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Look up incumbent in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

The incumbent, in politics, is the existing holder of a political office. This term is usually used in reference to elections, in which races can often be defined as being between an incumbent and non-incumbent(s). For example, in the 2004 United States presidential election, George W. Bush was the incumbent, because he was the president in the current term while the election sought to determine the president for the following term. A race without an incumbent is referred to as an open seat.

Etymology[link]

The word "incumbent" is derived from the Latin verb incumbere, literally meaning "to lean or lay upon" with the present participle stem incumbent-, "leaning a variant of encumber,^[1] while encumber is derived from the root cumber,^[2] most appropriately defined: "4. To occupy obstructively or inconveniently; to block fill up with what hinders freedom of motion or action; to burden, load."^[3]

Politics[link]

In general, incumbents have structural advantages over challengers during elections. The timing of elections may be determined by the incumbent instead of a set schedule. For most political offices, the incumbent often has more name recognition due to their previous work in the office. Incumbents also have easier access to campaign finance, as well as government resources (such as the franking privilege) that can be indirectly used to boost a campaign. An election (especially for a legislature) in which no incumbent is running is often called an open seat; because of the lack of incumbency advantage, these are often amongst the most hotly-contested races in any election.

In the United States, incumbents traditionally win their party's nomination to run for office. Unseating an incumbent president, senator or other figure during a primary election is very difficult, and even in the general election, incumbents have a very strong record. For instance, the percentage of incumbents who win reelection after seeking it in the U.S. House of Representatives has been over 80% for over 50 years, and is often over 90%.^[4] However, this rate may be artificially inflated, as incumbents that feel unlikely to win may decline to run for reelection. Additionally, shifts in congressional districts due to reapportionment or other longer-term factors may make it more or less likely for an incumbent to win re-election over time. For example, a Democratic incumbent in historically conservative rural Texas would have less chance of winning than a Democratic incumbent in historically liberal New York City, because Texas has shifted away from the Democratic Party in terms of voting while New York City has shifted toward the same party (see also Congressional stagnation in the United States).

However, there exist scenarios in which the incumbency factor itself leads to the downfall of the incumbent. Popularly known as the anti-incumbency factor, situations of this kind occur when the incumbent has proven himself not worthy of office during his tenure and the challenger demonstrates this fact to the voters. An anti-incumbency factor can also be responsible for bringing down incumbents who have been in office for many successive terms in spite of performance indicators, simply because the voters are convinced by the challenger of a need for change. Nick Panagakis, a pollster, coined what he dubbed the "incumbent rule" in 1989--that any voter who claims to be undecided towards the end of the election will probably end up voting for the challenger^[5].

When newcomers vie to fill an open office, voters tend to compare and contrast the candidates' qualifications, issues positions and personal characteristics in a relatively straightforward way. Elections featuring an incumbent, on the other hand, are as Guy Molyneux puts it, "fundamentally a referendum on the incumbent."^[6] Voters will first grapple with the record of the incumbent. Only if they decide to "fire" the incumbent do they begin to evaluate whether the challenger is an acceptable alternative. At the same time, if the challenger is determined to be wholly unacceptable, voters might reluctantly vote for the incumbent.

Business[link]

In business the term "incumbent" is used for the largest company in a certain industry, for instance the traditional phone company in telecommunications, typically called the "incumbent operator". In a sales process, such as public tender, incumbent may also refer to the vendor that has the largest existing commercial relationship with the issuer of the tender.

In large corporations it is the incumbent who is the holder of an office, or one that occupies a particular position.

See also[link]

• Lists of office-holders
• List of current heads of state and government
• Outgoing president

Notes[link]

References[link]

Politics portal

• Oxford English Dictionary. 2nd ed. 1989. Print.

Betty McCollum
Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Minnesota's 4th district
Incumbent
Assumed office January 3, 2001
Preceded by	Bruce Vento
Personal details
Born	(1954-07-12) July 12, 1954 (age 57) Minneapolis, Minnesota
Political party	Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party
Spouse(s)	Divorced
Residence	St. Paul, Minnesota
Alma mater	College of St. Catherine
Religion	Roman Catholic

Betty Louise McCollum (born July 12, 1954)^[1] is the U.S. Representative for Minnesota's 4th congressional district, serving since 2001. She is a member of the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party (DFL).

