Neil's Old Man

SCOTT YOUNG is an award-winning journalist, author of over 40 books, and a renowned radio and TV broadcaster in his native Canada. His work has been translated and published worldwide including in the former Soviet Union Scott Young is also Neil Young's dad.
For years he resisted requests to write about his famous son, despite enormous pressure from publishers. He did this partly to protect Neil's privacy and partly to avoid allegations of cashing-in on his son's celebrity status. In the late seventies during a visit to Neil's ranch in California he joked to him that he had received two tempting offers to write about his son in the space of one week. They were driving around the ranch and after a few moments deep in thought Neil finally said "Well Daddy, it's your life too you know". Reading this as tacit approval and consent to write about his past and his relationship with his son, Mr Young Snr. embarked on an intense writing binge.
The result was "Neil And Me", a 250 page biography of sorts which Scott claims was as much about himself and his own life as that of his son. It explored the often explosive relationship between fathers and sons, the problems of fame, the generation gap and it also helped Scott Young to purge the guilt he had often felt in abandoning Neil's mother when his son was just fourteen years old. The book was also a comprehensive chronicle of Neil's career from a most unusual viewpoint, not many rock stars have fathers who are professional writers. Apart from his own recollections and personal observations of his son's rise to fame, Scott researched the book extensively. He consulted past interviews, talked to Neil's friends and members of his band and even travelled to the UK to talk to the editor of the NME and the president of the Neil Young Appreciation Society. But then, there was a lot of catching up to do.
When Scott Young separated from his first wife (Neil's
mother) in1960, he had, what could be described as a sporadic relationship with both his sons over the next few years. Re-married, he was busy with his career as a reporter and columnist with the Toronto Globe And Mail. Neil was in his late teens, living in Winnipeg with his mother, doing badly at school and rather better in the music business. After playing in various high-school groups he had formed a band called The Squires who were making a name for themselves locally
After several successful tours around Manitoba and a summer season residency in Fort William, Ontario, the group broke up and Neil moved to Toronto. He found an apartment with some friends in Yorkville - Toronto's trendy bohemian district and formed a new group, The Mynah Birds, named after a local coffee house. Neil's new home was coincidentally just ten minutes away from his father's house and they bumped into each other more regularly during this period. At one point Neil's dad helped him get a job in a bookstore - making sure he got a haircut first!
One evening, Scott called to Neil's apartment to see how he was getting along - he hadn't heard from him for a while and although not unduly worried he decided to check up on him. He discovered that Neil had moved out and hadn't left a forwarding address. Scott didn't realise it at the time but Neil and some friends had bought an old hearse and decided to head for LA. Neil had become disillusioned after The Mynah Birds had not been as successful as they might have been. Things had looked promising for a while and the group had even been invited to Detroit to record for Motown. They were the first white group to sign with the label. Songs for an album had been recorded but the project was put on hold after Motown discovered that one of the group members, Rick James - yes the Rick James- had previously gone AWOL from the U.S. Navy and absconded over the border to Canada. The Vietnam war was raging and desertion was a big issue at the time - Motown got nervous and the deal was off.
So the band returned to Toronto and shortly after that Neil and five friends piled into the hearse and headed out on Route 66 to California. Soon after arriving in LA he bumped into Stephen Stills and Buffalo Springfield were formed. The legend of Neil Young had begun. The rise of Buffalo Springfield on the West Coast rock scene went largely unnoticed by Scott Young. He was several thousand miles away, busy at his work with the newspaper. One day he overheard some copy boys remarking "There goes Neil Young's father". As a well-known staff writer he was more used to hearing "There goes Scott Young" from aspiring cub reporters, so this subtle change in his status signalled to Scott that Neil must be doing quite well. But apart from an occasional letter from Neil over the following few years they were largely out of touch. Ironically it took a national tragedy to bring them together again.
