Thom Yorke
Yorke at the Latitude Festival, Suffolk, 2009.
Background information
Birth name	Thomas Edward Yorke
Also known as	Tchock,[1] Tchocky,[2][3] Dr. Tchock,[4][5] Thom E. Yorke,[6] Zachariah Wildwood[citation needed]
Born	(1968-10-07) 7 October 1968 (age 43) Wellingborough, Northamptonshire, England
Genres	Alternative rock, electronic music
Occupations	Musician
Instruments	Vocals, guitar, piano, keyboards
Years active	1985—present
Labels	XL
Associated acts	Radiohead, Atoms for Peace

Thomas "Thom" Edward Yorke (born 7 October 1968) is an English musician and singer-songwriter who is the lead vocalist and principal songwriter of the rock band Radiohead. He mainly plays guitar and piano, but has also played drums and bass guitar (notably during the Kid A and Amnesiac sessions). In July 2006, he released his debut solo album, The Eraser.

Yorke has been cited among the most influential figures in the music industry; in 2002, Q Magazine named Yorke the 6th most powerful figure in music,^[7] and Radiohead were ranked #73 in Rolling Stone's "100 Greatest Artists of All Time" in 2005. Yorke has also been cited among the greatest singers in popular music; in 2005, a poll organised by Blender and MTV2 saw Yorke voted the 18th greatest singer of all time,^[8] and in 2008, he was ranked 66th in Rolling Stone's "100 Greatest Singers of All Time" list.^[9]

Early life[link]

Yorke was born on 7 October 1968, in Wellingborough, Northamptonshire. At birth, his left eye was fixed shut; the doctors determined that the eye was paralyzed and that the condition was permanent. Yorke's parents took him to an eye specialist, who suggested a muscle graft. Yorke underwent five eye operations before he was six years old.^[10] Yorke's father, a chemical equipment salesman, was hired by a firm in Scotland shortly after his son's birth and the family lived there until Yorke was seven. During this time Yorke had to wear a patch over his eye.^[11] He has stated that the last surgery was "botched", giving him a drooping eyelid.^[12]

Yorke's family moved frequently; Yorke would move from school to school, where classmates teased him because of his eye.^[13] The family finally settled in Oxfordshire in 1978.^[13] Yorke received his first guitar when he was seven, inspired by guitarist Brian May in a live performance with his band Queen.^[12] By 11, he had joined his first band and written his first song.^[14] He attended the all boys public school Abingdon where he met future band members Ed O'Brien, Phil Selway, Colin Greenwood and Colin's younger brother, Jonny Greenwood.^[15] Yorke and his friends formed a band named On A Friday, as Friday was the only day on which the members were allowed to rehearse.^[12] Yorke, in this early line up, played guitar and provided vocals, and was already developing his songwriting and lyrical skills. Yorke, speaking about music's influence on him as a schoolboy, said, "School was bearable for me because the music department was separate from the rest of the school. It had pianos in tiny booths, and I used to spend a lot of time hanging around there after school."^[16]

After leaving school, Yorke postponed going to university for a year. During that time he worked in a few jobs and was involved in a car accident that made him wary of any kind of mechanized transport.^[17] Yorke left Oxford to study at the University of Exeter in late 1988, which as a result put On a Friday on hiatus aside from holiday break rehearsals.^[18] While at Exeter, Yorke worked as a DJ at Guild nights in the Lemon Grove and played briefly with the band Headless Chickens.^[19] Yorke also met Rachel Owen, whom he began dating.^[20]

Career[link]

Radiohead[link]

On A Friday resumed activity in 1991 as the members were finishing their degree courses. Now relocated to Oxford, they signed to Parlophone and changed their name to Radiohead. Around this time, Yorke said he "hit the self-destruct button pretty quickly"; he would drink heavily, which resulted in him randomly cutting his hair off and being too drunk to perform onstage.^[21]

