The Six Degrees Of Neil Young
By Mitch Berg
Over the past few weeks, I’ve discovered “IHeartRadio”‘s music stations feature; you enter an artist, set a lev of familiarity (so the system plays song by artists more or less closely stylistically related to your selected artist), and let the music roll.
And it’s cool. Seriously.
But every artist I entered – Springsteen, Emmylou Harris, Marah, Richard Thompson, Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes, Sam and Dave – all led, within half a dozen songs, to one Neil Young song or another.
Neil Young is the number 42 of pop music (in the Douglass Adams rather than Jackie Robinson senses of the word. Er, number).
June 5th, 2013 at 12:41 pm
Hmmm. I’ll have to try that. I wonder if you can get to ol’ Neil from, say, the Ohio Players or Flipper.
June 5th, 2013 at 2:09 pm
You mean the “Four Dead In Ohio” Players?
June 5th, 2013 at 3:18 pm
You mean the “Four Dead In Ohio” Players?
“Going to live on Sugarfoot Mountain.”
June 5th, 2013 at 7:32 pm
Mr. Young was one of many Canadian musicians that connected with Americans.
June 6th, 2013 at 3:49 pm
Neil Young can’t sing, play the guitar well, compose more than one or two songs (excluding variations on them), is politically bi-polar, and a hippie.
So why in the name of God can I not get enough of his music? Nor can anyone else I know who loves music beyond the “good beat/easy to dance to” criterion?
I think it’s no coincidence that I’ve never see him and Joni Mitchell together. Hence the clever split screen imagery of them in the Last Waltz …
June 6th, 2013 at 4:53 pm
Neil was the one with the huge coke booger.
June 6th, 2013 at 5:46 pm
I can stand “Rockin in the Free World” As to the rest, meh. Now Tom Petty….
June 6th, 2013 at 8:14 pm
Petty has a pretty deep catalog and always had a great collection of musicians backing him.
June 6th, 2013 at 8:57 pm
Sirius XM gave Petty his own channel (111) for this week and I’ve listening to that the last couple days.
June 7th, 2013 at 8:54 pm
Petty-Target Center-June 29. They’ve been playing small venues in New York and LA, pulling out a lot of deep cuts and covers. It will be interesting to hear if they revert to more hits in an arena show.