| Neil Young News: |
| IN the course of his thirty-year career as a recording artist, Neil Young has experienced as many extreme low points of critical and commercial success as he has high, but without a doubt, he is one of the most important rock composers and performers North America can claim. His signature raw nasal tone, shrill guitar playing, highly personal lyric-writing, and hippie-cowboy loner stance have helped shape rock and roll as it has advanced from adolescence into maturity. Through his experimentation with every genre, from folk to heavy metal to rockabilly to techno, Young has created a sound and feel uniquely his own.
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| More Neil Young News: |
| Mrs. Young supported her son's musical endeavors, and through her aggressive booking, helped the Squires gain a fair amount of regional notoriety. Drawing influence from Elvis Presley, Bob Dylan, the Beatles, the Ventures, and the Shadows, the band evolved from an instrumental group to a folk-rock band, and began performing in clubs around the area between 1963 and 1965.
After the Squires disbanded in the summer of 1965, Young recorded some demos for Elektra Records, but failed to secure a contract. He spent the rest of the year playing the Toronto coffeehouse circuit, both as a solo artist and with the Mynah Birds, a group fronted by future soul-music star and "Super Freak," Rick James. On the circuit, Young met a number of folk artists, including Joni Mitchell, guitarist Richie Furay, and Stephen Stills, who was then playing with his own folk band, the Company. When the Mynah Birds disbanded after recording one album, Young and Mynah Birds bassist Bruce Palmer moved to the promised land of L.A., where they hooked up with Stills, Furay, and drummer Dewey Martin to form the seminal folk-rock band the Buffalo Springfield. Stills' counterculture anthem "For What It's Worth" earned the band nationwide fame, but it was Young who drew the most attention for his idiosyncratic style and high-energy guitar playing. In their two-year existence, the band recorded three successful albums and a retrospective (Buffalo Springfield, Buffalo Springfield Again, Last Time Around, and The Best of the Buffalo Springfield) for Atco before splintering in 1968. |