Early career (1963–1966) Young and his mother settled in the working-class area of
Fort Rouge, Winnipeg, where he enrolled in Earl Grey Junior High School. It was there that he formed his first band, the Jades, and met
Ken Koblun. While attending
Kelvin High School in Winnipeg, he played in several instrumental rock bands, eventually dropping out of school in favor of a musical career. Young's first stable band was
the Squires, with Ken Koblun, Jeff Wuckert and Bill Edmondson on drums, who had a local hit called "The Sultan". Over three years, the band played hundreds of shows at community centers, dance halls, clubs and schools in Winnipeg and other parts of Manitoba. The band also played in
Fort William (now part of the city of
Thunder Bay, Ontario), where they recorded a series of demos produced by a local producer, Ray Dee, whom Young called "the original Briggs", referring to his later producer David Briggs. While playing at The Flamingo, Young met
Stephen Stills, whose band
the Company was playing at the same venue, and they became friends. The Squires primarily performed in Winnipeg and rural Manitoba in towns such as
Selkirk,
Neepawa,
Brandon and Giroux (near
Steinbach), with a few shows in northern Ontario. After leaving the Squires, Young worked in folk clubs in Winnipeg, where he first met
Joni Mitchell. Mitchell recalls Young as having been highly influenced by
Bob Dylan at the time. Young said
Phil Ochs was "a big influence on me", telling a radio station in 1969 that Ochs was "on the same level with Dylan in my eyes." Here he wrote some of his earliest and most enduring folk songs such as "
Sugar Mountain", about lost youth. Mitchell wrote "
The Circle Game" in response. The Winnipeg band
the Guess Who (with
Randy Bachman as lead guitarist) had a Canadian Top 40 hit with Young's "Flying on the Ground is Wrong", which was Young's first major success as a songwriter. In 1965, Young toured Canada as a solo artist. In 1966, while in Toronto, he joined the
Rick James-fronted
Mynah Birds. The band managed to secure a record deal with the
Motown label, but as their first album was being recorded, James was arrested for being
AWOL from the Navy Reserve. After the Mynah Birds disbanded, Young and the bass player
Bruce Palmer decided to pawn the group's musical equipment and buy a
Pontiac hearse, which they used to relocate to Los Angeles. Young admitted in a 1975 interview that he was in the United States illegally until he received a "green card" (
permanent residency permit) in 1970. Distrust of their management, as well as the arrest and deportation of Palmer, worsened the already strained relations among the group members and led to Buffalo Springfield's demise. A second album,
Buffalo Springfield Again, was released in late 1967, but two of Young's three contributions were solo tracks recorded apart from the rest of the group. From that album, "
Mr. Soul" was the only Young song of the three that all five members of the group performed together. In May 1968, the band split up for good, but to fulfill a contractual obligation, a final studio album,
Last Time Around, was released. Young contributed the songs "On the Way Home" and "I Am a Child", singing lead on the latter. In 1997, the band was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame; Young did not appear at the ceremony, writing in a letter to the Hall that their presentation, which was aired on
VH1, "has nothing to do with the spirit of Rock and Roll. It has everything to do with making money." Young played as a studio session guitarist for some 1968 recordings by
The Monkees which appeared on the
Head and
Instant Replay albums.
Going solo, Crazy Horse (1968–1969) After the breakup of Buffalo Springfield, Young signed a solo deal with
Reprise Records, home of his colleague and friend
Joni Mitchell, with whom he shared a manager,
Elliot Roberts. Roberts managed Young until Roberts' death in 2019. Young and Roberts immediately began work on Young's first solo record,
Neil Young (January 22, 1969), which received mixed reviews. In a 1970 interview, Young deprecated the album as being "overdubbed rather than played". For his next album, Young recruited three musicians from a band called the Rockets:
Danny Whitten on guitar,
Billy Talbot on bass guitar, and
Ralph Molina on drums. These three took the name
Crazy Horse (after
the historical figure of the same name), and
Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere (May 1969) is credited to "Neil Young with Crazy Horse". Recorded in just two weeks, the album includes "
Cinnamon Girl", "
Cowgirl in the Sand", and "
Down by the River". Young reportedly wrote all three songs in bed on the same day while nursing a high fever of .
Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young (1969–1970) Shortly after the release of
Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere, Young reunited with Stephen Stills by joining
Crosby, Stills & Nash, who had already released one album,
Crosby, Stills & Nash, as a trio in May 1969. Young was originally offered a position as a sideman but agreed to join only if he received full membership, and the group – winners of the 1969
Best New Artist Grammy Award – was renamed
Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young. The quartet debuted in Chicago on August 16, 1969, and later performed at the famous
Woodstock Festival, during which Young skipped the majority of the acoustic set and refused to be filmed during the electric set, even telling the cameramen: "One of you fuckin' guys comes near me and I'm gonna fuckin' hit you with my guitar". During the making of their first album,
Déjà Vu (March 11, 1970), the musicians frequently argued, particularly Young and Stills, who both fought for control. Stills continued throughout their lifelong relationship to criticize Young, saying that he "wanted to play folk music in a rock band". Young wrote "
Ohio" after the
Kent State massacre on May 4, 1970. CSNY quickly recorded the song and released it as a single, even as CSNY's "Teach Your Children" was still climbing the singles charts.
