two Grammy Awards: Best Solo Rock Vocal Performance for "Fork In The Road" and Best Boxed or Special Limited Edition Package for "Neil Young Archives Vol. I (1963–1972)". Young won the latter Grammy Award. In 2010, he was ranked #26 in Gibson.com’s Top 50 Guitarists of All Time.

Juno Awards[link]

{|class="wikitable" |- ! Year ! Category ! Nominated work ! Result |- | rowspan=2 | 2011 || Artist of the Year || Neil Young || |- | Adult Alternative Album of the Year || ''Le Noise'' || |- | 2008 || Adult Alternative Album of the Year || ''Chrome Dreams II'' || |- | 2007 || Adult Alternative Album of the Year || ''Living With War'' || |- | rowspan=3 | 2006 || Adult Alternative Album of the Year || ''Prairie Wind'' || |- | Jack Richardson Producer of the Year || "The Painter" || |- | Songwriter of the Year || "The Painter", "When God Made Me", "Prairie Wind" || |- | rowspan=2 | 2001 || Best Male Artist || Neil Young || |- | Best Roots & Traditional Album – Solo || ''Silver & Gold'' || |- | 1997 || Male Vocalist of the Year || Neil Young || |- | rowspan=2 | 1996 || Best Rock Album || ''Mirror Ball'' || |- | Male Vocalist of the Year || Neil Young || |- | rowspan=3 | 1995 || Songwriter of the Year || Neil Young || |- | Male Vocalist of the Year || Neil Young || |- | Entertainer of the Year || Neil Young || |- | rowspan=2 | 1994 || Single of the Year || "Harvest Moon" || |- | Album of the Year || ''Harvest Moon'' || |- | rowspan=2 | 1993 || Songwriter of the Year || Neil Young || |- | Male Vocalist of the Year || Neil Young || |- | 1991 || Male Vocalist of the Year || Neil Young || |- | 1990 || Male Vocalist of the Year || Neil Young || |- | 1989 || Male Vocalist of the Year || Neil Young || |- | 1986 || Male Vocalist of the Year || Neil Young || |- | 1982 || Male Vocalist of the Year || Neil Young || |- | 1981 || Male Vocalist of the Year || Neil Young || |- | 1980 || Male Vocalist of the Year || Neil Young || |- | 1979 || Male Vocalist of the Year || Neil Young || |- | 1975 || Composer of the Year || Neil Young || |}

Instruments[link]

Guitars[link]

In 2003, ''Rolling Stone'' listed Young as eighty-third in its ranking of "The 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time" (although in a more recent version of the list, he has been moved up to seventeenth place), describing him as a "restless experimenter...who transform[s] the most obvious music into something revelatory." Young is a collector of second-hand guitars, but in recording and performing, he frequently uses just a few instruments, as is explained by his longtime guitar technician Larry Cragg in the film ''Neil Young: Heart of Gold''. They include:

1953 Gibson Les Paul Goldtop. Nicknamed "Old Black", this is Young's primary electric guitar and is featured on ''Rust Never Sleeps'' and other albums. Old Black got its name from an amateur paintjob applied to the originally gold body of the instrument, sometime before Neil acquired the guitar in the late 1960s. In 1972, a mini humbucker pickup from a Gibson Firebird was installed in the lead/treble position. This pickup, severely microphonic, is considered a crucial component of Neil's sound. A Bigsby vibrato tailpiece was installed as early as 1969, and can be heard during the opening of "Cowgirl in the Sand" from ''Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere''.

Martin D-45. His primary steel-string acoustic guitar, used to write "Old Man" and many other songs. It was one of four instruments bought by Stephen Stills for himself and his band-mates in CSNY in order to celebrate their first full concert at the Greek Theater in 1969.

Martin D-28. Nicknamed "Hank" after its previous owner, Hank Williams. Hank Williams, Jr., had traded it for some shotguns; it went through a succession of other owners until it was located by Young's longtime friend Grant Boatwright. The guitar was purchased by Young from Tut Taylor. Young has toured with it for over 30 years. A story about the guitar and the song it inspired, "This Old Guitar," can be seen about 50 minutes into the film ''Neil Young: Heart of Gold''. It is Young's primary guitar for ''Prairie Wind''.

Vintage Martin D-18: Young used an old D-18 throughout his early days performing in coffee houses in Canada and on some early Buffalo Springfield work, before he received the D-45 from Stills. It can also be seen on unreleased footage from the Woodstock documentary, particularly on an exceptional acoustic duet of the Buffalo Springfield track "Mr. Soul" with Stills. The guitar has often been used to carry "dropped standard tuning" (DGCFAD) which Young often uses in concert. This allowed him to perform songs such as "Ambulance Blues" and "Don't let it Bring You Down" live without having to tune all 6 strings onstage.

