Shakey
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649 “The top stars of today …” Bob Dylan to David Gates, Newsweek, 10/6/97.
650 “A real commercial rock band …” Kurt Cobain to Kevin Allman, The Advocate, 2/92.
653 “completely exhausting experience …” NY to Tony Scherman, Musician, 12/91.
653 “When we made the record …” NY to Jon Pareles, The New York Times, 1991.
656 “Those guys with the pickup trucks …” NY to Tony Scherman, Musician, 12/91.
656 NY letter to Ostin and Waronker, 6/17/91, NY Archives.
660 “Playing that hard …” NY to Greg Kot, Chicago Tribune, 11/1/92.
661 “the quietest record …” NY to Gavin Martin, NME, 11/7/92.
661 “I kept hearing female voices …” NY to Mary Campbell, Associated Press, 1/14/93.
662 “I’m not trying to go back …” NY to Greg Kot, Chicago Tribune, 11/1/92.
662 “The real sense of the album is …” NY to Chris Heath, Details, 2/93.
663 “about survival in nature …” NY to Gavin Martin, NME, 11/7/92.
663 “The cry of pain …” Eric Weisbard, Spin Alternative Record Guide, Vintage, 1995.
664 “I think ‘Harvest Moon’ is about continuance …” NY to Allan Jones, Melody Maker, 11/7/92.
664 “Ironically, what’s lacking …” Paul Williams, Crawdaddy, new #1, winter 93.
664 “I’m entering my Perry Como phase …” NY to Manuel Mendoza, Dallas Morning News, 10/29/92.
673 “How often do you get the chance …” NY to Allan Jones, Melody Maker, 11/7/92.
The Ragged Glory version of “Interstate” surfaced on the viny1-only version of 1996’s Broken Arrow; somehow Briggs doesn’t receive a production credit. Yes, the “official” title (to prevent stickering for language) of “Fuckin’ Up” is “F*!#kin’ Up.”
big business, small scale
Author interviews: NY, Fred Severson, David Briggs, Roger Katz, Sal Trentino, Harry Sitam, Billy Talbot, Ralph Molina, Frank “Poncho” Sampedro, Elliot Roberts, Joel Bernstein, Jim Jarmusch, Larry Johnson, other sources.
679 For more on Neil and Ben Young and their trains, see “Railroading Together,” Jim Bunte, Classic Toy Trains, 3/93.
679 “An innocent endeavor …” NY to Mary Eisenhart, MicroTimes, 11/28/94.
693 “I’m not Grammy material …” NY 1987 Domino interview.
693 “One of the reasons James’s …” Stephen Calt, I’d Rather Be the Devil, Da Capo, 1994. Highly recommended by the author.
It should be noted that one other Reprise Records artist was a model-train fanatic: Frank Sinatra.
drain you
Author interviews: NY, David Briggs, J. J. Cale, Ken Viola, Dave McFarlin, Billy Talbot, Ralph Molina, Frank “Poncho” Sampedro, Michael Azerrad, Elliot Roberts, Larry Johnson, other sources.
699 Oasis footnote: NME on-line article, 2000, author unknown.
706 “In the end …” Lola Scobey, liner notes to Flyin’ Shoes LP by Townes Van Zandt, 1978, Tomato Records.
vampire blues
Author interviews: NY, David Briggs, Frank Sampedro, Billy Talbot, Ralph Molina, Elliot Roberts, Richard Meltzer, Scott Young, James Taylor, Chrissie Hynde, other sources.
708 “Nobody should be playing rock …” Richard Meltzer and A. C. “Sven” Meltzer, “Everything-We-Are-and-Ever-Have-Been-or-Ever-Will-Be-Is-Upon-Reflection-Oh-So-Bittersweet,” San Diego Reader, 12/19/96.
710 Deal info on Reprise resigning and “integrity finally paid off” quote: author interview with Elliot Roberts.
717 “The thing I loved about the sixties …” NY to Robert Hilburn, Los Angeles Times Calendar, 7/9/95.
717 “Personally I’m pro-choice …” NY to Nick Kent, Mojo, 12/95.
have you ever been lost?
Author interviews: NY, Billy Talbot, Ralph Molina, Frank “Poncho” Sampedro, Elliot Roberts, John Hanlon, other sources.
727 “like having Neil in your living room,” Teddy Triolo, Broken Arrow 63, 5/96.