After the Gold Rush, acoustic tour and Harvest (1970–1972) Later in the year, Young released his third solo album,
After the Gold Rush (August 31, 1970), which featured, among others,
Nils Lofgren,
Stephen Stills, and CSNY bassist
Greg Reeves. Young also recorded some tracks with Crazy Horse, but dismissed them early in the sessions. The eventual recording was less amplified than
Everybody Knows This is Nowhere, with a wider range of sounds. Young's newfound fame with CSNY made the album his commercial breakthrough as a solo artist, and it contains some of his best-known work, including "
Tell Me Why" and "
Don't Let It Bring You Down"; the singles "
Only Love Can Break Your Heart" and "
When You Dance I Can Really Love"; and the title track, "
After the Gold Rush", played on piano, with dreamlike lyrics that ran a gamut of subjects from drugs and interpersonal relationships to
environmental concerns. Young's bitter condemnation of racism in the heavy blues-rock song "
Southern Man" (along with a later song entitled "Alabama") was also controversial with southerners in an era of desegregation, prompting
Lynyrd Skynyrd to decry Young by name in the lyrics to their hit "
Sweet Home Alabama". However, Young said he was a fan of Skynyrd's music, and the band's front man
Ronnie Van Zant was later photographed wearing a ''
Tonight's the Night'' T-shirt on the cover of
an album. In the autumn of 1970, Young began a solo acoustic tour of North America, during which he played a variety of his Buffalo Springfield and CSNY songs on guitar and piano, along with material from his solo albums and several new songs. Some songs premiered by Young on the tour, like "Journey through the Past", would never find a home on a studio album, while other songs, like "See the Sky About to Rain", would only be released in coming years. Many gigs were sold out, including concerts at
Carnegie Hall and a pair of acclaimed hometown shows at Toronto's
Massey Hall, which were taped for a planned live album. The shows became legendary among Young fans, with
Live at Massey Hall 1971 being released in 2007, and other shows as official bootlegs in 2021 and 2022, as a part of Young's
Archive series. Near the end of his tour, Young performed one of the new acoustic songs on the
Johnny Cash TV show. "
The Needle and the Damage Done", a somber lament on the pain caused by
heroin addiction, had been inspired in part by Crazy Horse member
Danny Whitten, who eventually died while battling his drug problems. While in Nashville for the Cash taping, Young accepted the invitation of
Quadrafonic Sound Studios owner
Elliot Mazer to record tracks there with a group of country-music session musicians who were pulled together at the last minute. Making a connection with them, he christened them
The Stray Gators, and began playing with them. Befitting the immediacy of the project,
Linda Ronstadt and
James Taylor were brought in from the Cash taping to do background vocals. Against the advice of his producer
David Briggs, he scrapped plans for the imminent release of the live acoustic recording in favor of a studio album consisting of the Nashville sessions, electric-guitar oriented sessions recorded later in his barn, and two recordings made with the
London Symphony Orchestra at Barking (credited as Barking Town Hall and now the
Broadway Theatre) during March 1971. The result was Young's fourth album,
Harvest (February 15, 1972), which was also the best selling album of 1972 in the US. After his success with CSNY, Young purchased a ranch in the rural hills above Woodside and Redwood City in Northern California ("Broken Arrow Ranch", where he lived until his divorce in 2014). He wrote the song "
Old Man" in honor of the land's longtime caretaker, Louis Avila. The song "
A Man Needs a Maid" was inspired by his relationship with actress
Carrie Snodgress. "
Heart of Gold" was released as the first single from
Harvest, the only No. 1 hit in his career. "Old Man" was also popular, reaching No. 31 on the
Billboard Hot 100 chart, marking Young's third and final appearance in the chart's Top 40 as a solo artist.