The district centers on St. Paul, Minnesota's capital city. She is the second woman elected to Congress from Minnesota.

Early life, education and career[link]

McCollum was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota. She is the older sister to Anthony and Monica. She is divorced and has two children. McCollum has worked as a high school social sciences teacher and as a sales manager. She first got involved in politics in 1986, when her daughter got hurt on a slide in a North St. Paul city park. The city council wouldn't do anything to fix the slide, so McCollum's neighbors encouraged her to run for a spot on the council herself. She won that November and served three terms.^[2] She then challenged longtime state representative Rich O'Conner in the DFL primary and won an upset victory. She went on to serve four terms in the state house.

U.S. House of Representatives[link]

Committee assignments[link]

• Committee on Appropriations
  • Subcommittee on Interior, Environment and Related Agencies
  • Subcommittee on Military Construction, Veterans Affairs, and Related Agencies
• Committee on the Budget

McCollum is a member of the House Appropriations Committee, where she is the only Minnesotan. At the start of the 111th Congress, McCollum was also appointed to the United States House Budget Committee. Under normal circumstances, House Democrats aren't allowed to serve on another committee when they also serve on one of the chamber's four exclusive "A" committees—Appropriations, Energy and Commerce, Rules, and Ways and Means. However, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and committee chairman Henry Waxman granted McCollum a waiver allowing her to take a second committee slot. McCollum served on the Government Reform Committee during her first term in Congress.^[3]

Party leadership, caucus and other memberships[link]

• Senior Whip
• Co-founder of the Congressional Global Health Caucus
• Co-founder of the Quality Care Coalition
• National Council on the Arts
• Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus (Associate Member)
• Congressional Caucus on Global Road Safety
• International Conservation Caucus

She is the first Minnesota woman elected to Congress since Coya Knutson in the 1950s. In January, 2007 she was joined by the first Republican woman elected from Minnesota — Michele Bachmann of the 6th district.

McCollum received a 91% progressive rating from a self-described non-partisan group that provides a "searchable database of Congressional voting records from a Progressive perspective"^[4] and scored a 13% conservative rating by the conservative group, SBE Council.^[5]

Representative McCollum has supported the interests of Pro-Choice interest groups such as Planned Parenthood, National Family Planning & Reproductive Health Association, and NARAL Pro-Choice America. ^[6] Most of these groups have the same main goals. One example would be the National Family Planning & Reproductive Health Association which aims to provide access to “family planning and reproductive health care services and to support reproductive freedom for all”. ^[7] She indicated on the 2002 National Political Awareness Test that she believed abortions should always be legally available, but only within the first trimester of pregnancy. ^[8]

The entire time Representative McCollum has been in office, she has supported gay civil rights. ^[9] The Human Rights Campaign is America’s largest civil rights organization working to achieve lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender equality. ^[10] They have continually approved of her voting record. ^[9] In one speech opposing the proposed Federal Marriage Amendment, she stated, "Gay and lesbian Americans are citizens who must never be treated as second class citizens". ^[11]

She has supported the interests of the elderly with regard to preserving social security. She has supported organizations such as the Alliance for Retired Americans and the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare, who share the mission to ensure social and economic justice and full civil rights for all citizens so that they may enjoy lives of dignity, personal and family fulfillment and security. ^[12] In a position paper, Representative McCollum defended her position on Social Security. She stated, "We can secure the future of Social Security with common sense and a shared, bipartisan commitment to economic security and fiscal responsibility for all Americans. This is my commitment, and you can count on me to work to protect Social Security and to find a solution that truly protects the retirement security of every American." ^[13]

McCollum advocates shifting America's energy consumption to cleaner, non carbon based sources. McCollum, along with Al Franken, and Kit Bond presented Congress with the Renewable Energy and Efficiency Act. The plan would utilize thermal energy sources and create renewable energy production tax credits.^[14] She also voted in favor of American Recovery and Reinvestment in 2009.^[15]

In 2004, McCollum gained national visibility when she and fellow Democrat, Jim McDermott of Washington called for Secretary of Education Rod Paige to resign for claiming the National Education Association was "a terrorist organization."