728 “makes you wonder whether Young has grown so confident …” Robert Christgau, Spin, 8/96.
733 “I’d like to interview people …” Bob Dylan to Scott Cohen, Spin, 12/85.
733 The Edgar G. Ulmer line is from—appropriately enough—Ruthless (1948).
a solo trip
Author interviews: NY, Frank “Poncho” Sampedro, Richard Meltzer.
A curious footnote to the Dylan/Young relationship: in recent years Dylan has been fond of telling “jokes” during his in-between song patter at live shows, and fans have posted some of them at the site www.expectingrain.com/jokes.html. Dylan has occasionally dropped Neil Young’s name into the funny business. A fan named Jason noted the following knee-slapper muttered at a 6/27/01 show in Phoenix, Arizona. “You know, I was talking to Neil Young yesterday” [audience cheers at the mention of Young] “and he said to me, he said, ‘Bob, you just can’t hear cool music on the radio anymore …’ and I says to Neil, I says, ‘Sure, you just …’” [pause] “‘you just need to stick your radio in the refrigerator.’”
In October 2002, Dylan began performing Young’s “Old Man” during his live shows—the first time he has ever done a Neil song solo. Innaresting.
Rassy Young appeared as a quiz show panelist on the show Twenty Questions when she and Neil lived in Winnipeg. “Rassy was pretty funny on TV,” said Neil. “My dad was on a quiz show, too. I’m breakin’ the fuckin’ chain. No quiz show. Gotta draw the line somewhere.”
Scott Young on the cover of his 1994 autobiography, A Writer’s Life. “He’s a real writer,” said Neil. “He’d force himself to do five pages—some days they came real easy and some days it was like pullin’ teeth.”
Neil and Rassy. CSNY end-oftour dinner, Minneapolis, 1970.
“Mort was real important…. It was part of my identity … like a cowboy and his horse.” The Squires—about to depart for Fort William—alongside Mort, the hearse, April 1965. Left to right: Ken Koblun, Neil Young, Bob Clark.
Ray Dee, producer of the Squires’ 1964 recording “I’ll Love You Forever.” Ray was there for me at the beginning,” said Young, who referred to Dee as “the original Briggs.”
“Buffalo Springfield started out to be what it was with all of us…. Bruce was beyond. He was the soul of the whole thing.” Buffalo Springfield publicity shot, 1966 (left to right: Dewey Martin, Bruce Palmer, Richie Furay, Stephen Stills and Neil Young).
Crosby, Stills and Nash, Miami, 1977 (left to right: Stephen Stills, David Crosby and Graham Nash). “They were treated like royalty wherever they went,” said tour manager Leo Makota.
Crazy Horse roaming the streets during sessions for their first Young-less LP, fall 1970. “The band members seemed kind of quasi-criminal to me,” said photographer Joel Bernstein (left to right: Ralph Molina, Billy Talbot, Nils Lofgren, Jack Nitzsche and Danny Whitten).
Crazy Horse, before the funk: The a cappella Danny and the Memories (left to right: Billy Talbot, Ralph Molina, Ben Rocco, Danny Whitten). Danny always said “‘Make sure our shoes are shined’” recalled Ralph.
David Briggs “looked like the devil,” said agent/manager Larry Kurzon. “He was from Wyoming—where they thought Jews had horns.”
The dark prince—Jack Nitzsche, fall 1970. “Jack believed in my music,” said Young.
Frank “Poncho” Sampedro alongside his new compadre for the last few years—highly acclaimed guitarist and songwriter Kevin Eubanks.
Danny Ray Whitten, fall 1970. “Danny could never close up. He predicted he would die before the age of thirty,” said Terry Sachen.
The late, great Rusty Kershaw circa Now and Then, the 1992 album that reunited Kershaw and Young for the first time since the 1974 masterpiece On the Beach. “Rusty’s amazing,” said J. J. Cale. “He’s so natural, man, that it hurt him.”
“I was searching for something that I never really got.” Neil Young and the Stray Gators (Ben Keith, Tim Drummond, Jack Nitzsche, Young and Kenny Buttrey) reconvene for tour rehearsals sh
ortly after Danny Whitten’s death, December 1972.
I Neil Young, circa 1971.
Carrie Snodgress in Diary of a Mad Housewife, 1970. “I fell in love with the actress,” wrote Young in “A Man Needs a Maid.”