The "Ditch" Trilogy and personal struggles (1972–1974) Although a new tour with The Stray Gators (now augmented by Danny Whitten) had been planned to follow up on the success of
Harvest, it became apparent during rehearsals that Whitten could not function due to drug abuse. On November 18, 1972, shortly after he was fired from the tour preparations, Whitten was found dead of an apparent alcohol/
diazepam overdose. Young described the incident to
Rolling Stones
Cameron Crowe in 1975: "[We] were rehearsing with him and he just couldn't cut it. He couldn't remember anything. He was too out of it. Too far gone. I had to tell him to go back to L.A. 'It's not happening, man. You're not together enough.' He just said, 'I've got nowhere else to go, man. How am I gonna tell my friends?' And he split. That night the coroner called me from L.A. and told me he'd OD'd. That blew my mind. I loved Danny. I felt responsible. And from there, I had to go right out on this huge tour of huge arenas. I was very nervous and ... insecure." On the tour, Young struggled with his voice and the performance of drummer
Kenny Buttrey, a noted Nashville session musician who was unaccustomed to performing in the
hard rock milieu; Buttrey was eventually replaced by former CSNY drummer
Johnny Barbata, while
David Crosby and
Graham Nash contributed rhythm guitar and backing vocals to the final dates of the tour. Young has often said the album assembled in the aftermath,
Time Fades Away (October 15, 1973), was his least favorite. It was not officially released on CD until 2017 (as part of Young's
Official Release Series). Nevertheless, Young and his band tried several new musical approaches in this period.
Time Fades Away was recorded live, although it was an album of new material, an approach Young would repeat with more success later on.
Time was the first of three consecutive commercial failures which became known collectively to fans as the "Ditch Trilogy", as contrasted with the more middle-of-the-road pop of
Harvest. , on November 9, 1976 In the second half of 1973, Young formed The Santa Monica Flyers, with Crazy Horse's rhythm section augmented by
Nils Lofgren on guitar and piano and
Harvest/
Time Fades Away veteran
Ben Keith on pedal steel guitar. Deeply affected by the drug-induced deaths of Whitten and
roadie Bruce Berry, Young recorded an album specifically inspired by the incidents, ''
Tonight's the Night'' (June 20, 1975). The album's dark tone and rawness led Reprise to delay its release and Young had to pressure them for two years before they would do so. While his record company was stalling, Young recorded another album,
On the Beach (July 16, 1974), which presented a more melodic, acoustic sound at times, including a recording of the older song "See the Sky About to Rain", but dealt with similarly dark themes such as the collapse of 1960s folk ideals, the downside of success and the underbelly of the Californian lifestyle. Like
Time Fades Away, it sold poorly but eventually became a critical favorite, presenting some of Young's most original work. A review of the 2003 re-release on CD of
On the Beach described the music as "mesmerizing, harrowing, lucid, and bleary". After completing
On the Beach, Young reunited with
Harvest producer Elliot Mazer to record another acoustic album,
Homegrown. Most of the songs were written after Young's breakup with Carrie Snodgress, and thus the tone of the album was somewhat dark. Though
Homegrown was reportedly entirely complete, Young decided, not for the first or last time in his career, to drop it and release something else instead, in this case, ''Tonight's the Night
, at the suggestion of Band bassist Rick Danko. Young further explained his move by saying: "It was a little too personal ... it scared me". Most of the songs from Homegrown
were later incorporated into other Young albums while the original album was not released until 2020. Tonight's the Night,'' when finally released in 1975, sold poorly, as had the previous albums of the "ditch" trilogy, and received mixed reviews at the time, but is now regarded as a landmark album. In Young's own opinion, it was the closest he ever came to art.
Reunions, retrospectives and Rust Never Sleeps (1974–1979) Young reunited with
Crosby, Stills, and Nash after a four-year hiatus in the summer of 1974 for a concert tour that was partially recorded; highlights were ultimately released in 2014 as
CSNY 1974. It was one of the first ever stadium tours and the largest tour in which Young has participated to date. In 1975, Young reformed Crazy Horse with
Frank Sampedro on guitar as his backup band for his eighth album,
Zuma (November 10, 1975). Many of the songs dealt with the theme of failed relationships; "
Cortez the Killer", a retelling of the
Spanish conquest of Mexico from the viewpoint of the
Aztecs, may also be heard as an allegory of love lost.
Zumas closing track, "Through My Sails", was the only released fragment from aborted sessions with Crosby, Stills and Nash for another group album. In 1976, Young reunited with Stephen Stills for the album
Long May You Run (September 20, 1976), credited to
The Stills-Young Band; the follow-up tour was ended midway through by Young, who sent Stills a
telegram that read: "Funny how some things that start spontaneously end that way. Eat a peach, Neil." , among others in 1976|left In 1976, Young performed with Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell, and numerous other rock musicians in the high-profile all-star concert
The Last Waltz, the final performance by
The Band. The release of
Martin Scorsese's movie of the concert was delayed while Scorsese unwillingly re-edited it to obscure the lump of cocaine that was clearly visible hanging from Young's nose during his performance of "
Helpless". ''
American Stars 'n Bars (June 13, 1977) contained two songs originally recorded for the Homegrown
album, "Homegrown" and "Star of Bethlehem", as well as newer material, including the future concert staple "Like a Hurricane". Performers on the record included Linda Ronstadt, Emmylou Harris and Young protégé Nicolette Larson along with Crazy Horse. In 1977, Young also released the compilation Decade'', a personally selected set of songs spanning every aspect of his work, including a handful of previously unreleased songs. The record included less commercial album tracks alongside radio hits. In June 1977 Young joined with Jeff Blackburn, Bob Mosley and John Craviotto (who later founded
Craviotto drums) to form a band called The Ducks. Over seven-week the band performed 22 shows in Santa Cruz CA but were not allowed to appear beyond city limits due to Young's Crazy Horse contract. In April 2023 Young officially released a double album of songs culled from the band's performances at multiple venues as well as from sessions at a local recording studio. The double album was part of the Neil Young Archives project positioned within the Official Bootleg Series, titled High Flyin'.
