Happy Birthday, Shakey

By clampdown Wed., Nov. 12 2008 at 3:36 PM

Categories: Listen Up!

As one of rock's premier songwriters, guitarists and even vocalists - that reedy tenor grows on you, big-time - Neil Young's body of work is second only to Bob Dylan's in terms of quality-to-amount ratio. But Young, who turns 63 today, is and has been many other things: cerebral-palsy activist, Farm Aid co-founder, Rick James' bandmate in the Mynah Birds, temporary W apologist after 9/11 ("Let's Roll," repudiated in a major way on 2006's Living With War), Ronnie Van Zandt frenemy, Bridge School founder, Kurt Cobain suicide-note source material ("Hey Hey My My"), bizarre concept-album auteur (Greendale, 2003), movie star (Jonathan Demme's sterling 2006 concert doc Neil Young: Heart of Gold) and brain-aneurysm survivor.

Young is also one of the few rock stars sued by his own label for turning in music executives deemed "unrepresentative" of his work - 1982's Trans, which grew out of Young investigating synthesizers, vocoders and other electronic instruments in the hopes of finding a way to communicate with his son (rendered mute due to severe CP). Happy birthday, Neil!

After the jump, a few of Shakey's best. - Chris Gray

Buffalo Springfield, "For What It's Worth/Mr. Soul"