McCollum made headlines in February 2011 when she voted to end military sponsorship of NASCAR teams. The amendment failed 148-241. She also introduced an amendment in June, 2011 to cut funding for military bands by $125 million dollars which could lead to the loss of over 3000 jobs in all branches of the Department of Defense.

McCollum opposes Conceal-and-Carry legislation, and in November 2011 she voted against Right-to-Carry reciprocity. ^[8]

Controversies[link]

On October 5, she omitted the phrase "Under God" from the pledge during a House session. The video of the session quickly became viral and her omission was interpreted as being intentional.^[16] However, her website maintained that she respects the phrase "Under God" in the United State Pledge.^[17]

Political campaigns[link]

After 4th District Congressman Bruce Vento decided not to seek a 13th term due to illness in 2000 (he died before the election), McCollum won the DFL nomination to succeed him. The district is heavily Democratic (among Minnesota congressional districts, only the neighboring 5th District is considered more Democratic), and Democrats have held the seat since 1949. However, McCollum's main concern wasn't Republican Linda Runbeck, but Independence Party candidate Tom Foley. Foley had previously been county attorney for Ramsey County (almost all of which is in the 4th District) as a Democrat. Many thought that Foley could siphon off enough votes from McCollum to allow Runbeck to sneak up the middle and end the long run of Democratic dominance in the district. However, in the end McCollum defeated Runbeck by a solid 17-point margin, with Foley in a distant third place. Foley only managed to hold McCollum to 48 percent of the vote, making her the only Democrat not to win at least 50 percent of the vote since Democrats began their current run in the district. The district has since reverted to form, and McCollum has been reelected five times without serious opposition.

In 2008, McCollum endorsed Barack Obama for president.

Electoral history[link]

2010[link]

2008[link]

2006[link]

2004[link]

2002[link]

2000[link]

See also[link]

• US Congressional Delegations from Minnesota

References[link]

1. ^ "Elections 2008". Chicago Sun-Times. 2008-10-23. http://elections.suntimes.com/dynamic/external/pre-election/bios/989.html?SITE=ILCHSELN&SECTION=POLITICS&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT. Retrieved 2008-10-24. 
2. ^ "Campaign 2004". Minnesota Public Radio. http://minnesota.publicradio.org/collections/special/2004/campaign/congress/mccollum. Retrieved 2007-02-26. 
3. ^ Congresswoman Betty McCollum: Serving Minnesota's Families - Speaker Pelosi Appoints McCollum to House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform^{[dead link]}
4. ^ "Leading with the Left". Progressive Punch. http://www.progressivepunch.org. Retrieved 2006-11-02. 
5. ^ "Congressional Voting Scorecard 2005" (PDF). SBE Council’s Congressional Voting Scorecard 2005. Small Business & Entrepreneurship Council. June, 2006. http://www.sbecouncil.org/uploads/Ratings2005Scorecard.pdf. Retrieved 2006-11-02. 
6. ^ "Betty McCollum: Interest Group Rating". Project Vote Smart. http://votesmart.org/issue_rating_category.php?can_id=3812. Retrieved January 15, 2012. 
7. ^ "National Special Interest Groups". Project Vote Smart. http://votesmart.org/issue_rating_detail.php?r_id=1630. Retrieved January 15, 2012. 
8. ^ ^{a b} "Betty McCollum - Political Courage Test". Project Vote Smart. http://votesmart.org/npat.php?can_id=3812#409. Retrieved January 15, 2012. 
9. ^ ^{a b} "National Special Interest Groups". Project Vote Smart. http://votesmart.org/issue_rating_category.php?category=76&go.x=10&go.y=8&can_id=3812&type=category. Retrieved January 15, 2012. 
10. ^ "About Us". Human Rights Campaign. http://www.hrc.org/about_us/index.htm. Retrieved January 15, 2012. 
11. ^ "Public Statements". Project Vote Smart. http://votesmart.org/speech_detail.php?sc_id=153038&keyword=gay&phrase=&contain=. Retrieved January 15, 2012. 
12. ^ "National Special Interest Groups". Project Vote Smart. http://www.votesmart.org/issue_rating_detail.php?r_id=713. Retrieved January 15, 2012. 
13. ^ "Public Statements". Project Vote Smart. http://www.votesmart.org/speech_detail.php?sc_id=402196&keyword=&phrase=&contain=. Retrieved January 15, 2012. 
14. ^ "Franken, Bond, McCollum Introduce Thermal Renewable Energy and Efficiency Act". Mccollum.house.gov. July 21, 2010. http://mccollum.house.gov/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=994&Itemid=. Retrieved January 15, 2012. 
15. ^ "Energy". Mccollum.house.gov. http://mccollum.house.gov/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=49&Itemid=77. Retrieved January 15, 2012. 
16. ^ Wallbank, Derek (October 26, 2010). "D.C. Dispatches: McCollum taking fire over omitting 'under God' in 2002 Pledge of Allegiance". MinnPost. http://www.minnpost.com/derekwallbank/2010/10/26/22726/mccollum_taking_fire_over_omitting_under_god_in_2002_pledge_of_allegiance. Retrieved January 15, 2012. 
17. ^ "McCollum Honors Pledge of Allegiance and “One Nation Under God”". Mccollum.house.gov. October 26, 2010. http://mccollum.house.gov/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1121&Itemid. Retrieved January 15, 2012. 