In June 1968 Bobby Kennedy was shot in Los Angeles, and Scott Young was sent out to cover the story for the Toronto Globe and Mail. A large gym had been converted into a makeshift press centre for the hundreds of reporters who descended on the hospital as Kennedy lay fighting for his life. Scott found himself seated next to a reporter from the Los Angles Free Press, a popular underground newspaper at the time. They got talking and Scott happened to mention that his son played with a rock group based in LA. The reporter knew instantly who Neil Young was and was familiar with Buffalo Springfield. Scott asked where he might be able to find his son. Within a few hours Neil was tracked down and Scott was paged over the Tannoy in the press centre.
They arranged to meet later that night for supper. Neil drove his father out to a country restaurant and they ate hamburgers and drank beers into the early hours of the morning. This was to be the start of a new period in their relationship and despite the distance that separated them they've remained good buddies ever since.
Scott Young is now 74 years old and still writing for a living
- he has just published a new crime novel, *The Shaman's Knife*. He has moved back to his native Ontario after spending three years living in Ireland, where he and his third wife, Margaret, lived in the village of Howth in north County Dublin. Their arrival there was mainly accidental.
"I'd been 22 years living on my farm in Ontario and badly needed a change," he says. "My stepdaughter married an Irishman in Toronto and his relatives - the owners of Larry Murphy's pub in Dublin - who came to the wedding invited us to visit them in Ireland. We did, and after just one week of warm hospitality we decided that Ireland was where we wanted to live."
They sold the farm and moved to Howth, settling in straight away: "I was working on two books at the time - one on a Canadian Ice Hockey star, Alan Eagleson and the other a mystery novel, both which have since been published in Canada."
As a sports writer Scott Young covered every conceivable kind of sport for newspapers, radio and TV in Canada: "Yeah, I covered them all, from Kentucky Derbies and World Heavyweight Championship to World Series Baseball and Superbowl Football," he says. "In fact I'm a member of the Ice Hockey Hall of Fame for journalism - we're having a huge parade and celebration this month to open the Hall of Fame's new building in Toronto."
He took a keen interest in sport during his time in Ireland, which was hardly surprising since his first summer here coincided with our now legendary World Cup campaign. "I loved that headline 'Ireland Beats England 1-1,' " he laughs.
Much as he loved living in Howth he and his wife found the lure of their native land to be strong, and he found travelling back and forth to Canada for family occasions and business, a strain. Consequently, they moved back a few months ago and now live in a cottage by a lake in Ontario not far from Toronto.
Young now writes mainly fiction and his books still sell very well. "I like crime writing" he says. "It's my favourite thing now, but my earlier stuff on ice hockey brought translations in Russian which pleased me. Some of my kids' novels in hockey settings still sell thousands a year 40 years after the first one. I suppose I'm best known as a hockey writer, although my wife just phoned to read me a smashing review from the New York Times on my latest book, 'The Shaman's Knife'."
His book about Neil forced him to come to terms with his own past and his relationship with his son. Did Neil enjoy the book when he read it?
"Oh yeah", he says " "Neil phoned me at the time to say he loved it and I've always been happy with it. I just told the truth as I saw it and it forced me to be honest about myself. I've been a bad risk in marriage in the past - both Neil's mother and my second wife were fine people but I was a slow learner. I have a good marriage now though."
He says there are similarities between himself and Neil, a stubborn streak and a determination to do what they both feel is right for them. Neil Young fans will recognise this trait given his legendary reluctance to play the corporate game and to give in to any kind of commercial pressure. "I think we both stick to our guns under pressure,* says his father. *There are always pressures, things that can be turned down by obeying one's instincts no matter what the cost. Neil does that on a larger scale and I do it in my own smaller way."
Scott Young recalls vividly the first time he really felt that Neil was becoming a rock superstar. It was in December 1970 and "After The Goldrush" had just come out. Neil was playing two nights at Carnegie Hall which had been a long held ambition of his.
"We flew in a few hours before the concert," says Scott. "Neil sent a limousine to pick us up to bring us to the hotel suite he had booked especially for us. I had some time to spare before the show so I decided to take a walk down around the Carnegie Hall district. I saw the billboard above the theatre: 'TONIGHT. NEIL YOUNG FOLK SINGER. SOLD OUT.' I must have walked past that sign four or five times , I just couldn't get enough of it. A lot of emotions ran through me at the time and I had to fight back the tears. I was actually supposed to be covering a fight that weekend but I ended up writing about Neil and the concert in my weekly column."
