Toronto, Canada · rock · folk

Neil Young

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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 to journalist Scott Young, and the family moved through Omemee, Pickering, Winnipeg and back to Toronto during his childhood. He contracted polio in 1951, during the last major outbreak in Ontario, and was left partially paralyzed on one side, before the family later settled long enough for him to start playing music in Winnipeg in the 1960s.

From there he moved to Los Angeles and co-founded Buffalo Springfield, then built a long solo career, often backed by Crazy Horse, and intermittently by Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young. His records split between spare acoustic songwriting, on albums like After the Gold Rush and Harvest, and loud, loosely played electric guitar music, on Rust Never Sleeps and elsewhere.

That distorted electric side earned him the nickname Godfather of Grunge and led to a 1995 album, Mirror Ball, made with Pearl Jam; more recently he has recorded and toured with a backing band called Promise of the Real. He has also directed his own films, under the pseudonym Bernard Shakey, and contributed music to the soundtracks of Philadelphia and Dead Man.

He has been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame twice, as a solo artist and as a member of Buffalo Springfield, and has won multiple Grammy and Juno Awards. Canada made him an Officer of the Order of Canada and awarded him the Order of Manitoba, honors that sit alongside a catalogue of 21 gold or platinum certified albums and singles.

Alongside all of this he has kept detouring into rockabilly, electronic experiments, country and protest material, and remains a vocal campaigner on farming and environmental issues, treating them as steadily as any of his musical concerns.

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