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00:00...natch in time to become a superstar and quit again.
00:04Throughout his 30-year solo career, he never let his audience get a clear beat on it.
00:09If he reached the top with acoustic music, he went loud and electric.
00:13When he built the following among alternative rock bands, he switched to mellow folk.
00:19In a world full of insecure singers who do anything for a hit,
00:23Neil Young was always fiercely true to himself.
00:26Whenever he was asked to compromise, he walked away.
00:30Neil Young is a legend. This is his story.
00:45When I write the songs, when I write the songs, I feel mostly like, uh, I, I, I, I guess
00:56I'm writing about, about a part of me
00:58that, uh, I don't know if I'll ever share.
01:02There is a town in North Ontario.
01:08Neil Young spent his early childhood in Ontario.
01:12When he was five, he contracted polio and had to be rushed to Toronto, 90 miles away.
01:17For the long ride to the hospital, Neil's father gave him a toy train to carry.
01:21He would not let go of it the whole way.
01:23I was going to the hospital and I remember lying on the floor in the back of the car.
01:28We were in a hurry to get there.
01:30I didn't really realize how serious it was or anything.
01:34I don't remember being, having a little train with me.
01:37But, uh, I'm glad I did if I did.
01:42Neil was lucky.
01:44He recovered from polio.
01:45It was the beginning of a lifetime of dramatic ups and downs.
01:49A few years later, he got a plastic ukulele for Christmas.
01:52He took to it immediately and later moved to acoustic guitar.
01:56His father, Scott Young, was a well-known sports journalist.
02:01Neil grew up the child of a local celebrity.
02:03He's a figure in Canadian sports and Canadian journalism.
02:07He was in the NHL Hall of Fame.
02:09So people knew who he was and then I was his son.
02:12And then he used to joke about, you know, he was the father of Neil Young.
02:17And I always, when I was growing up, I was the son of Scott Young.
02:20My old dad went walking one day, pushing tall weeds right out of his way.
02:25In 1960, his parents split.
02:28And Neil moved with his mother and his brother to Winnipeg,
02:31where Neil's mom, Rassie, found fame of her own as a panelist on a TV quiz show.
02:35So after my parents had split up, she, when we were living in Winnipeg,
02:40she did this panel show.
02:42And it was just kind of a, I think it was called 20 questions.
02:46In those days, you know, panel shows were all a rage.
02:51Neil did not fit in at his new school.
02:54He fought with bullies and got poor grades.
02:56But he loved rock and roll and started playing in local bands.
03:00I was just focused on doing the music and that's all I really cared about.
03:04I mean, I was behind with girls.
03:06I was behind with everything.
03:08I had no idea what was going on with anything other than music.
03:13I mean, I was just so mono that it was, like, pretty scary.
03:19After failing the 10th grade, repeating it, and then failing the 11th grade,
03:23Neil dropped out of high school and devoted himself to music.
03:27His band, the Squires, achieved modest success on the local scene.
03:30Neil hauled his bandmates and their equipment around in an old hearse.
03:34At one gig, the Squires shared the bill with a group called The Company,
03:38whose singer and guitarist was an American named Stephen Stills.
03:42Neil and Stephen hit it off immediately and agreed to stay in touch.
03:46In Toronto, Neil met a bass player named Bruce Palmer.
03:49They both ended up in an R&B group called The Minor Birds.
03:52The lead singer was an American named Ricky James,
03:55who would become famous years later as funk star Rick James.
03:59The Minor Birds drove down to Detroit and auditioned for Motown.
04:02I was playing a 12-string.
04:04I must have had the first acoustic 12-string at Motown.
04:09Rick was great.
04:10I mean, he was out front and Bruce and I were playing.
04:14It was a good band, a really good beat.
04:17Motown signed them, but it was too good to be true.
04:20It turned out that Rick James was a deserter from the Naval Reserves.
04:24When the Feds realized he was back in the States, they arrested him.
04:27I think Rick got busted for dodging the draft and our manager OD'd.
04:33And that happened kind of at the same time.
04:36So that was the end of our Motown era.
04:41Neil and Bruce Palmer sold The Minor Birds equipment
04:43and used the money to drive Neil's hearse to Los Angeles.
04:47Neil wanted to find Stephen Stills and start a new band,
04:50but he had no idea where to look for it.
04:52While stuck in a traffic jam on the Sunset Strip,
04:55Stills spotted Neil's hearse.
04:57Well, we, uh, Bruce and I came to Los Angeles in an old hearse
05:01to, uh, start, you know, to try to, you know, make stars, you know.
05:04We're going to be stars.
05:06So, uh, we were just about to leave,
05:08and I saw him in a van going the other way on Sunset,
05:12and he stopped me, and we stopped, and we all stopped,
05:15and then we started.
05:21Neil spotted a logo on a steamroller
05:23and took the name for their band,
05:25The Buffalo Springfield.
05:26One night in 1966,
05:29following a violent confrontation on the Sunset Strip
05:31between young people and the police,
05:33Stephen Stills picked up his guitar
05:35and wrote what would become Buffalo Springfield's first hit.
05:38Something happened in here
05:41What it is ain't exactly clear
05:46I got busted by the cops.
05:48Remember when they took me down there
05:50where the police station was?
05:51The one cop called me an animal.
05:54So I called him a grasshopper.