Radiohead first gained notice with the worldwide hit single "Creep", which later appeared on the band's 1993 debut album Pablo Honey. Yorke admitted later that the success had enlarged his ego; he tried to project himself as a rock star, which included bleaching his hair and wearing extensions. He said, "When I got back to Oxford I was unbearable . . . [A]s soon as you get any success you disappear up your own arse and lost it forever."^[22]

By the time of their second album, The Bends (1995), the band, through frequent touring and greater attention to detail in the recording studio, had picked up a large cult fan base and had begun to receive wider critical acclaim. After the album's release, the American group R.E.M. picked Radiohead as its opening act for the European leg of their tour.^[23] Whilst on tour Yorke and R.E.M. singer Michael Stipe became close friends; in particular, Stipe gave him advice on how to deal with the demands of being in a rock band.^[24] During the production of the band's third album, OK Computer (1997), all five members had differing opinions and equal production roles, with Yorke having "the loudest voice", according to guitarist Ed O'Brien.^[25] After the album was finished, Yorke and Jonny Greenwood contributed to the Velvet Goldmine soundtrack along with other musicians under the moniker Venus in Furs.^[26] Upon release, OK Computer was heralded as a landmark album by nearly every publication that reviewed it, establishing Radiohead as one of the leading alternative rock acts of the 1990s. But Yorke was ambivalent about this success. Some of these concerns were voiced in the documentary film Meeting People Is Easy, which focused on the period. Yorke has explained in various interviews that he dislikes the "mythology" within the rock genre, and hates the media's obsession with celebrities.^[27]

Yorke and the band adopted a more radical approach on 2000's Kid A and 2001's Amnesiac, processing vocals, obscuring lyrics, and departing from rock for a more varied musical landscape including electronic, jazz and avant-garde classical influences. Expanding Radiohead's sales whilst earning acclaim for experimentation, the albums also divided fans and critics. In 2003, Radiohead released their sixth album, Hail to the Thief, a blend of rock and electronica that Yorke described as a reaction to the events of the early 2000s and newfound fears for his children's future, though he denied political intent. The band has continued to tour, and in 2005 they undertook recording sessions for a seventh album, In Rainbows, released as a digital DRM-free download in October 2007. In 2011, The King of Limbs, the 8th studio album by Radiohead, was released.

Solo work[link]

Yorke released his solo album The Eraser in 2006. Produced by Nigel Godrich and featuring cover art by Stanley Donwood, it was released on the independent label XL Recordings. Yorke described the album as "more beats and electronics" and denied that it meant he was leaving Radiohead, saying, "I want no crap about me being a traitor or whatever splitting up blah blah... this was all done with their blessing."^[28] The Eraser reached number 3 in the UK in its first week and number 2 in the United States, Canada and Australia, as well as number 9 on the Irish charts. The album was on the prestigious Mercury Prize shortlist and was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Alternative Music Album.

Yorke rarely plays as a solo act, having never embarked on a solo tour. He has sometimes played short acoustic sets of Radiohead songs in the band's webcasts and television appearances, and occasionally on his own at rallies. In 2006, he performed stripped-down versions of several songs from The Eraser ("Analyse", "The Clock", "Skip Divided" and "Cymbal Rush") on radio and TV programmes, and since then he has played and sung "Cymbal Rush" as an encore at some Radiohead concerts. In July 2009, Yorke played a rare solo performance at the Latitude Festival in England.^[29]

On September 21, 2009, Yorke released a new double-A side single, "Feeling Pulled Apart by Horses / The Hollow Earth".^[30] It was later announced that he has established an unnamed band with Flea of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Joey Waronker of R.E.M., Mauro Refosco of Forro in the Dark and producer Nigel Godrich.^[31] They played two sold out shows at the Orpheum Theatre in Los Angeles on October 4 and 5, 2009.^[32] Two days before, Yorke also played a "warm-up" show at the Echoplex in Los Angeles.^[33] On February 25, 2010, Yorke officially gave the band the name Atoms for Peace^[34]

Collaborations[link]

Apart from his own solo work, Yorke has collaborated with several artists. He sang backing vocals on PJ Harvey's Mercury Prize-winning 2000 album Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea and duetted with Harvey on one of its songs, "This Mess We're In". In the same year, he also appeared on Björk's soundtrack album Selmasongs, singing "I've Seen It All" with her. The Oscar-nominated song was written for Dancer in the Dark, a film starring Björk, and Yorke's part is sung in the film by an actor; due to time constraints Björk performed it alone at the 2001 Oscars. The two worked together again in 2008 on a charity single named "Náttúra".