Other notable (or odd) instruments played by Young include:

Taylor 855 12-string, used in the first half of ''Rust Never Sleeps''.

1927 Gibson Mastertone, a six-string banjo tuned like a guitar, used on many recordings and played by James Taylor on "Old Man."

Gretsch 6120 (Chet Atkins model). Before Young bought Old Black, this was his primary electric guitar during his Buffalo Springfield days.

Gretsch White Falcon. Young purchased a late 1950s model near the end of the Buffalo Springfield era; in 1969 he bought a stereo version of the same vintage guitar from Stephen Stills, and this instrument is featured prominently during Young's early 1970s period, and can be heard on tracks like "Ohio," "Southern Man," "Alabama," "Words (Between the Lines of Age)," and "L.A.". It was Young's primary electric guitar during the ''Harvest'' era, since Young's deteriorating back condition (eventually fixed with surgery) made playing the much heavier Les Paul difficult. This particular White Falcon is the stereo 6137, in which the signal from the three bass strings is separated from the signal from the three treble strings. Young typically plays this guitar in this stereo mode, sending the separate signals to two different amps, a Fender Deluxe and either a Fender Tremolux or a low-powered Tweed Fender Twin. The separation of the signals is most prominently heard on the ''Harvest'' song "Words."

Gibson Flying V, on the ''Time Fades Away'' tour.

Fender Broadcaster, on the ''Tonight's the Night'' album and tour.

Reed organ[link]

Young owns an Estey reed organ, serial number 167272, dating from 1885, which he frequently plays in concert and which was recently restored. The instrument and its restoration are documented in ''The Reed Society Quarterly'' (30.1: 6ff); a photograph of the instrument is on the cover.

Amplification[link]

Young uses various vintage Fender Tweed Deluxe amplifiers. His preferred amplifier for electric guitar is the Fender Deluxe, specifically a Tweed-era model from 1959. He purchased his first vintage Deluxe in 1967 for US$50 from the drummer of Crazy Horse, Ralph Molina, and has since acquired nearly 450 different examples, all from the same era, but he maintains that it is the original model that sounds superior and is crucial to his trademark sound.

The Tweed Deluxe is almost always used in conjunction with a late-1950s Magnatone 280 (similar to the amplifier used by Lonnie Mack and Buddy Holly). The Magnatone and the Deluxe are paired together in a most unusual manner: the external speaker jack from the Deluxe sends the amped signal through a volume potentiometer and directly into the input of the Magnatone. The Magnatone is notable for its true pitch-bending vibrato capabilities, which can be heard as an electric piano amplifier on "See the Sky About to Rain". A notable and unique accessory to Young's Deluxe is the Whizzer, a device created specifically for Young, which physically changes the amplifier's settings to pre-set combinations. This device is connected to footswitches operable by Young onstage in the manner of an effects pedal.

Discography[link]

:''See also the discographies for Buffalo Springfield and Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young''

See also[link]

Music of Canada

Canadian rock

Notes[link]

References[link]

McKay, George (2009) "'Crippled with nerves": popular music and polio'. ''Popular Music'' 28:3, 341–365.

External links[link]

Neil's Garage – Official website

Youngtown Rock and Roll Museum – Omemee, Ontario

Review of Crazy Horse at the Fillmore 1970

"Neil Young: Don't be Denied", PBS, ''American Masters'', TV documentary, 2009

Sugar Mountain - a compilation of set lists from Neil Young's concert performances

Category:1945 births Category:Living people Category:Musicians from Toronto Category:Anti–Iraq War activists Category:Anti–Vietnam War activists Category:Buffalo Springfield members Category:Canadian activists Category:Canadian country guitarists Category:Canadian country rock musicians Category:Canadian country singers Category:Canadian film directors Category:Canadian folk guitarists Category:Canadian folk singers Category:Canadian male singers Category:Canadian Music Hall of Fame inductees Category:Canadian people of American descent Category:Canadian people of French descent Category:Canadian people of Irish descent Category:Canadian rock guitarists Category:Canadian rock singers Category:Canadian singer-songwriters Category:Canadian environmentalists Category:Canadian expatriate musicians in the United States Category:Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young members Category:Juno Award winners Category:Grammy Award winners Category:Lead guitarists Category:Musicians from Winnipeg Category:Writers from Manitoba Category:Members of the Order of Manitoba Category:Crazy Horse (band) members Category:Writers from Ontario Category:Officers of the Order of Canada Category:People with epilepsy Category:Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductees Category:MusiCares Person of the Year

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