Comes a Time (October 2, 1978), Young's first entirely new solo recording since the mid-1970s, marked a return to the commercially accessible, Nashville-inspired sound of
Harvest while also featuring contributions from Larson and Crazy Horse. The album also marked a return to his folk roots, as exemplified by a cover of
Ian Tyson's "
Four Strong Winds", a song Young associated with his childhood in Canada. Another of the album's songs, "
Lotta Love", was also recorded by Larson, with her version reaching No. 8 on the
Billboard Hot 100 in February 1979. In 1978, much of the filming was done for Young's film
Human Highway, which took its name from a song featured on
Comes a Time. Over four years, Young would spend US$3,000,000 of his own money on production (US$ in dollars). This also marked the beginning of his brief collaboration with the
art punk band
Devo, whose members appeared in the film. Young set out in 1978 on the lengthy
Rust Never Sleeps tour, in which he played a wealth of new material. Each concert was divided into a solo acoustic set and an electric set with Crazy Horse. The electric sets, featuring an abrasive style of playing, were influenced by the
punk rock zeitgeist of the late 1970s and provided a stark contrast from
Comes a Time. Two new songs, the acoustic "
My My, Hey Hey (Out of the Blue)" and electric "
Hey Hey, My My (Into the Black)" were the centerpiece of the new material. During the filming of
Human Highway, Young had collaborated with Devo on a cacophonous version of "Hey Hey, My My" at the
Different Fur studio in San Francisco and would later introduce the song to Crazy Horse. The lyric "It's better to burn out than to fade away" was widely quoted by his peers and critics. The album has also widely been considered a precursor of
grunge music with the bands
Nirvana and
Pearl Jam having cited Young's heavily distorted and abrasive guitar style on the B side to this album as an inspiration. Young also compared the rise of
Johnny Rotten with that of the recently deceased "King"
Elvis Presley, who himself had once been disparaged as a dangerous influence only to later become an
icon. Rotten returned the favor by playing one of Young's songs, "Revolution Blues" from
On the Beach, on a London radio show, an early sign of Young's eventual embrace by several punk-influenced alternative musicians. Young's two accompanying albums
Rust Never Sleeps (July 2, 1979; new material culled from live recordings, but featuring studio overdubs) and
Live Rust (November 19, 1979; a genuine concert recording featuring old and new material) captured the two sides of the concerts, with solo acoustic songs on side A, and fierce, uptempo, electric songs on side B. A movie version of the concerts, also called
Rust Never Sleeps (1979), was directed by Young under the pseudonym "Bernard Shakey". Young worked with rock artist
Jim Evans to create the poster art for the film, using the
Star Wars Jawas as a theme. Young's work since
Harvest had alternated between being rejected by mass audiences and being seen as backward-looking by critics, sometimes both at once, and now he was suddenly viewed as relevant by a new generation, who began to discover his earlier work. Readers and critics of
Rolling Stone voted him Artist of the Year for 1979 (along with
The Who), selected
Rust Never Sleeps as Album of the Year, and voted him Male Vocalist of the Year as well.
The Village Voice named
Rust Never Sleeps as the year's second best album in the
Pazz & Jop Poll, a survey of nationwide critics, and honored Young as the Artist of the Decade.
Experimental years (1980–1988) After providing the incidental music to the 1980 film
Where the Buffalo Roam, Young released
Hawks & Doves (November 3, 1980), a short record pieced together from sessions going back to 1974.