Yorke also sang covers of the Roxy Music songs "2HB", "Ladytron" and "Bitter-Sweet" for the 1998 film Velvet Goldmine, as part of Venus in Furs. The band existed solely for the film's soundtrack and also consisted of Radiohead's Jonny Greenwood, Suede's Bernard Butler, and Roxy Music's Andy Mackay. Yorke was duplicating the original vocals of Bryan Ferry. Two other cover songs were performed by Venus in Furs, with vocals by an actor in the film. Yorke never appeared on screen.

Yorke's other collaborations include the 1998 single "Rabbit in Your Headlights", which he sang and co-wrote with DJ Shadow and which closes Psyence Fiction, the debut album by the group UNKLE; "El President", a 1998 duet with Isabel Monteiro of the band Drugstore, which was also released as a single, and vocals on the 2010 track "...And The World Laughs with You" by experimental musician and producer Flying Lotus of Warp Records. Thom paired up with his brother Andy in 2009 to record the track "All for the Best" for inclusion on the 2009 compilation CD Ciao My Shining Star: The Songs of Mark Mulcahy. He has also collaborated on several tracks with the electronic music group Modeselektor, providing vocals on the 2007 track "The White Flash" from the album Happy Birthday, as well as 2011 tracks "Shipwreck" and "This" from the album Monkeytown, in addition to production contributions on the album's b-side "Dull Hull". Yorke has also contributed music and remix/production skills in collaboration with various electronic artists including Burial, Four Tet, as well as hip-hop artists such as MF DOOM.

Yorke has also collaborated with Stanley Donwood on a picture book titled Dead Children Playing.

Atoms for Peace[link]

On February 25, 2010 Yorke revealed the name of his new band: "Atoms for Peace", and announced a series of U.S. tour dates. Yorke first introduced the band late in 2009, with a series of concerts in Los Angeles. It includes Flea of the Red Hot Chili Peppers on bass, Beck, R.E.M., all-round session drummer Joey Waronker, percussionist Mauro Refosco of the musical collective Forro in the Dark and Radiohead producer Nigel Godrich on keyboards and treatments. When the band officially debuted in Los Angeles last October, it was billed with question marks due to it being unnamed. In a note on Radiohead's web site, Yorke wrote; "It has been decided that we call ourselves Atoms For Peace. hope you like the name. it seemed bleedin' obvious." Atoms for Peace is a track on Yorke's 2006 solo album, The Eraser, its title taken in turn by the Eisenhower speech of the same name. The band toured briefly, playing eight dates across the USA including the three-day Coachella music festival in Indio, California on April 18, 2010.^[35] Thom Yorke has also confirmed rumours that the band were recording material together, and has announced that an album is nearing completion, tentatively scheduled for release in 2012.

Personal life[link]

Yorke currently lives in Oxford with his girlfriend, Rachel Owen. They have two children, son Noah, born in 2001, and daughter Agnes, born 2004. Owen studied fine art printmaking at Exeter and painting at the Accademia di Belle Arti of Florence. She completed a PhD at the University of London researching the illustrations to Dante's Divine Comedy.^[36]

His only brother, Andy, is ex-vocalist of the band Unbelievable Truth.

