Neil Young is a singular figure in the history of rock and pop culture generally in the last four decades. Reflective, insightful and disarmingly honest, in Waging Heavy Peacehe writes about his life and career. From his youth in Canada to his first band's travels across the US seeking fame and girls, through Buffalo Springfield and Crosby, Stills & Nash, to his massively successful solo career and his re-emergence as the patron saint of grunge on to his role today as one of the last uncompromised and uncompromising survivors of rock 'n' roll - this is Neil's story told in his own words. In the book Young presents a kaleidoscopic view of personal life and musical creativity; it's a journey that spans the snows of Ontario to the LSD-laden boulevards of 1966 Los Angeles to the contemplative paradise of Hawaii today. 'I think I will have to use my time wisely and keep my thoughts straight if I am to succeed and deliver the cargo I so carefully have carried thus far to the outer reaches. Not that it's my only job or task. I have others, too. Sacred things that I need to protect from pain and hardship, like careless remarks on an open mind.' Neil Young from Waging Heavy Peace

Neil Young is one of rock and roll’s most important and enigmatic figures, a legend from the sixties who is still hugely influential today. He has never granted a writer access to his inner life – until now. Based on six years of interviews with more than three hundred of Young’s associates, and on more than fifty hours of interviews with Young himself, Shakey is a fascinating, prodigious account of the singer’s life and career. Jimmy McDonough follows Young from his childhood in Canada to his cofounding of Buffalo Springfield to the huge success of Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young to his comeback in the nineties. Filled with never-before-published words directly from the artist himself, Shakey is an essential addition to the top shelf of rock biographies.

Neil Young took on the music industry so that fans could hear his music—all music—the way it was meant to be heard. Today, most of the music we hear is com-pressed to a fraction of its original sound,while analog masterpieces are turning to dustin record company vaults. As these record-ings disappear, music fans aren't just losing acollection of notes. We're losing spaciousness,breadth of the sound field, and the ability tohear and feel a ping of a triangle or a pluckof a guitar string, each with its own reso-nance and harmonics that slowly trail off intosilence. The result is music that is robbed of its original quality—muddy and flat in sound compared to the rich, warm sound artists hear in the studio. It doesn't have to be this way, but the record and technology companies have incorrectly assumed that most listeners are satisfied with these low-quality tracks. Neil Young is challenging the assault on audio quality—and working to free music lovers from the flat and lifeless status quo. To Feel the Music is the true story of his questto bring high-quality audio back to musiclovers—the most important undertaking ofhis career. It's an unprecedented look insidethe successes and setbacks of creating thePono player, the fights and negotiationswith record companies to preserve master-pieces for the future, and Neil's unrelentingdetermination to make musical art availableto everyone. It's a story that shows how muchmore there is to music than meets the ear. Neil's efforts to bring quality audio to his fans garnered media attention when his Kickstarter campaign for his Pono player—a revolutionary music player that would combine the highest quality possible with the portability, simplicity and affordability modern listeners crave—became the third-most successful Kickstarter campaign in the website's history. It had raised more than $6M in pledges in 40 days. Encouraged by the enthusiastic response, Neil still had a long road ahead, and his Pono music player would not have the commercial success he'd imagined. But he remained committed to his mission, and faced with the rise of streaming services that used even lower quality audio, he was determined to rise to the challenge. An eye-opening read for all fans of Neil Young and all fans of great music, as well as readers interesting in going behind the scenes of product creation, To Feel the Music has an inspiring story at its heart: One determined artist with a groundbreaking vision and the absolute refusal to give up, despite setbacks, naysayers, and skeptics.

Quirky and wonderfully candid, Neil Young's second book of reminiscences is as compelling as his first book. He returns with more unforgettable stories about his six decades in the music business - but this is not your average rock biography. He centres this work on one of his life's passions, cars, using the framework of all the cars he's ever owned to construct a narrative of his life and career, exploring and demonstrating how memories are attached to objects. Young also expresses regret for the environmental impact of his past cars, and now passionately advocates the use of clean energy. 'Special Deluxe' is a mix of memoir and environmental politics by one of the most gifted and influential artists of our time.