Re·ac·tor (1981), an electric album recorded with Crazy Horse, also included material from the 1970s. Young did not tour in support of either album; in total, he played only two shows, a set at the 1980 Bread and Roses Festival in
Berkeley and another at the Mike Bloomfield Tribute at The Ritz, between the end of his 1978 tour with Crazy Horse and the start of his tour with the Trans Band in mid-1982. The 1982 album
Trans, which incorporated
vocoders, synthesizers, and electronic beats, was Young's first for the new label
Geffen Records (distributed at the time by
Warner Bros. Records, whose parent
Warner Music Group owns most of Young's solo and band catalog) and represented a distinct stylistic departure. Young later revealed that an inspiration for the album was the theme of technology and communication with his son, who could not speak. An extensive tour preceded the release of the album and was documented by the video
Neil Young in Berlin, which saw release in 1986. , Spain, 1984 Young's next album, 1983's ''
Everybody's Rockin', included several rockabilly covers and clocked in at less than 25 minutes in length. Young was backed by the Shocking Pinks for the supporting US tour. Trans
(1982) had already drawn the ire of label head David Geffen for its lack of commercial appeal, and with Everybody's Rockin'' following seven months later, Geffen Records sued Young for making music "unrepresentative" of himself. The album was also notable as the first for which Young made commercial music videos –
Tim Pope directed the videos for "Wonderin'" and "Cry, Cry, Cry". Also premiered in 1983, though little seen, was the long-gestating
Human Highway. Co-directed and co-written by Young, the eclectic comedy starred Young,
Dean Stockwell,
Russ Tamblyn,
Dennis Hopper,
David Blue,
Sally Kirkland,
Charlotte Stewart and members of Devo. Young did not release an album in 1984, his first unproductive year since beginning his career with Buffalo Springfield in 1966. Young's lack of productivity was largely due to the ongoing legal battle with Geffen, although he was also frustrated that the label had rejected his 1983 country album
Old Ways. It was also the year when Young's third child was born, a girl named Amber Jean, who was later diagnosed with inherited
epilepsy. Young spent most of 1984 and all of 1985 touring for
Old Ways (August 12, 1985) with his country band, the International Harvesters. The album was finally released in an altered form midway through 1985. Young also appeared at that year's
Live Aid concert in
Philadelphia, collaborating with Crosby, Stills and Nash for the quartet's first performance for a paying audience in over ten years. Young's last two albums for Geffen were more conventional in the genre, although they incorporated production techniques like synthesizers and echoing drums that were previously uncommon in Young's music. Young recorded 1986's
Landing on Water without Crazy Horse but reunited with the band for the subsequent year-long tour and final Geffen album,
Life, which emerged in 1987. Young's album sales dwindled steadily throughout the eighties; today
Life remains his all-time-least successful studio album, with an estimated four hundred thousand sales worldwide. Switching back to his old label Reprise Records, Young continued to tour relentlessly, assembling a new blues band called The Bluenotes in mid-1987 (a legal dispute with musician
Harold Melvin forced the eventual rechristening of the band as Ten Men Working midway through the tour). The addition of a
brass section provided a new
jazzier sound, and the title track of 1988's ''
This Note's For You'' became Young's first hit single of the decade. Accompanied by a video that parodied corporate rock, the pretensions of advertising, and
Michael Jackson, the song was initially unofficially banned by MTV for mentioning the brand names of some of their sponsors. Young wrote an open letter, "What does the M in MTV stand for: music or money?" Despite this, the video was eventually named
best video of the year by the network in 1989. Young reunited with Crosby, Stills, and Nash to record the 1988 album
American Dream and play two benefit concerts late in the year, but the group did not embark upon a full tour. Young attracted criticism from liberals in the music industry when he supported
President Ronald Reagan and said he was "tired of people constantly apologizing for being Americans". In a 1985 interview with
Melody Maker, he said about the
AIDS pandemic: "You go to a supermarket and you see a faggot behind the fuckin' cash register, you don't want him to handle your potatoes." In the same interview, Young also complained about
welfare beneficiaries, saying: "Stop being supported by the government and get out and work. You have to make the weak stand up on one leg, or half a leg, whatever they've got."
Rolling Stone wrote in 2013 that Young "almost certainly regrets that horrific statement" and that he "quickly moved away from right-wing politics". The use of heavy
feedback and distortion on several
Freedom tracks was reminiscent of the
Rust Never Sleeps (1979) album and foreshadowed the imminent rise of grunge. The rising stars of the subgenre, including
Nirvana's
Kurt Cobain and
Pearl Jam's
Eddie Vedder, frequently cited Young as a major influence, contributing to his popular revival. A tribute album called
The Bridge: A Tribute to Neil Young was released in 1989, featuring covers by a range of alternative and grunge acts, including
Sonic Youth,
Nick Cave,
Soul Asylum,
Dinosaur Jr, and the
Pixies. Young's 1990 album
Ragged Glory, recorded with Crazy Horse in a barn on his Northern California ranch, continued this distortion-heavy aesthetic. Young toured for the album with Orange County, California country-punk band
Social Distortion and Sonic Youth as support, much to the consternation of many of his old fans.
