Neil Young :: Blog
Rare Performances: Neil Young Live in 1995
On January 12, 1995, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame held its 10th annual induction ceremony in New York City. Among the inductees that year, along with Janis Joplin, Frank Zappa and others, was Neil Young, who was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame by Pearl Jam lead singer, Eddie Vedder. Young’s performances that night included the epic “Act of Love” from his album Mirror Ball, which would be released in June 1995. After performing “Act of Love” with members of his touring band, Young was joined onstage by Pearl Jam to perform "F*!#in' Up,” from his 1990 album Ragged Glory. It was especially fitting that Young, who has been called “the Godfather of Grunge,” would invite the Seattle band to perform with him at his induction.
Pearl Jam and Neil Young had been collaborating since 1992, when the grunge band and “the Godfather” played separately at a Bob Dylan tribute at Madison Square Garden ...
The Story of "Ohio"
In May 1970, Neil Young came to his bandmates David Crosby, Graham Nash and Stephen Stills with a powerful new song: "Ohio." After three days of agitated student-led protests of the invasion of Cambodia, the already incendiary situation at Kent State University exploded on the afternoon of May 4, 1970, when 28 National Guardsmen fired as many as 67 shots into a crowd of people. The 13-second barrage killed four students – Jeffrey Miller, Allison Krause, William Schroeder and Sandra Scheuer – and injured nine more. In the wake of the tragedy, President Richard Nixon's military orders in Southeast Asia came under increasingly fervent scrutiny, while John Paul Filo's Pulitzer prize–winning photograph of Mary Ann Vecchio screaming beside the lifeless body of Jeffrey Miller was forever ingrained into the American social consciousness as a poignant reminder of the domestic turmoil during the Vietnam Era. Other images from the shooting appeared as part of the May 15,1970 Life magazine cover story, an issue that reportedly found its way to Neil Young via David Crosby.
In the liner notes of his 1977 anthology, Decade, Young wrote: "It's still hard to believe I had to write this song. It's ...
Hall of Fame Series with Spooner Oldham
On November 2, 2011, Hall of Fame inductee Spooner Oldham spoke with and performed for a sold-out audience in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum's Foster Theater. Oldham is a linchpin of Southern Soul and the Alabama sound, a fixture of famed Muscle Shoals and FAME studios, where his keyboard playing enlivened some of the biggest rock and roll songs of the past 50 years, including Aretha Franklin's "I Never Loved a Man," Wilson Pickett's "Mustang Sally" and Percy Sledge's "When a Man Loves a Woman." Together with singer-songwriter Dan Penn, Spooner contributed a number of classics to the canon of rock, co-writing "Cry Like a Baby" by the Box Tops, "It Tears Me Up" by Percy Sledge and "I'm Your Puppet" by James and Bobby Purify.
Born Dewey Lyndon "Spooner" Oldham in Center Star, Alabama, Oldham is one of rock's most in-demand players, appearing on records and tours with luminaries such as Bob Dylan, Aretha Franklin and Neil Young, in addition to newer act Drive-By Truckers.
During his Hall of Fame series interview with Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum director of education Jason Hanley, Oldham talked about ...