Neil Young has had one of the most remarkable careers in the history of music. He hasn't just outlived many of his contemporaries – some of whom were great inspirations for him (“From Hank to Hendrix ” as one of his own songs says); his artistry lives on through those he has inspired (Pearl Jam, Radiohead), and he remains relevant and vital well into his fifth decade of making music. Young also continues to crank out records at a rate that would kill most artists half his age. Between his solo and live albums, and his work with Buffalo Springfield and Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, his remarkable career has spanned well over 50 albums. Although he has experimented in genres from syntho-pop to rockabilly, Neil Young is best known for the fully cranked, feedback-laden noise he makes with Crazy Horse (Rust Never Sleeps and Ragged Glory) and the more introspective folk-pop (Harvest). The glue that binds his work together is the songwriting. Because when it comes to writing great, timeless songs, Neil Young has few equals. Neil Young FAQ is the first definitive guide to the music of this mercurial and methodical, enduring, and infuriating icon. From the Archives to Zuma and from the Ditch Trilogy to the Geffen years, this book covers every song and album in painstaking detail-including bootlegs and such lost recordings as Homegrown, Chrome Dreams, Toast, and Meadow Dusk. Obscure facts and anecdotes from the studio to the road, along with dozens of rare images, make this book a must-have for Young fans.

DIVSince his first recordings with Buffalo Springfield in 1967, Neil Young has been described as brilliant, cantankerous, confounding, ruthless, mercurial, and vexing. Regardless, his profound musical influence and his status as a critical favorite cannot be denied. Now the first illustrated biography to span Young’s 40-plus years as a recording and touring musician (and nearly as many forays into divergent musical genres, some wags might say), is updated through 2012./divFrom Young’s earliest days in the Canadian folk and rock scenes through his tenures with Buffalo Springfield and CSN&Y and on to his varied solo career backed by bands including the Stray Gators, the Ducks, the Bluenotes, Booker T. & the MGs, Pearl Jam, and, of course, Crazy Horse, every aspect of Young’s long and varied career is covered. The book features the work of rock photographers from the 1960s to the present, as well as concert posters and ephemera from around the world, including picture sleeves, LPs, ticket stubs, pins, T-shirts, backstage passes, and more. Notable musicians from around the world chip in with commentary, and the book is further complemented with a discography and sidebars examining topics like Young’s involvement with Lionel toy trains (of which he is a part owner), Farm Aid, and San Francisco’s Bridge School.

Analyses the recorded work of rock music icon Neil Young. The book follows the evolution of Young's musical work from the late 1960s to the present, with special focus on the enduring elements that have made his music successful. Neil Young cannot be simply labelled. He has recorded as a solo artist, as a member of a hard rock trio, and with numerous other musician configurations. He can move from the soft sounds of early 1970s acoustic folk to the distorted, fuzz guitar sound of Crazy Horse. And his compositions have responded to musical trends from punk rock to grunge, and to social issues like racism, the Vietnam War, and war in Iraq as well. Individual chapters cover Young's musical output album by album, and song by song - from his debut work with Buffalo Springfield, to his time with Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, to his solo work within various genres and for various causes (some political, but all artistic). In his conclusion, Bielen sums up Neil Young's accomplishments and places his work in the context of contemporary culture. A discography and bibliography round out the work.

"Neil Young is a figure who straddles divisions: he's Canadian and American, folkie and rocker, an old guy relevant enough to be quoted in the suicide note of Kurt Cobain. His brilliant, gnomic, lyrical music has earned him fans of all vintages and persuasions - among them novelist Kevin Chong." "Fast approaching the dreaded age of thirty, Chong is shocked to realize that his boyhood hero is turning sixty. He takes to the road in celebration, crisscrossing the continent with three buddies and a hatbox full of space cakes to visit places central to Neil's life and career. Chong doesn't meet the man in his travels, but that was never his intention. Instead, his brief vacation from adulthood - recounted to hilarious effect in these pages - teaches him something about rock 'n' roll, contrarianism, being cool, and aging gracefully: staying Young."--BOOK JACKET.

Neil Young and Philosophy, edited by Douglas L. Berger, explores the meanings, importance, and philosophical dimensions of the music, career, and life of this prolific singer/songwriter over the past five decades. Neil Young’s music has touched on a broad range of cultural, political and personal issues, all of which have enormous ongoing relevance for our own times. In order to accommodate Young’s artistic breadth, contributions of scholars from a wide variety of fields-- American philosophy, ethics, American Indian philosophy, feminist philosophy, psychology, philosophy of mind and religious studies--are included in this collection. They examine everything from Young’s environmentalism, invocation of American Indian themes, images of women, and interpretations of human relationships to his confrontations with the music industry, his experiments with recording technologies, his approach to social change, and his methods of creativity. The book builds on the fundamental commitment of the Philosophy and Popular Culture series to see the artist as a philosopher.

Spanning 35 years and 40 albums, this book digs into the music and lyrics of Neil Young, one of rock's most restless spirits. 160 color photos.