Saturday Music Club: Neil Young

Well it has been a couple Saturdays since I've been able to post any of my musical selections. Last Saturday I was in the middle of a three-day Internet outage complements of my Costa Rican ISP, and the Saturday before that well.... You can read about it here if you don't already know. So today I want to make up for lost time by posting one of my absolute favorites of all time.

The "Rock" that is on the radio nowadays has changed quite a bit since the days of Buddy Holly, Elvis, and chubby Checker. The Beatles introduced intricacy and depth, Led Zeppelin solidified its relationship to Blues and introduced almost all of the powerful guitar chords we take for granted nowadays, and this week's artist takes both of those gifts from the previous aritsts and mixes them together for pure audio ambrosia.

This is Neil Young, the real deal, the Father of Grunge, and basically the William Shatner of rock 'n roll. I say that because like Shatner, this guy has been around for a long time and seemingly never loses his appeal. And as age progresses, only gets deeper and more fascinating. He first appeared in the music scene in 1960 as a solo artist in his native Canada, and then moved to California in 1966 to form the incredibly influential Buffalo Springfield with Stephen Stills who would eventually form the band Crosby, Stills, and Nash. His relationship with stills stayed solid and often times he would join them in the band would be known as Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young. This was the beginning of the flower power era and much of the music was a very acoustic and folk-based sound that emphasized melodic instrumentation with vocal harmony.

He recorded his first solo album in 1968 and would release 34 more in his over 40 year career and in 2011, is still showing no signs of slowing down anytime soon. He is almost synonymous with both the simple peaceloving beauty of the 60s and the hard-driving rock 'n roll of the 70s. In the 80s and 90s he expanded his horizons as both a performer and songwriter. You see this is one of the few people left who actually writes and performs his own songs and has no dance skills to speak of.

I will always be a fan of Neil Young, his haunting voice and masterful guitar skills harken back to (and I hate to say this) a better time musically. A time when people not only wrote their own songs and performed them, but did not have to hold true to any corporately dictated fluff in the process. It's a shame, but I don't think "the next" Neil Young will ever be on the public's radar because he wouldn't be cute and shiny enough, or willing to sacrifice a gram of his musical talent for anything other than his own vision. And he probably wouldn't be able to dance...

The list selections I chose for your listening pleasure span his entire career and are what I think to be the best representation of his musical versatility. Like most other music I post, this is best listened to with headphones and very very loud. You have probably been listening to foo-foo music all week anyway, and your Uncle Aaron just wants to help you clean out the pipes....

This song became synonymous with the antiwar movement that was growing stronger every day as more and more American men were being slaughtered by the thousands per in a country that never attacked us. Take a listen and think about American culture from 9/11/2001 to today and think further about the prevailing music we have in the background now.

 This is from Neil's live performance on The Johnny Cash Show (yeah there was one, cool huh?) sometime in the mid 70's. This is a beautifully haunting ballad about the tragic loss of so much musical talent to the nightmare of heroin addiction.

Now we get into the harder stuff, and I'm sure all of you are familiar with this one as it has been covered by everyone from Pearl Jam to the Grateful Dead. This is a satirical middle finger to the prevailing bubble-gum "me first" culture that pretty much defined the 1980's. Again...louder is better!

And last, but not least, a song that will always solidify this man's position as the Father of Grunge. This is him and his sometimes back up band Crazy Horse from a live performance in 1979 showcasing some of the best guitar work since Hendrix and Jimmy Page in my opinion. What's with the Jawas and other Star Wars stuff? Well it was 1979 and George's little space opera still had us a bit messed up I guess...

THAT'S What Rock and Roll is supposed to be about..... Now go back to your Lady Goo Goo and Breakbeats.

Class Dismissed...