The show was, of course, a triumph and Scott fought his way backstage to say hello to Neil, not an easy task given the multitudes of well-wishers and hangers-on including an excited Jack Nicholson who came up to him and said: "Your son has sold out Carnegie Hall man, some people work their whole lives to get here and he just comes here and does it". Scott Young didn't need convincing and he was a proud father that night.
At around the same time, Scott began to take note of some of Neil's lyrics which were highly personal and introspective in nature. He suspected some of the words might have referred to him. "I used to see myself in every miserable bastard who showed up in one of Neil's songs," he said at the time. "I Am A Child", a Buffalo Springfield song reminded him of the innocence of Neil's childhood and "Don't Be Denied" from "Time Fades Away" which begins with: "When I was a young boy my mama said to me/Your Daddy's leaving home today I think he's gone to stay" was as concise a summation of his marriage break-up as he'd heard. He was quietly proud though when he heard the words to "Old Man" from the "Harvest" Album which began: "Old Man look at my life, I'm a lot like you were " "People would come up to me and mention it as if I were a sort of co- proprietor of the song," he said. "So I would just nod and smile. Never question a compliment, I thought."
However, a few months after he'd first heard the song Neil was visiting him in Canada and during a walk in the woods his son explained that the lyrics of "Old Man" were not about his father but about his farm manager - an old guy who looked after his cattle and fed the buffaloes!
Scott now says he shouldn't have taken those lyrics so literally at the time: "I should know better than to identify myself with any of Neil's songs. The creative process doesn't work that way - it comes a little bit here, a little bit there. I do it myself in fiction and so does just about everyone!"
Over the next few years Scott Young often went to see Neil in
concert and he even spent some time on the road with the band. During Neil's legendary Northern California Bar Tour in 1975, during which he used to turn up unannounced at small roadhouses, Scott stayed in Neil's camper looking after Neil's son Ben during the gigs. How did he find the rock and roll lifestyle?
"It suited me just fine," he says, "I made many friends among the musicians who played with Neil. I like and admire them in different ways although I never tried to emulate them in any way and I always judged them as people, not on what they smoked!"
At one gig which was being shown to the crowd on giant video screens Neil's manager asked Scott if he'd care to act as a sort of an MC during the intermission. He agreed and was introduced to the audience as Neil's dad. When he went back to the auditorium to watch the second half of the show he was mobbed by some of the crowd, had to sign autographs, and, even more taxing, pass some kisses on to Neil from several beautiful young girls. Does he enjoy the fact that Neil is famous or would he have preferred him to be a lawyer or an accountant?
"Oh I love him being famous," he stresses. "He deserves it and I keep on growing as a Neil Young fan myself, but I love my other offspring in the same way, for what they are and I've got some good ones, each one is different."
Neil and his Dad are close to each other these days. They speak every week on the phone and get to see each other whenever their schedules permit it.
"I think we get along fine now, at least on my terms. We don't intrude or keep score of such things like in a tennis match. When good things happen to either of us the other usually manages to be there. Neil flew to Winnipeg to be there when I was inducted into the Manitoba Hockey Hall Of Fame and a couple of years ago I travelled from Dublin to Thunder Bay, Ontario to cheer him on when he got his honourary doctorate of music. "He's just sent me an autographed copy of his new album, Unplugged which was auctioned at a fund-raiser I'm involved with - it raised $125."
Scott Young regrets that his son can't spend more time in Ireland when he plays at Slane and meet some of the friends he and his wife made during their time there but he's looking forward to a family get-together in Toronto when Neil plays there in August.
I finally ask him if Neil reads any of his books and if so what does he think of them?
"He does read them actually," Scott replies "although I've never asked him if he does or not. I don't even care, any more than he cares whether I've heard his latest record. He did tell me that he thought one of my books, "Murder In A Cold Climate", should be a movie. I thought so too but life is too short to dwell on such things. I'd rather have the good reviews that book got than anything else I can think of!
With Neil's popularity attracting superlatives from every quarter these days good reviews would seem to be contagious in the Young family.