Yorke is very active in creating public awareness for cultural and political issues. In 2005, Yorke became a spokesman for Friends of the Earth and their campaign to reduce carbon emissions, The Big Ask. He often pays tribute to his children whilst performing live; during songs at the 2003 Glastonbury Festival, he played with a photo of Noah resting on the top of the piano and at the 2006 Bonnaroo Music Festival, he used guitar picks that were marked with Agnes' fingerprints.

Musical approach[link]

Vocal characteristics[link]

Thom Yorke in 2006

As a singer, Yorke is recognisable by his distinctive tenor voice, vibrato, frequent use of falsetto and ability to reach, and sustain notes over a wide vocal range. In 1994, the band watched Jeff Buckley in concert; Yorke later said the concert had a direct effect on his vocal delivery on "Fake Plastic Trees".^[37] However, Yorke has said, "It annoys me how pretty my voice is... how polite it can sound when perhaps what I'm singing is deeply acidic."^[38] He has often adopted other styles of singing, such as an aggressive shouting style in the middle section of "Paranoid Android" and a semi-spoken style for 2003's "Myxomatosis" and "A Wolf at the Door".

Musicianship[link]

Aside from vocal duties and writing lyrics, Yorke's musical contributions to Radiohead include guitar, both acoustic and electric (usually rhythm parts, with band member Jonny Greenwood handling lead), and piano (including Rhodes piano, especially on Kid A). He also plays bass guitar on occasion (the bass line for "The National Anthem" was recorded by him) as well as drums; during the 2006 and 2008 tours he performed percussion on stage in tandem with drummer Phil Selway on the track "Bangers + Mash".

Yorke, unlike the other members of Radiohead, has never learned how to read music.^[39] He said, "If someone lays the notes on a page in front of me, it's meaningless... because to me you can't express the rhythms properly like that. It's a very ineffective way of doing it, so I've never really bothered picking it up."^[38]

Since Kid A, Radiohead, and in particular Yorke, have incorporated many elements of electronic music into their work. As a result, Yorke has taken an increased role in programming beats and samples and has been credited with playing "laptop" on recent albums. On a radio show in 2003 to publicise the release of Hail to the Thief, Yorke remarked that he would rather make a record just with a computer than with only an acoustic guitar.^[40] His solo effort The Eraser featured piano, bass and guitar, but was built primarily around electronics.

In interviews Yorke has cited a variety of personal musical heroes and influences, including jazz composer and bassist Charles Mingus, Neil Young, Miracle Legion, singer Scott Walker, electronic acts Aphex Twin and Autechre, and Krautrock band Can. Talking Heads, Queen, Joy Division, Magazine, Elvis Costello, The Smiths and Sonic Youth were early influences on Radiohead and Yorke. In 2004, at the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival, Yorke mentioned to the crowd, "When I was in college, the Pixies and R.E.M. changed my life",^[41] and he has often mentioned both bands as influential examples.

Activism[link]

Yorke has been outspoken on various contemporary political and social issues. Radiohead had read No Logo by Naomi Klein during the Kid A sessions ("No Logo" was also briefly considered as the album title) and all the members were reportedly heavily influenced by it, though Yorke said it "didn't teach him anything he didn't already know".^[42] Yorke's activism in support of fair trade practices, with an anti-WTO and anti-globalisation stance, garnered significant attention in the early 2000s.^[43] Yorke had previously referenced maquiladoras in the title of a Radiohead B-side in 1995, and decried the International Monetary Fund in 1997's "Electioneering". Yorke is also a professed fan of Noam Chomsky's political writings,^[44] and is a vegan.^[45]