• Minnesota Legislators Past and Present
• Betty McCollum at the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress

External links[link]

• Congresswoman Betty McCollum official U.S. House site
• Minnesota's Congresswoman Betty McCollum official campaign site
• Biography at WhoRunsGov.com at The Washington Post
• Biography at the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress
• Voting record maintained by The Washington Post
• Biography, voting record, and interest group ratings at Project Vote Smart
• Congressional profile at GovTrack
• Congressional profile at OpenCongress
• Issue positions and quotes at On the Issues
• Financial information at OpenSecrets.org
• Staff salaries, trips and personal finance at LegiStorm.com
• Campaign finance reports and data at the Federal Election Commission
• Appearances on C-SPAN programs
• Campaign 2006: Betty McCollum profile from Minnesota Public Radio
• Betty McCollum, A Letter to AIPAC, New York Review of Books, Volume 53, Number 10, June 8, 2006, with an introduction by Michael Massing.

Laurent Koudou Gbagbo Gbagbo
President of Côte d'Ivoire
In office 26 October 2000 – 11 April 2011*
Prime Minister	Seydou Diarra Pascal Affi N'Guessan Seydou Diarra Charles Konan Banny Guillaume Soro Gilbert Aké
Preceded by	Robert Guéï
Succeeded by	Alassane Ouattara
Personal details
Born	(1945-05-31) 31 May 1945 (age 67) Gagnoa, French West Africa (now Ivory Coast)
Nationality	Bété Ivorian
Political party	Ivorian Popular Front
Spouse(s)	Simone Gbagbo, Nadiana Bamba
Alma mater	Paris Diderot University
Religion	Roman Catholicism
Website	Official website
*The presidency was disputed between Gbagbo and Alassane Ouattara from 4 December 2010 to 11 April 2011, at which time Gbagbo was arrested.

Laurent Gbagbo^[1][2] (Gagnoa Bété: Gbagbo [ɡ͡baɡ͡bo]; French pronunciation: [loʁɑ̃ kudu baɡbo]; born 31 May 1945) was the fourth President of Côte d'Ivoire of ethnic Bété from 2000 until his arrest in April 2011. A historian by profession, he is also an amateur chemist and physicist.

