Toronto, Canada · rock · folk

Neil Young

1 festival played

The godfather of grunge, unbowed — ragged glory guitar and a songbook that spans half a century of American unease.

Neil Young was born in Toronto in 1945 and raised largely in Winnipeg before moving to Los Angeles in the mid-1960s, where he co-founded Buffalo Springfield. He went on to a solo career and to intermittent membership in Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, and has recorded for decades with his backing band Crazy Horse.

His work moves between two poles: spare acoustic songwriting, heard on albums such as After the Gold Rush and Harvest, and loud, loosely played electric guitar music built on distortion and long solos, as on Rust Never Sleeps. The unpolished quality of the latter made him an acknowledged influence on grunge. He has also detoured repeatedly into rockabilly, electronic experiments, country and protest material, and remains a vocal campaigner on farming and environmental issues.

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