Yorke is also notable as a political activist on behalf of other causes, including human rights and anti-war movements such as Jubilee 2000, Amnesty International and CND, and Friends of the Earth's Big Ask campaign.^[46] Radiohead played at the Free Tibet concert in both 1998 and 1999, and at an Amnesty International concert in 1998.^[47] In 2005, Yorke performed at an all-night vigil for the Trade Justice Movement.^[48] In 2006, Jonny Greenwood and Yorke performed a special benefit concert for Friends of the Earth. Yorke made headlines the same year for refusing Prime Minister Tony Blair's request to meet with him to discuss climate change, declaring Blair had "no environmental credentials".^[49] Yorke has subsequently been critical of his own energy use. He has said the music industry's use of air transport is dangerous and unsustainable, and that he would consider not touring if new carbon emissions standards do not force the situation to improve.^[50] Radiohead commissioned a study by the group Best Foot Forward which the band claims helped them choose venues and transport methods that will greatly reduce the carbon expended on their 2008 tour. The band also made use of a new low-energy LED lighting system and encouraged festivals to offer reusable plastics.^[51]

In December 2009, Yorke gained access to the COP 15 climate change talks in Copenhagen, posing as a member of the media.^[52] In the same year he lent his support to the 10:10 project, a movement encouraging people to take positive action on climate change by reducing their carbon emissions.^[53]

Relationship with celebrities and the media[link]

Yorke has had an uneasy relationship with other celebrities and the media. Following Radiohead's 1993 Pablo Honey tour of America, Yorke became disenchanted at being "right at the sharp end of the sexy, sassy, MTV eye-candy lifestyle" he felt he was helping to sell to the world.^[54] The 1998 documentary film Meeting People is Easy portrays Yorke's disaffection with the music industry and press during the 1997-8 "Against Demons" world tour.^[55]

A number of celebrities have been upset by Yorke's alleged rudeness. In 2001, Kelly Jones, the lead singer of the Welsh band Stereophonics, referred to Thom Yorke as a "miserable twat"^[56] (a comment he later retracted).^[57] In 2002, Jack Black claimed to have approached Yorke to congratulate him on his solo show at the Bridge School benefit concert in San Francisco, only for Yorke to ignore him and walk away. Referring to the incident, Black stated in an interview: "I heard later that he's famously cold, and it wasn't just me that he despises, but the whole world."^[58] After completing a trek of Kilimanjaro in 2009, Ronan Keating was asked by an interviewer which celebrity he would most like to throw off a mountain. Keating named Yorke, and referred to him as a "muppet", stating that Yorke was once rude to him.^[59] In the same year, Miley Cyrus and Kanye West also complained about Yorke's alleged rudeness.^[60] In 2010, it was reported that Yorke would be covering Peter Gabriel's song "Wallflower", from Gabriel's fourth solo album Peter Gabriel 4 (Security), with Gabriel claiming, "Thom wanted to do a version of Wallflower, which I'm very curious to hear. I think that was an important track for him when he was 14."^[61] However, it was subsequently reported that Yorke had withdrawn from the project and hadn't informed Gabriel why.^[62]

Discography[link]

• The Eraser (2006)

References[link]

• Randall, Mac. Exit Music: The Radiohead Story. Delta, 2000. ISBN 0-385-33393-5

Notes[link]

External links[link]

• Media related to Thom Yorke at Wikimedia Commons
• Quotations related to Thom Yorke at Wikiquote
• The Eraser: Official website for Yorke's solo album release
• Thom Yorke, Going Solo: Interview with Yorke, from NPR's "Fresh Air" radio program—July 2006

Neil Young
Young performing in Oslo, Norway, in 2009.
Background information
Birth name	Neil Percival Young
Also known as	Bernard Shakey,[1] Phil Perspective, Shakey Deal, Clyde Coil, Ol' Neil, Joe Canuck, Joe Yankee,[1] Marc Lynch,[1] Pinecone Young[2]
Born	(1945-11-12) November 12, 1945 (age 66) Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Origin	Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada
Genres	Rock, folk rock, country rock, experimental rock, hard rock
Occupations	Musician, songwriter, producer, director, screenwriter
Instruments	Guitar, vocals, harmonica, piano, keyboards, banjo, ukulele
Years active	1960–present
Labels	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
Website	neilyoung.com
Notable instruments
"Old Black" Martin D-45 "Hank" Gretsch White Falcon

