There’s a lot of reasons not to like the music of Neil Young. For example:

–His singing has been compared to the sound of a prarie dog caught in a barbed wire fence
–He helped popularize the ubiquitous soft rock of Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young
–He helped to inspire a generation of personal “naval-gazing” singer-songwriters
–He is responsible for several really bad movies, a couple of which I actually saw
–He has more slavering, syncophantic rock critics profiles about his rock and roll and roll music and “the power of The Horse” (his on-again, off-again band of inspired amatuers, Crazy Horse, for those of you not in the know…) then is really entirely necessary in this lifetime

On the other hand, I have been reading SHAKEY, the excellent biography by Jimmy McDonough, which has over 800 pages about Neil’s life; his family background; the inspirations for his songs; the drugs he took; the drugs his friends took and could not overcome; the snap decisions he made to satisfy his artistic muse, irrespective of any effect it would have on his friends, fellow musicians, or record companies; his constant f*ck-ups; his stand-up qualities as a friend; his inspiring dedication to his two sons with cerebral palsy; his cold, calculating business acumen; his constant desire to go to edge and over it… Suffice to say, he is one awesomely interesting and complex individual well-deserving of such a detailed biography. (It’s no surprise Neil has an unreleased song called “Young Citizen Kane Blues”, as the person he most reminds you of is Orson Welles).

It helps that the author shares my feeling that Neil’s “Doom Period” of TONIGHT’S THE NIGHT and ON THE BEACH are his most awesome records, and that FREEDOM is not far behind. If you love these records like I do, you can learn a lot from this book. Unlike Bob Dylan, who genius is more distanced from his personal life, Neil is into it, and it is very difficult to seperate the work from the man. To paraphrase Neil in the book: “I was a bad person in my relationships, and I did a lot of things i regret now. And if I went back, I could have been more polite and more respectful of people’s feelings. But I also would have had 4 or 5 fewer albums…”

If you like Neil, I would pick this book up. And if you like rock and roll music, definitely check out TONIGHT’S THE NIGHT, ON THE BEACH, or the recent LIVE AT THE FILLMORE with, yes, “The Horse.”

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