05:57Uh-oh.
05:57Yeah.
05:59So they came in and knocked my tooth out,
06:02this one right here,
06:03and did this other stuff and banged us around.
06:06It happened really fast.
06:07That was kind of like the ambience, you know.
06:10We were freaks in a pretty cool car
06:13and banged in jail, you know,
06:16for whatever, who knows.
06:18That happened to you before?
06:20Yeah, before the Sunset.
06:22Before the Sunset thing.
06:23So we were already prepared.
06:25Yeah.
06:27The Buffalo Springfield exploded.
06:30All Neil's teenage dreams of rock stardom were coming true.
06:33Oh, hello, Mr. Soul.
06:35I dropped by to pick up a reason.
06:39But it didn't have the effect he expected.
06:42Neil was confused by fame.
06:44It was not something he could control.
06:46And control was very important to Neil Young.
06:49Is it strange that should change us?
06:52I don't know.
06:52Why don't you ask us?
06:55Neil shocked his bandmates by refusing to appear on the Johnny Carson show.
06:59He thought it was too showbiz.
07:00He infuriated them by quitting the group days before the Monterey Pop Festival.
07:16He returned to the Springfield long enough to contribute to a farewell album.
07:20In less than two years, all of Neil Young's rock and roll dreams had come true.
07:25And he turned his back on them.
07:28Out of my mind
07:40Used to play in a rock and roll band
07:44But they broke up
07:47In 1967, the Buffalo Springfield was at the peak of its success.
07:52But Neil Young was not enjoying fame.
07:54He wanted to control his own destiny.
07:58Rock stardom had turned his life upside down.
08:01Amid all the rock star craziness, Neil began to have seizures.
08:04The doctors told him he had epilepsy.
08:07I try to remember when it first happened to me.
08:10Oh, when I was in my early 20s, it was active.
08:12The first time I remember, you know, having a seizure was when I was about 20 in Hollywood.
08:21It's part of my makeup.
08:25And there's something about it that's part of me.
08:29And I don't really know what it is.
08:31But I know it's not gone.
08:33It's just not manifesting itself the way it was.
08:38Neil released his first solo album in January 1969.
08:42It failed to make a dent on the charts.
08:44He began jamming with a band called The Rockets, Danny Whitton on guitar, Billy Talbot on bass, and Ralph Molina
08:51on drums.
08:52They brought out something raw and honest in Neil.
08:55They started playing together under a new name, Neil Young and Crazy Horse.
09:00In bed with a 103 degree fever, Neil wrote Down by the River, Cinnamon Girl, and Cowgirl in the Sand
09:07in a single day.
09:09I had a fever one day.
09:12And, you know, I was feeling, starting to feel better.
09:16But I still had the fever, you know.
09:18And so that day I wrote those three songs sitting in my bed.
09:30Those three songs became the backbone of Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere, the first album by Neil Young and Crazy
09:36Horse.
09:37Recorded in two weeks, it became Neil's first gold record.
09:40I want to live with a cinnamon girl
09:44I can be happy the rest of my life
09:48I wish to you
09:55He was enjoying success in his personal life as well.
09:58He married Susan Acevedo and they settled down in California's Topanga Canyon.
10:03Susan, my first wife, was a wonderful lady.
10:07She was older than I was.
10:09And I really wasn't, I really wasn't grown up enough for her.
10:14You know, it took me a long time to grow up
10:16because all my growing up time was spent on music.
10:19And all the other things suffered for us.
10:22But luckily, you know, I'm surrounded by people who understand me.
10:25And, you know, I caught up with it, more or less.
10:36Just as Neil was settling into his solo career,
10:39his Buffalo Springfield partner, Stephen Stills,
10:41asked him to join his new group,
10:43Crosby, Stills & Nash.
10:45Neil decided to split his time between his solo work
10:48and CSN.
10:49When you were young
10:51and on your own
10:55How did it feel to be alone
11:03I was always thinking of games that I was playing
11:11When they called me up and asked me to come and play with them,
11:14I looked at it as a chance to continue my relationship with Stephen
11:18and play more music with him.
11:20And also we had these guys that sang great,
11:23wrote really cool songs.
11:26It seemed like something that I could do and, you know, get into.
11:29Yes, only love can break your heart
11:36What if your world should fall apart
11:46Neil's a brilliant, deep guy
11:48But a huge creative force
11:52He's very powerful
11:54And he changes the chemistry
11:58I knew coming into this
12:00that this chemical equation
12:01was going to be
12:02like David said
12:03it's like, you know
12:05juggling four bottles of nitroglycerin
12:07and if you drop one
12:09you don't just drop one
12:10they all go off
12:10And I knew that it was going to be
12:12an exciting ride
12:14but the music
12:16overwhelmed all those fears
12:44I realized that he was
12:45one of the best songwriters in the world
12:47And as unusual and different as his voice was
12:51that it was immensely communicative
12:54and that he was brilliant
12:56at making emotions accessible to the people
13:00and that he could do it
13:02He was one of the magicians
13:05Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young
13:07made Neil rich and famous
13:08She could drag me over the label
13:14She could drag me over the label
13:45Hot on the heels of CSN1's Deja Vu Tour
13:48He released his solo album
13:50After the Gold Rush
13:51Southern man better
13:54Keep your head
13:57Keep your head
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