Neil Percival Young,^[3] OC,^[4] OM^[5] (born November 12, 1945) is a Canadian singer-songwriter who is widely regarded as one of the most influential musicians of his generation.^[6]

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.^[6] The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame website describes Young as "one of rock and roll’s greatest songwriters and performers".^[7] 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.^[8]

Young's work is characterized by his distinctive guitar work, deeply personal lyrics^[9][10][11] and signature alto or high tenor singing voice.^[12][13] 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".^[14]

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.^[15]

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,^[16] 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.^[17] On July 14, 2006, Young was awarded the Order of Manitoba,^[5] and on December 30, 2009, was made an Officer of the Order of Canada.^[4]

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.^[18] 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".^[19] 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".^[20] Omemee later established the Youngtown Museum in tribute to Young.^[21] Young was diagnosed with diabetes as a child,^[22] and also suffered from a bout of polio in 1951, in what was the last major outbreak of the disease in Ontario.^[23] This was in fact the same epidemic in which singer-songwriter Joni Mitchell, then aged nine, also contracted the virus.^[24]

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.^[25]

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.^[26]

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.^[28] 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.^[29] 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.^[30] 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."^[31]

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^[32] 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."^[33] 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.^[34] Mitchell recalls Young as having been highly influenced by Bob Dylan at the time.^[35] 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.^[36] 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.^[37] 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.^[38]

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

Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young (center right) perform at the PNC Arts Center, August 2006.

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,^[39] 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 103 °F (39 °C) in bed.^[40]

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.^[41] 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".^[42] 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".^[43] 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.

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

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.^[44][45] 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:^[46] "[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.^[47] 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".^[48]

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.^[49] Young further explained his move by saying: "It was a little too personal ... it scared me".^[49] Most of the songs from Homegrown were later incorporated into other Young albums, but the original album never surfaced. Tonight's the Night, when finally released in 1975, sold poorly, as had the previous albums of the "ditch" trilogy, and received mixed reviews at the time, but is now regarded as a landmark album. In Young's own opinion, it was the closest he ever came to art.^[50]

Young in Austin, Texas, on November 9, 1976. Photo: David Gans

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

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."^[51]

The Last Waltz, Young (center on left microphone) performing with Bob Dylan and The Band, among others in 1976.

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."^[52] 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.^[53]

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.^[54] 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.^[54] 1981's Re-ac-tor, an electric album recorded with Crazy Horse, also included material from the 1970s.^[55] 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,^[56] 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.^[58] 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.^[59] 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.^[60] 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.^[61]

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.^[62] 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 performing in 1996 in Turku, Finland

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.^[63]

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.^[64] Weld, a two-disc live album documenting the tour, was released in 1991.^[64] 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.^[64]

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.^[65] 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.^[66]

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."^[67] 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.^[68] 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.^[69] 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."^[70] 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,^[71] 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.^[72] 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.^[73] 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.^[74] 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",^[75] 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^[76] and Living With War.^[77] The trend continued on 2007's Chrome Dreams II, with lyrics exploring Young's personal eco-spirituality.^[78] 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.^[79] A new album loosely based on the Lincvolt project, Fork in the Road, was released on April 7, 2009.^[80] 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.

Young performing in Nottingham, England, on June 23, 2009.

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^[81] to critical acclaim.^[82][83][84]

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,^[85] 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^[86] 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."^[87] 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.^[88] 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.^[89] 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^[90] La Honda, California, on his Broken Arrow Ranch, named after one of his early Buffalo Springfield songs.^[91] The original 140-acre (0.57 km²) parcel was purchased in 1970 for US$350,000 cash^[92] and has grown to thousands of acres.^[93][94][95]

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.^[96]

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" ^[97]

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.^[98] 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.^[99] 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^[99] 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.^[100]

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,^[101] and in 2003, included five of his albums in its list of 500 greatest albums of all time.^[102] In 2000, Young was inducted into Canada's Walk of Fame.^[103] 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."^[7]