Weld, a two-disc live album documenting the tour, was released in 1991. In 1994, Young again collaborated with Crazy Horse on
Sleeps with Angels, a record whose dark, somber mood was influenced by
Kurt Cobain's death earlier that year: the title track in particular dealt with Cobain's life and death without mentioning him by name. Cobain had quoted Young's lyric "It's better to burn out than fade away" (a line from "
My My, Hey Hey") in
his suicide note. Young had reportedly made repeated attempts to contact Cobain before his death. Young and Pearl Jam performed "Act of Love" at an abortion rights benefit along with Crazy Horse, and were present at a Rock and Roll Hall of Fame dinner, sparking interest in a collaboration between the two. Still enamored with the grunge scene, Young reconnected with Pearl Jam in 1995 for the live-in-the-studio album
Mirror Ball and a tour of Europe with the band and producer
Brendan O'Brien backing Young. 1995 also marked Young's induction into the
Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, where he was inducted by Eddie Vedder. It has released recordings by
Tegan and Sara,
Spoon,
Jonathan Richman,
Vic Chesnutt,
Everest,
Pegi Young,
Jets Overhead, and Young himself, among others. In 1998, Young renewed his collaboration with the rock band
Phish, sharing the stage at the annual
Farm Aid concert and then at Young's Bridge School Benefit, where he joined headliners Phish for renditions of "
Helpless" and "
I Shall Be Released". Phish declined Young's later invitation to be his backing band on his 1999 North American tour. The decade ended with the release in late 1999 of
Looking Forward, another reunion with Crosby, Stills, and Nash. The subsequent tour of the United States and Canada with the reformed quartet earned $42.1 million, making it the eighth largest grossing tour of 2000.
Health condition and new material (2000s) perform at the
PNC Bank Arts Center in 2006. (From L to R: Nash, Stills, Young, and Crosby)|left Young continued to release new material at a rapid pace through the first decade of the new millennium. The studio album
Silver & Gold and live album
Road Rock Vol. 1 were released in 2000 and were both accompanied by live concert films. His 2001 single "Let's Roll" was a tribute to the victims of the
September 11 attacks, and the
effective action taken by the passengers and crew on
Flight 93 in particular. In 2003, Young released
Greendale, a
concept album recorded with Crazy Horse members Billy Talbot and
Ralph Molina. The songs loosely revolved around the murder of a police officer in a small California town and its effects on the town's inhabitants. Under the pseudonym "Bernard Shakey", Young directed an accompanying film of the same name, featuring actors lip-synching to the music from the album. He toured extensively with the
Greendale material throughout 2003 and 2004, first with a solo, acoustic version in Europe, then with a full-cast stage show in North America, Japan, and Australia. Young began using
biodiesel on the 2004 Greendale tour, powering his trucks and tour buses with the fuel. "Our Greendale tour is now ozone friendly", he said. "I plan to continue to use this government approved and regulated fuel exclusively from now on to prove that it is possible to deliver the goods anywhere in North America without using foreign oil, while being environmentally responsible."
2005 health issues In March 2005, while working on the
Prairie Wind album in
Nashville, Young was diagnosed with a brain
aneurysm. He was treated successfully with a minimally invasive
neuroradiological procedure and performed in a New York hospital on March 29, but passed out two days later on a New York street from bleeding from the
femoral artery, which radiologists had used to access the aneurysm. The complication forced Young to cancel his scheduled appearance at the
Juno Awards telecast in Winnipeg, but within months he was back on stage, appearing at the close of the
Live 8 concert in
Barrie, Ontario, on July 2. During the performance, he debuted a new song, a soft hymn called "When God Made Me". Young's brush with death influenced
Prairie Winds themes of retrospection and mortality.
Jonathan Demme concert film A Jonathan Demme concert film from a 2007 concert at the
Tower Theater in
Upper Darby Township, Pennsylvania, called the
Neil Young Trunk Show premiered on March 21, 2009, at the
South by Southwest (SXSW) Film Conference and Festival in
Austin, Texas. It was featured at the Cannes Film Festival on May 17, 2009, and was released in the US on March 19, 2010, to critical acclaim.
Glastonbury, Isle of Wight In 2009, Young headlined the
New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival, and
Glastonbury Festival in
Pilton, England, at
Hard Rock Calling in London (where he was joined onstage by
Paul McCartney for a rendition of "
A Day in the Life") and, after years of unsuccessful booking attempts, the
Isle of Wight Festival.
Increased environmental activism and Promise of the Real (2010s) , Norway, in 2009 In May 2010, it was revealed Young had begun working on a new studio album produced by
Daniel Lanois. This was announced by David Crosby, who said that the album "will be a very heartfelt record. I expect it will be a very special record." On May 18, 2010, Young embarked upon a North American solo tour to promote his then upcoming album,
Le Noise, playing a mix of older songs and new material. Although billed as a solo acoustic tour, Young also played some songs on electric guitars, including Old Black. In September 2011, Jonathan Demme's third documentary film on the singer-songwriter,
Neil Young Journeys, premiered at the
Toronto International Film Festival. Young and Crazy Horse released the album
Americana on June 5, 2012. It was Young's first collaboration with Crazy Horse since the
Greendale album and tour in 2003 and 2004. The record is a tribute to unofficial national anthems that jump from an uncensored version of "
This Land Is Your Land" to "
Clementine" and includes a version of "
God Save the Queen", which Young grew up singing every day in school in Canada.
