FEATURE NEIL YOUNG
Young at heart
Neil Young has carved himself a niche in the hearts of four decades of music-lovers, from rockers to the grunge generation. Kenny Mathieson salutes the great man as he comes to Scotland.
5 rock icons go. Neil Young cuts an unlikely figure. Tall. gangly. and with that vaguely goofy, slightly bemused smile. he is the antithesis of just about everything rock allegedly stands for. from the cult of beautiful youth through to macho posturing. A polio victim as a kid (his son Ben suffers from paralysing cerebral palsy). Young has always seemed to stand to one side in the rock and roll
10 The List 12-25 Jul 1996
playground. the weird kid in the corner whojust happened to be something of a genius when it came to making lasting music.
It’s hard - nope. make that impossible — to imagine Young hitting the road with 2) Zoo Europa or Voodoo Lounge show. When he visits Glasgow with his long-time cohorts Crazy Horse this month. the odds are heavily stacked on him being there in the familiar rag-tag denims. hunched over his guitar with that
‘what’s going down here'." grin playing across his face. while he cranks out some of the most original guitar noise ever to seep out from the cracks of the rock music facade.
Young’s influence has been pervasive. but hard to pin down. If you try to sing or play like him. you end up sounding like an inferior rip- off. but the likes of Sonic Youth and pretty much the whole grunge movement would unhesitatingly claim him as a godfather. Fair