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,^[104] 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".^[105] 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.^[106] 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,^[107] his favorite singer.^[108]

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.^[109]

Juno Awards[link]

Instruments[link]

Young in 2008, in Florence, Italy

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."^[110] 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.^[111] 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.^[112]

Discography[link]

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

See also[link]

	Neil Young portal
32x28px	Music of Canada portal

• Music of Canada
• Canadian rock

Notes[link]

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Neil Young

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Neil Young

• Neil's Garage – Official website
• Neil Young at Allmusic
• Neil Young at the Internet Movie Database
• Youngtown Rock and Roll Museum – Omemee, Ontario
• Neil Young on Charlie Rose
• Works by or about Neil Young in libraries (WorldCat catalog)
• Neil Young collected news and commentary at The New York Times
• 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

This biographical article needs additional citations for verification. Please help by adding reliable sources. Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately, especially if potentially libelous or harmful. (March 2007)

Kieran Hebden
Hebden performs at the Grog Shop in Cleveland, Ohio
Background information
Also known as	Four Tet
Origin	United Kingdom
Genres	Electronic Folktronica IDM Jazz Post-dubstep Post-rock
Instruments	Piano, drums, guitar, harpsichord, horn, synthesizer
Years active	1998–present
Labels	Output Recordings Domino Records
Associated acts	Fridge, Steve Reid, Burial, Thom Yorke
Website	http://www.fourtet.net/

Kieran Hebden (born 1978, Putney, London) is a post-rock and electronic musician. Hebden first came to prominence as a member of the band Fridge before establishing himself as a solo artist under the moniker of Four Tet.

Hebden's music typically eschews the traditional pop song format in favour of a more abstract approach—his sound and melodies incorporate elements of hip hop, electronica, techno, jazz, and folk music with live instrumentation.

Alongside recording his own material, Hebden has also performed remixes for a number of artists including Aphex Twin, Anti-Pop Consortium, Bonobo, Beth Orton, Born Ruffians, Explosions in the Sky, Super Furry Animals, Radiohead, Manic Street Preachers, Matthew Dear, Sia, Nathan Fake, Bloc Party, Andrew Bird, Kings of Convenience, Battles, Juana Molina, Madvillain, The xx, Foals, and Black Sabbath, as well as producing two albums by psychedelic improvisational group Sunburned Hand of the Man. Hebden's recent output includes a number of improvisational works with the late jazz drummer Steve Reid and collaborations with both Burial and Thom Yorke.

History[link]

Kieran Hebden was born in London to a South African-born Indian mother and a sociology lecturer father.^[1] He attended Elliott School in Putney,^[1] where he formed the band Fridge with classmates Adem Ilhan and Sam Jeffers. The band signed a recording contract when Hebden was 15,^[1] and released their first album in March 1997.

Hebden began releasing material as Four Tet in 1998 with the 36 minute, 25 second single Thirtysixtwentyfive on Trevor Jackson's Output Recordings label. Later that year, he released a second single, the jazz-influenced "Misnomer". 1999's Dialogue, again on Output, was Four Tet's first full-length album release and fused hip hop drum lines with dissonant jazz samples. This was followed by the double A-side single "Glasshead"/"Calamine", which was to be Four Tet's last release on Output.

In late 1999, Warp Records released Warp 10 + 3: Remixes, a tenth-anniversary compilation of remixes of Warp tracks; Hebden contributed a remix of the opening track of Aphex Twin's Selected Ambient Works Volume II. This relatively high-profile exposure attracted new interest in Four Tet from fans of electronica and intelligent dance music, genres in which the Warp brand has a preeminent status.^{[citation needed]}