Gbagbo was imprisoned in the early 1970s and again in the early 1990s, and he lived in exile in France during much of the 1980s as a result of his union activism. Gbagbo founded the Ivorian Popular Front (FPI) in 1982 and ran unsuccessfully for President against Félix Houphouët-Boigny at the start of multi-party politics in 1990. He also won a seat in the National Assembly of Côte d'Ivoire in 1990.

Gbagbo claimed victory after Robert Guéï, head of a military junta, barred other leading politicians from running against Gbagbo in the October 2000 presidential election. Gbagbo supporters took to the streets, toppling Guéï. Gbagbo was then installed as President.

Following the 2010 presidential election, Gbagbo challenged the vote count, alleged fraud, and refused to stand down. He called for the annulment of results from nine of the country's regions. Alassane Ouattara was declared the winner and was recognized as such by election observers, the international community, the African Union (AU), and the Economic Community of West African States. However, the Constitutional Council, which according to Article 94 of the Ivorian Constitution both determines disputes in and proclaims the results of Presidential elections,^[3] declared that Gbagbo had won. After a short period of civil conflict, Gbagbo was arrested by the Republican Army of Ivory Coast. In November 2011, he was extradited to the International Criminal Court, becoming the first head of state to be taken into the court's custody.^[4]

Early life and academic career[link]

Gbagbo was born in the village of Mama, near Gagnoa. He became a history professor and an opponent of the regime of President Félix Houphouët-Boigny. He was imprisoned from 31 March 1971 to January 1973. In 1979, he obtained his doctorate at Paris Diderot University (French: Université Paris Diderot, also known as Université Paris 7 – Denis Diderot). In 1980, he became Director of the Institute of History, Art, and African Archeology at the University of Abidjan, He participated in a 1982 teachers' strike as a member of the National Trade Union of Research and Higher Education. Gbagbo went into exile in France in the same year.

Political career[link]

During the 1982 strike, Gbagbo formed what would become the Ivorian Popular Front (FPI). He returned to Côte d'Ivoire on 13 September 1988 and at the FPI's constitutive congress, held on 19–20 November 1988, he was elected as the party's Secretary-General.^[2]

Gbagbo said in July 2008 that he had received crucial support from Blaise Compaoré, currently the President of Burkina Faso, while he was part of the underground opposition to Houphouët-Boigny.^[5]

Following the introduction of multiparty politics in 1990, Gbagbo was the only candidate to stand against Houphouët-Boigny in the October 1990 presidential election, receiving 18.3% of the vote against Houphouët-Boigny. In the November 1990 parliamentary election, Gbagbo won a seat in the National Assembly, along with eight other members of the FPI;^[2][6] Gbagbo was elected to a seat from Ouragahio District in Gagnoa Department and was President of the FPI Parliamentary Group from 1990 to 1995.^[2] In 1992 he was sentenced to two years in prison and charged with inciting violence, but was released later in the year.^[6] The FPI boycotted the 1995 presidential election. In 1996 Gbagbo was re-elected to his seat in the National Assembly from Ouragahio, following a delay in the holding of the election there, and in the same year he was elected as President of the FPI.^[2]

At the FPI's 3rd Ordinary Congress on 9–11 July 1999, Gbagbo was chosen as the FPI's candidate for the October 2000 presidential election.^[2] That election took place after a December 1999 coup in which Robert Guéï took power. Guéï refused to allow Alassane Ouattara or Henri Konan Bédié to run, leaving Gbagbo as the only significant opposition candidate. Guéï claimed victory in the election, held on 22 October 2000, but Gbagbo toppled Guéï, who fled the capital. Gbagbo installed himself as President on 26 October.

