The singer Neil Young said had “a profound effect on my life”
After observing rock ‘n’ roll’s genesis and later the British invasion, Canada seemed to have its moment in the sun in the late 1960s. With Neil Young, Robbie Robertson’s The Band, Joni Mitchell and Leonard Cohen making significant strides running up to the singer-songwriter wave, Canada finally found a proud perch on the musical map.
Neil Young hails from the Ontario capital, Toronto, a bustling urban epicentre in Canada. Despite such an origin, his music is more representative of the country’s vast rural scapes, from the southern ranches to the tundra in the north. After breaking through with Stephen Stills in Buffalo Springfield, the songwriter branched out on a successful solo career bolstered and coloured by the involvement of his longstanding backing band, Crazy Horse.
Young’s solo material often evoked the rural scene. As a youngster, he first got to grips with the ukulele before upgrading to the banjo and acoustic guitar. Such instruments are commonly associated with the country and folk styles Young adores. His masterpiece in this format, 1972’s Harvest, was inspired partly by a recent move to the California countryside, where he bought Broken Arrow Ranch.
Beyond his acoustic solo material, Young is also considered a rock star, thanks to his propensity to plug in and raise the decibels with Crazy Horse. His electric and unrefined sound in Rust Never Sleeps even earned Young the title ‘Godfather of Grunge’.
Young’s eclectic approach, encompassing R&B, country, folk and rock, can be attributed to a broad range of pivotal influences. As a young, aspiring musician, Jimmy Reed introduced him to the blues, Roscoe Holcomb to folk and Hank Williams to country. However, most of his early influences covered multiple bases under the rock ‘n’ roll banner.
Like most children of his generation, Young fell in love with the energetic piano rhythms of Jerry Lee Lewis and Little Richard. Still, he always felt more of a connection to guitar-toting singers like Elvis Presley. In fact, as a ten-year-old, Young idolised the King and picked up the ukulele to follow his first passion.
If Presley stirred Young’s early passion, it was Roy Orbison who inspired him to take things seriously and go professional. Speaking to Nick Kent in 1990, Young reflected on the recent death of Orbison, revealing the ‘Pretty Woman’ singer as an inspiration both as a vocalist and as a strong character. “I always loved Roy,” he said. “I looked up to the way he was, admired the way he handled himself. That aloofness he had influenced me profoundly. It was the way he carried himself, you know, with this benign dignity.”
Indeed, Young has always maintained a forthright and uncompromising visage unchanged by the tides of fame and media scrutiny. On top of this influence, Young remains a devoted fan of Orbison’s musical style. “I’ve always put a piece of Roy Orbison on every album I’ve made. His influence is on so many of my songs,” Young added. “There’s a big Orbison tribute song on Eldorado called ‘Don’t Cry’. That’s totally me under the Roy Orbison spell. When I wrote it and recorded it, I was thinking, ‘Roy Orbison meets trash metal.'”