“Tequila and hamburgers. That was the input.” Neil Young and Crazy Horse (left to right: Ben Keith, Billy Talbot, Ralph Molina and Young) at the dawn of the Tonight’s the Night trip, Topanga Corral, August 1973.
Partners in crime: David Briggs and Neil Young backstage at the Roxy, Tonight’s the Night tour, September 21, 1973. “I miss that guy. There is no one on the planet that compares to him. Not a day goes by without a thought of David.”
Studio Instrument Rentals, Santa Monica Boulevard, Hollywood. In 1973, Tonight’s the Night, for the most part, would be created here. “Do you mind if I knock a hole in your wall?” asked Briggs.
The cassette-box cover of the unedited version of Tonight’s the Night that Briggs carried with him for years. “I did the record, I thought it was fucking great…. Neil and Elliot and the record company backpedaled. They ruined the real Tonight’s the Night.”
Bruce Berry. Berry and pal Guillermo Giachetti were “the dark side of Wayne’s World,” said Young.
“That was a bad period… . My policy was to just try to keep a straight face.” Neil Young, aka Flyface, on the 1974 CSNY tour.
Bob Dylan, Rick Danko and Neil Young, SNACK benefit concert, San Francisco, March 22, 1975. Dylan’s “a brutally honest guy. He loves to tell the truth, heh heh. He even enjoys it.”
“Poncho was a resource to be reckoned with. He just brought the band back together.” Neil Young and Crazy Horse (left to right: Ralph Molina, Billy Talbot, Frank “Poncho” Sampedro and Young). The greatest band in the world, circa 1975.
Neil Young, Rust Never Sleeps tour, 1978. “It all started when I looked at the pile of amplifiers that I had when I was rehearsing,” Young said a year later. “There was no concept, it just all fell together.”
Neil Young as Lionel Switch, Dennis Hopper as Crackers the Cook, in Young’s feature film Human Highway. Hopper missed the 1983 premiere. “I wanted to go, but I was in the insane asylum at the time,” he said.
Neil Young at the Berlin Wall during the European Trans tour, 1982.
The cover of Geffen’s no-hits compilation Lucky Thirteen, showing Young in his Trans persona while on tour in Europe, 1982. Trans was “the beginning of my search for a way for … a severely physically handicapped nonoral person to find some sort of interface for communication…. And that was completely misunderstood.”
The Ducks, Santa Cruz, 1977 (left to right: John “Johnny C.” Craviotto, Neil Young, Jeff Blackburn and Bob Mosley). “I just play my part,” said Young at the time.
Neil Young and the Shocking Pinks. “I got way into that guy. I was that guy for months. He was outthere. It was a movie to me. Nobody saw it but me, but who gives a shit.” 1983 video shoot (left to right: Rick Palombi, Neil Young, Larry Byrom, Tim Drummond, Karl Himmel, Ben “King” Keith).
Young played some of the greatest guitar of his life with the Bluenotes, 1987–88. In the press at the time, Young would credit musicians Michael Bloomfield and Paul Butterfield for inspiring him to head into blues and R&B.
Young in his International Harvesters phase, 1985. Geffen sued him for making “not ‘commercial’” and “uncharacteristic” music. “Stop telling me what to do or I’ll turn into George Jones,” said Young.
The 1991 Ragged Glory tour with Crazy Horse (left to right: Billy Talbot, Young, Ralph Molina). “The [Gulf] war was raging … I figure that the guitar-playing was a soundtrack for CNN,” said Young at the time.
Neil Young, incognito and on the prowl for model trains, 1978.
FIRST ANCHOR BOOKS EDITION, MAY 2003
Copyright © 2002 by James McDonough
and Neil Young. All ancillary and subsidiary rights are separately
owned solely by Neil Young.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by Anchor Books, a division of Random House, Inc. Originally published in hardcover in the United States by Random House, Inc., New York, in 2002.
Anchor Books and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.
The Library of Congress has cataloged the Random House edition as follows: McDonough, Jimmy.
Shakey: Neil Young’s biography / Jimmy McDonough.
p. cm.
1. Young, Neil. 2. Rock musicians—Canada—Biography. I. Title.
ML420.Y75 M33 2002
782.42166’092—dc21
[B] 2001043258
eISBN: 978-1-4000-7544-7
Author photograph © Natalia Wisdom
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