Civil war[link]

On 19 September 2002 a revolt by northerners against Gbagbo's government partly failed. The rebels, calling themselves the "Forces Nouvelles," attempted to seize the cities of Abidjan, Bouaké, and Korhogo. They failed to take Abidjan, but were successful in the other two, respectively in the center and north of the country. Their grievances were that their candidate, Alassane Ouattara, had been barred from running in the 2000 presidential election, having been accused by Gbagbo and his supporters of not being a "real Ivoirian" in what would be the beginning of Gbagbo's trend toward inciting ethnic divisions to maintain power, following on from the concept of "Ivoirieté" introduced by President Henri Konan Bédié in the 1990s to 2000 .^{[citation needed]}

Aftermath[link]

Early in November 2004, after the peace agreement had effectively collapsed following Gbagbo's refusal to agree to hold democratic elections that would include all candidates and the rebels' subsequent refusal to disarm, Gbagbo ordered airstrikes against the rebels. During one of these airstrikes in Bouaké on 6 November 2004, French soldiers were hit and nine of them were killed; the Ivorian government has said it was a mistake,^[7] but the French have claimed it was deliberate. They responded by destroying most Ivoirian military aircraft, and Gbagbo supporters violently attacked French-origin Ivoirians and French nationals.^[8]

Gbagbo's original mandate as president expired on 30 October 2005, but he garnered support from other African dictators in the African Union to support his bid to refuse to hold elections, and, despite his rhetoric against the international community, sought support to avoid holding elections as promised.^[9] With the late October deadline approaching in 2006, it was regarded as very unlikely that the election would in fact be held by that point, and the opposition and the rebels rejected the possibility of another term extension for Gbagbo.^[10] The UN Security Council endorsed another one-year extension of Gbagbo's term on 1 November 2006; however, the resolution provided for the strengthening of Prime Minister Charles Konan Banny's powers. Gbagbo said the next day that elements of the resolution deemed to be constitutional violations would not be applied.^[11]

A peace deal between the government and the rebels, or New Forces, was signed on 4 March 2007, in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, and subsequently Guillaume Soro, leader of the New Forces, became Prime Minister.^[12][13] Those events were seen by some observers as substantially strengthening Gbagbo's position.^[13]

Gbagbo visited the north for the first time since the outbreak of the war for a disarmament ceremony, the "peace flame", on 30 July 2007. This ceremony involved burning weapons to symbolize the end of the conflict.^[14][15] At the ceremony, Gbagbo declared the war over and said that the country should move quickly to elections, which were then planned for early 2008.^[15]

On 30 August 2008, Gbagbo was designated the FPI's candidate for the November 2008 presidential election at a party congress; he was the only candidate for the FPI nomination.^[16] The presidential election was again postponed to 2010.

2010 presidential election and succession crisis[link]

In 2010, Ivory Coast had a presidential election that saw Gbagbo face off with Alassane Ouattara. Gbagbo, whose mandate had expired in 2005, had delayed the election several times.^[17]

On 28 November 2010, the second round of the presidential election was held. Four days later the Ivory Coast Election Commission (CEI) declared Alassane Ouattara the winner with 54.1% of the vote.^[18] Gbagbo's party complained of fraud and ordered that votes from nine regions be annulled, but the claims were disputed by the Ivoirian Electoral Commission and international election observers.^[19] The Constitutional Council, headed by a staunch supporter of Gbagbo^{[citation needed]}, in accordance with its legal powers in article 94 of the Ivorian Constitution^[3] nullified the CEI's declaration based on alleged voting fraud, and excluded votes from nine northern areas.^[20] The Constitutional Council concluded that without these votes Gbagbo won with 51% of the remaining vote.^[19] The constitutional restriction on Presidents serving more than ten years was not addressed. With a significant portion of the country's vote nullified, especially in areas where Ouattara polled well,^[20] tensions mounted in the country. Gbagbo ordered the army to close the borders and foreign news organizations were banned from broadcasting from within the country. United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton urged the government to "act responsibly and peacefully."^[21]

Gbagbo declared that "I will continue to work with all the countries of the world, but I will never give up our sovereignty." Gbagbo is accused of committing many atrocities against regime opponents.^{[citation needed]} Ouattara's forces have also been accused of mass killings.^{[citation needed]} Sporadic violence and gunfire were reported in various parts of the country, including Abidjan.^[22] Gbagbo is mainly supported by the largely Christian south; his opponents are mostly concentrated in the Muslim north.^[23]