In 2001, Four Tet's second album Pause was released on Domino Records and found Hebden using more folk and electronic samples, which was quickly dubbed "folktronica" by the media and press^{[citation needed]} in an attempt to label the style (often also applied to artists such as Isan and Gravenhurst). Rounds was released in May 2003. Three singles were released from the album: "She Moves She", "As Serious as Your Life", and "My Angel Rocks Back and Forth". This last single was released as an EP featuring remixes by electronica duo Icarus and Isambard Khroustaliov along with additional Four Tet tracks "I've Got Viking in Me" and "All the Chimers". An accompanying DVD featured all of Four Tet's videos to date. In addition, the closing track "Slow Jam" was featured in a U.S. Nike commercial in 2001 and 2002; Hebden edited the track on the back of the bus with his laptop while on a tour with Fridge.^{[citation needed]}

At the beginning of 2003, Four Tet opened for Radiohead on their European tour. A remix of the song "Scatterbrain" from Radiohead's sixth studio album Hail to the Thief was released in November 2003 as a B-side to the single "2 + 2 = 5" and later included on their 2004 EP COM LAG (2plus2isfive). Furthermore, Hebden was among the people thanked by Radiohead in the booklet accompanying their 2007 In Rainbows "discbox" release.

A live album named Live in Copenhagen 30th March 2004 was released in April 2004 as a limited edition, available exclusively from the Domino Records website.

In March and April 2005, Four Tet performed two shows of improvisational music, in collaboration with jazz drummer Steve Reid, in Paris and London. He also appears on Steve Reid Ensemble 2005 album Spirit Walk. This collaboration was extended into a series of international tours, and the release of two albums, The Exchange Session Vol. 1 and The Exchange Session Vol. 2 over the course of 2005 and 2006.

His fourth studio album Everything Ecstatic was released on Domino on 23 May 2005. The video for the lead single, "Smile Around the Face", features actor Mark Heap. On 7 November 2005, Domino released a DVD version of Everything Ecstatic featuring video clips for each track of the album plus a CD with new material, titled Everything Ecstatic Part 2, which was later made available as an individual EP.

Hebden has also remixed, under the Four Tet name, tracks by a wide range of artists including Tegan And Sara, Madvillain, Andrew Bird, Bloc Party, Super Furry Animals, Beth Orton, Badly Drawn Boy, CYNE, The Notwist, Boom Bip, Battles, Kings of Convenience, Lars Horntveth, Bonobo, Rothko, The xx, Thom Yorke and Radiohead. On 25 September 2006, Domino Records released Remixes, a two-disc compilation of Four Tet remixes. The first disc contains twelve Four Tet remixes selected by Hebden, with the second disc comprising every official remix to date (both by Hebden himself and by other artists) of Four Tet tracks, many of which had previously been available on vinyl only.^[2] A new EP, Ringer, was released on 21 April 2008.

In 2008, Hebden collaborated with composer David Arnold to write "Crawl, End Crawl", the song used for the end credits of the film Quantum of Solace.^[3]

In 2009, Hebden worked on a secret collaboration with Burial. The two track 12" was released with a plain black cover with no liner notes or details contained on the vinyl, other than the artists' names and the track titles: "Moth" and "Wolf Cub".

In November 2009, details of the fifth full-length Four Tet album were released. Heavily influenced by a stint DJing at the Plastic People club in Shoreditch^[4] and entitled There Is Love in You, it was released on 25 January 2010.^[5] The album was preceded by a limited edition release of the 12" single "Love Cry".

In 2011, Hebden released a split 12" with Burial and Thom Yorke, entitled "Ego/Mirror". He has been chosen by Caribou to perform at the ATP Nightmare Before Christmas festival that they co-curate in December 2011 in Minehead, England.^[6]

Selected discography[link]

Albums (as Four Tet)[link]

• Dialogue (Output Recordings, May 1999)
• Pause (Domino Records, 28 May 2001)
• Rounds (Domino Records, 5 May 2003) - UK #60^[7]
• Everything Ecstatic (Domino Records, 23 May 2005) - UK #59^[7]
• Remixes (Domino Records, 25 September 2006)
• Ringer (Domino Records, 21 April 2008)
• There Is Love in You (Domino Records, 25 January 2010) - #35 UK, #157 US