Americana is Young's first album entirely of cover songs. It debuted at number four on the
Billboard 200, making it Young's highest-charting album in the US since
Harvest. On June 5, 2012,
American Songwriter reported that Young and Crazy Horse would be launching their first tour in eight years in support of the album. On September 25, 2012, Young's autobiography
Waging Heavy Peace: A Hippie Dream was released to critical and commercial acclaim. Reviewing the book for the
New York Times,
Janet Maslin reported that Young chose to write his memoirs in 2012 for two reasons: he needed to take a break from stage performances for health reasons but continue to generate income; and he feared the onset of
dementia, considering his father's medical history and his own present condition. Maslin praised the book, describing it as frank but quirky and without pathos. In November 2013, Young performed at the annual fundraiser for the
Silverlake Conservatory of Music. Following the
Red Hot Chili Peppers, he played an acoustic set to a crowd who had paid a minimum of $2,000 a seat to attend the benefit in the famous
Paramour Mansion overlooking downtown Los Angeles. Young released the album
A Letter Home on April 19, 2014, through
Jack White's record label, and his second memoir,
Special Deluxe, which was released on October 14. He appeared with White on
The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon on May 12, 2014. Young released his 35th studio album,
Storytone, on November 4, 2014. The first song released from the album, "Who's Gonna Stand Up?", was released in three different versions on September 25, 2014.
Storytone was followed in 2015 by his
concept album The Monsanto Years.
The Monsanto Years is an album themed both in support of
sustainable farming and to protest the biotechnology company
Monsanto. Young achieves this protest in a series of lyrical sentiments against
genetically modified food production. He created this album in collaboration with
Willie Nelson's sons,
Lukas and Micah, and is also backed by Lukas's fellow band members from
Promise of the Real. Additionally, Young released a film in tandem with the album, also called
The Monsanto Years, that documents the album's recording, and can be streamed online. In August 2019,
The Guardian reported that Monsanto was spying on Young and other environmental activists. In summer 2015, Young undertook a North American tour titled the Rebel Content Tour. It began on July 5, at the Summerfest in
Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and ended on July 24, at the
Wayhome Festival in
Oro-Medonte, Ontario.
Lukas Nelson & Promise of the Real were special guests for the tour. In October 2016, Young performed at
Desert Trip in
Indio, California, and announced his 37th studio album,
Peace Trail, recorded with drummer
Jim Keltner and bass guitarist Paul Bushnell, which was released that December. On September 8, 2017, Young released
Hitchhiker, a studio LP recorded on August 11, 1976, at Indigo Studios in
Malibu. The album features ten songs that Young recorded accompanied by acoustic guitar or piano. While different versions of most of the songs have been previously released, the album includes two never-before-released songs: "Hawaii" and "Give Me Strength", which Young has occasionally performed live. On July 4, 2017, Young released the song "Children of Destiny", which appeared on his next album. On November 3, 2017, he released "Already Great", a song from
The Visitor, an album he recorded with Promise of the Real and released on December 1, 2017. On
Record Store Day, April 21, 2018, Warner Records released a two-vinyl LP special edition of ''
Roxy: Tonight's the Night Live'', a double live album of a show that Young performed in September 1973 at
the Roxy in West Hollywood, with the Santa Monica Flyers. The album is labeled "Volume 05" in Young's
Performance Series. On October 19, 2018, Young released a live version of his song "Campaigner", an excerpt from a forthcoming archival live album,
Songs for Judy, which features solo performances recorded during a November 1976 tour with Crazy Horse. It was the first release from his new label Shakey Pictures Records. In December 2018, Young criticized the promoters of a London show for selecting
Barclays Bank as a sponsor. He objected to the bank's association with
fossil fuels. Young said he was trying to rectify the situation by finding a different sponsor. On August 19, 2019, Young and Crazy Horse announced the release later that month of the song "Rainbow of Colors", the first single from the album
Colorado, Young's first new record with the band since 2012's
Psychedelic Pill. Young, multi-instrumentalist
Nils Lofgren, bassist Billy Talbot and drummer Ralph Molina recorded the album with Young's co-producer, John Hanlon, in spring 2019.
Colorado was released on October 25, 2019, on Reprise Records. On August 30, 2019, Young unveiled "Milky Way", the first song from
Colorado, a love ballad he had performed several times at concerts – both solo acoustic and with Promise of the Real.