Ouattara also took a parallel oath of office, based on an earlier pronouncement by the CEI that he won the election. The international community, including the African Union, recognized Ouattara as the duly elected president and called for Gbagbo to respect the will of the people. ECOWAS, the Economic Community of West African States, also recognized Ouattara and demanded Gbagbo cede power.^[24] Gbagbo responded by launching ethnic attacks on northerners living in Abidjan with his army made up partly of Liberian mercenaries,^[25][26] and rumours (unconfirmed because of restrictions on the movement of peacekeeping forces) of pro-Gbagbo death squads and mass graves have been reported to representatives of the UN.^[27][28] When Nigeria demanded Gbagbo step down and the EU began imposing sanctions and freezing assets, Gbagbo demanded foreign troops (by which he meant UN and French troops) leave the country.^[24][29] Leaders of the Forces Nouvelles (former rebels) asserted that Gbagbo was not the Head of State and could not make such a request and also asserted that the demand was a part of a plan to commit genocide on ethnicities from the north of the country, as stated by Gbagbo's Minister of Youth and Employment.^[26][30][31]

On 6 April 2011, forces loyal to Ouattara moved to seize Gbagbo at his residence in Abidjan after failed negotiations to end the presidential succession crisis.^[32] According to Ouattara, his forces established a security perimeter at the residence, where Gbagbo has sought refuge in a subterranean level, and are waiting for him to run out of food and water.^[33] The UN has insisted that he be arrested, judged and tried for crimes against humanity during his term and since the election of Ouattara.

On 10 April 2011, UN and French helicopters fired on heavy weapons located in Gbabgo's residency in order to prevent attacks on civilians or UN personnel.^[34]

Arrest and transfer to the International Criminal Court[link]

It was reported that Gbagbo was arrested on the afternoon of 11 April 2011.^[34] Gbagbo was held in the Golf Hotel by Ouattara's forces, but the UN police had accepted his request for their protection.^[35] Initial reports indicated that French special forces had made the arrest, based on declarations by a Gbagbo aide, but it was denied by the French ambassador in Ivory Coast. A French military spokesman later asserted that French forces did not enter Gbagbo's residence.^[36][37][38] After briefing the United Nations Security Council on the situation, Alain Le Roy, UN Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations, confirmed to reporters that Ouattara forces made the arrest.^[36] But there have been persistent reports from Alain Toussaint, Gbagbo's Special Advisor in France, that French forces did indeed make the arrest namely by blasting open the corridor that linked the presidential residence to the French embassy in Abidjan. Gbagbo had had the tunnel blocked with concrete as soon as he came to power in 2000, marking his political independence to France, the former colonial master.^{[citation needed]}

Later speaking from inside the Golf Hotel in Abidjan, Gbagbo told his supporters to stop fighting.^[39] U.S. President Barack Obama cheered news of the latest developments in the Ivory Coast and CNN quoted U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton as saying Gbagbo's capture "sends a strong signal to dictators and tyrants. ... They may not disregard the voice of their own people".^[40]

Wikinews has related news: Gbagbo appears at international court for alleged crimes against humanity

In October 2011, the International Criminal Court opened an investigation into acts of violence committed during the conflict after the election, and ICC chief prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo visited the country. The ICC formally issued an arrest warrant for Gbagbo, charging him with four counts of crimes against humanity – murder, rape and other forms of sexual violence, persecution and "other inhuman acts", allegedly committed between 16 December 2010 and 12 April 2011. Gbagbo was arrested in Korhogo, where he had been placed under house arrest, and was placed on a flight to The Hague on 29 November 2011. An adviser to Gbagbo described the arrest as "victor's justice". Gbagbo will be the first former head of state to be tried by the ICC.^[41][42]

See also[link]

	Côte d'Ivoire portal
	Biography portal
	Politics portal

• Politics of Côte d'Ivoire
• First Ivorian Civil War
• Second Ivorian Civil War

References[link]

External links[link]

• (French) Laurent Gbagbo's official website
• Laurent GBAGBO, Trial Watch Profile, TRIAL

v t e Presidents of Côte d'Ivoire Houphouët-Boigny • Bédié • Guéï • Gbagbo • Ouattara

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]