Neil Young

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  • Year:
    1995
  • Inducted by:
    Eddie Vedder (Pearl Jam)
  • Category:
    Performers
neil_young

Hall of Fame Essay

1995

Fred Schruers

It was while waiting for a certain balladeer to play an outdoor concert in Boulder, Colorado, that I first heard Neil Young’s "After the Gold Rush.”

It was a brand-new song in that fall of 1970, sent out over a big sound system to a gathering in a field on a sunny late afternoon. The striking thing was that for all the virtues of the balladeer to come, the crowd’s peak unifying moment had come and gone with the song.

What was left of hippie tribalism was  summoned up, along with that perennially muscular engagement with issues that Young has always brought to his music.

Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony Program Cover 1995
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1995 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Inductee Neil Young
He was the king of Mountain Funk.
Eddie Vedder

Photography: Kevin Mazur, WireImage