Continued work with Crazy Horse and forming the Chrome Hearts (2020s) In February 2020, Young wrote an open letter to President Trump, calling him a "disgrace to my country". On August 4, 2020, Young filed a
copyright infringement lawsuit against
Trump's reelection campaign for the use of his music at campaign rallies. In April 2020, Young announced that he was working on a new archival album,
Road of Plenty, comprising music made with Crazy Horse in 1986 and rehearsals for his 1989
Saturday Night Live appearance. On June 19, Young released a "lost" album,
Homegrown. He recorded it in the mid-1970s following his breakup with
Carrie Snodgress, but opted not to release it at the time, feeling it was too personal. In September, Young released a live EP,
The Times. Young shared the news via his video for his new song "Lookin' for a Leader", stating: "I invite the President to play this song at his next rally. A song about the feelings many of us have about America today." Young and Crazy Horse released a new album,
Barn, on December 10, 2021. The first single, "Song of the Seasons", was released on October 15, followed by "Welcome Back" on December 3, along with a music video. A stand-alone will be released on
Blu-ray and will be directed by
Daryl Hannah. Young also confirmed that he had completed his third book,
Canary, his first work of fiction. On January 24, 2022, Young posted an open letter threatening to remove his music from the audio streaming service
Spotify if it did not remove the
Joe Rogan Experience podcast. Young accused the podcast of spreading
COVID-19 misinformation on December 31, writing, "Spotify has a responsibility to mitigate the spread of misinformation on its platform". On January 26, Young's music was removed from Spotify. A Spotify spokesperson said that Spotify wanted "all the world's music and audio content to be available to Spotify users" and that it had a "great responsibility in balancing both safety for listeners and freedom for creators". The
Director-General of the World Health Organization,
Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, praised Young. In 2023, Young criticized
Ticketmaster's practice of raising ticket prices and adding fees. He said he had been sent letters from fans blaming him for $3,000 tickets for a
benefit concert he was performing, and that "artists have to worry about ripped off fans blaming them for Ticketmaster add-ons and
scalpers". In April and May 2024, Young returned to touring with Crazy Horse for the first time in ten years (for their Love Earth Tour), and unveiled a "lost" verse from "
Cortez the Killer" that had been unknown for years.
Micah Nelson, son of
Willie Nelson, joined Crazy Horse for the tour, as Nils Lofgren was busy touring with
Bruce Springsteen as a member of the
E Street Band. In May, two members of the group became ill, and Young announced that the remainder of their tour (including dates in July and festivals in September) would be canceled indefinitely. In late 2024, Young began playing with a new backing band, the Chrome Hearts. The band consists of
Promise of the Real members Micah Nelson (guitar), Corey McCormick (bass), and Anthony Logerfo (drums), and organist
Spooner Oldham. They released their debut single, "big change", in January 2025, with producer
John Hanlon calling the song "in your face loud irreverent rock'n'roll paint splatter on the canvas in the vein of a
Jackson Pollack painting." The song was featured on the album
Talkin to the Trees, released several months later on June 13, 2025 as his debut album with the Chrome Hearts. The album's second single, "Let's Roll Again", was released on May 2, 2025 and takes a direct shot at
Elon Musk and
Tesla, Inc. Young provides guest vocals on the song “My Plane Leaves Tomorrow (Au Revoir)” from
The Beach Boys'
Al Jardine's 2025 EP,
Islands in the Sun.
Red Hot Chili Peppers bass guitarist
Flea also performs trumpet on the song. On June 28, 2025, Young headlined at the
Glastonbury Festival, with the set being broadcast live by the
BBC, after an initial embargo placed by Young.
Alexis Petridis of
The Guardian said of the band, "They may well be the best backing band Young has assembled since Crazy Horse, their sound simultaneously tumultuous and lumbering and heavily distorted." Neil Young's "Big Crime" premiered with the Chrome Hearts on August 27, 2025, at Chicago's
Huntington Bank Pavilion, directly targeting
Donald Trump's deployment of
National Guard troops and federal agents in
Washington, D.C. With lyrics proclaiming “There's big crime in D.C. at the White House,” “Don't want soldiers on our streets,” and “Got to get the fascists out, got to clean the White House out,” the song combines Young's signature protest rock style with explicit criticism of government overreach and the political climate, continuing his long legacy of using music as a platform for social and political commentary. On October 8, 2025, Young announced on his website his decision to remove his music catalog from Amazon Music in protest of Amazon and its founder,
Jeff Bezos, whom he accused of supporting a U.S. government that neglects public welfare and contributes to issues like
government shutdowns. Young urged fans to boycott
Amazon and support local businesses instead, framing the move as resistance to corporate control. On April 21, 2026, Young announced that he had recorded with the Chrome Hearts a new (8-track studio album titled
Second Song due to include three unreleased original tracks dating back to 1963. Young explained that the creative process began several months earlier when he spent several days composing new lyrics and melodies in the early morning hours. The recording sessions began under a full moon in early March 2026 at
Rick Rubin's
Shangri-La Studios in
Malibu. Five new songs were recorded during the first two days of the recording session. A search of the archives discovered previously unreleased early material: indeed, three songs he had written in 1963 had remained unreleased. The final mixing and mastering were completed in April 2026 under another full moon. Young also explained that he tried to do something he had never done: record digital and analog masters at the same time to show the difference, two versions due to both be released. ==Archives project==