Customer Reviews

A Dreamer Of Pictures: Neil Young: The Man And His Music

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Downing has provided Neil Young fans with a valuable and entertaining biography of the notoriously enigmatic Young. The book is straightforward and well-written, but the author's lack of access to Neil himself prevents Downing from providing a definitive account of Neil's career and life. The book follows Neil from his childhood in Ontario and Manitoba through his early career in Canada and then the first success with Buffalo Springfield and on through to the 90's. The interviews with those who knew Neil in the Springfield days and even earlier are very interesting even to those of us who have followed Neil's career for decade's. Downing recognizes the limitations imposed upon his work and wisely sticks to the facts and keeps the speculation as to Young's thinking and motivation to a minimum and does not presume to put forth an explication of Neil's many hard to fathom moves and feints. The writing is solid and unpretentious, particularly when contrasted to the usual work in this genre and Mr. Downing has clearly researched his subject as thoroughly as Neil's refusal to be interviewed would allow. A must read for Rusties and others who love Neil's music, and also interesting reading for more casual fans or just those interested in the 60's and 70's rock world.

Strange, but somehow appropriate, that no one has yet to write a definitive bio on Neil Young. There were some elements in here worth reading, but only if you're the most rabid of Young fans. Otherwise, stick with the The Rolling Stone Files, a comprehensive collection of articles and interviews with the man from the pages of that magazine.

Although Young is very difficult to pin-down, both musically and philisophically, I expected Downing to provide more insight into the man and his music. Besides providing info on Young's ill children and marital history and how they influenzed his music, the author spends most of his effort providing a personal review of each album to include an inordiniate amount of time discussing bootleg or foreign release recordings that most fans have never heard. In addition, I am under the impression that Downing did little or no interviews of Young associates, rather he gathered info from printed interviews with the subject, etc. Not much insight there!

Let me start off here by stating one big point, I am a very big fan of Mr. Neil Young, but I have great trouble accepting the fact that the author of this book, David Downing, is infact a fan of Neil Young himself. How many biographies of major artists have you read contain nothing but put-downs on EVERY ( yes you read right, no exceptions) SINGLE album that artist has ever released? In fact, this isn't even a straight ahead biography. The author seems to fancy himself with the idea that he is some great record reviewer who is "in the know" as to what is good. He spends his time ranting and raving about every album. Even a classic such as "Harvest" or "After The Goldrush" has this kind of crap. Okay, there are some tidbits of important information in this book, but nothing any fan wouldn't discover by going over a few record jackets to scan the liner notes. also, one more point to Mr. Downing (a suitable name for such a pessimistic attitude) next time you write a book, make sure it is about something you like, not something you DISLIKE! you see, when I buy a biography on an artist I expect that the author has the same passion and love of the artist's work that I have and that we both feel that the artist has made mistakes and taken wrong paths which they all have at times in their careers. I expect that for a person to go through the effort to write a bio about someone, surely they would write about someone they admire, not someone they loath, such as you "apparently" loath this great artist, Neil Young. Ofcourse, any person is entitled to their opinion about an artist, but, if I didn't like a person I wouldn't write a biography about that person for someone who does enjoy that person's work to read. If I had never heard of Neil Young before in my life, after reading your book, I would pay to go to one of his concerts just to throw rocks at him hoping I could aim at his head, fortunately for myself, and Mr. Young, I was a loyal fan to his work long before I read this book of yours. now, a note going out to fellow neil young FANS: if you wanna read a good bio about Neil Young read the bio entitled "don't be denied" it was so long ago that I read this book that I don't remeber the author or any other information, but I have been searching in vain for it because it was just excellent. don't buy this crap and be disappointed like me.

I have loved Neil's music since buying 'Everybody Knows this is Nowhere'. For some years I knew very little about him so I was really knocked out when David's book appeared. It kept me in my seat for a whole weekend (well virtually) and I still go back to it. Yes there are other good books out there, but this is a really good basic guide to the man and his works.

Despite this book being a little on the old side (1994), its subject is such an interesting one that it's hard to see how it could not succeed. Neil Young's career spans 35 years and has seen him performing with Buffalo Springfield and Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young as well as with his own Crazy Horse and as a solo artist. While not generally considered the smartest rock voice on the scene, Young has more than made up for it with his refusal to compromise. Both in the creation of his records and in his personal life, he's always made it clear that things run his way or he's gone.

One could assume that a book about Neil's life would include many anectodes of life on the road and the rock star excesses along the way. One could also assume that the same book would dive deep into the interview archives and utilize the artist's own words to explain his actions. Neither is done here, though. Instead, we get an below average rock bio with more speculation than fact (and the facts are mostly common knowledge among fans). Oh, no, Neil's fighting with Stephen again! Oof. Young has always led a fairly private life, espcially since the 1980s. This book just doesn't know any more than the average fan.

The only thing that kept me interested in the slightest was the author's sometimes awkward interpretations of Neil songs and albums. While not every fan will want to see songs like "Welfare Mothers" and "Homegrown" put down as being "appalling" and "horrible", I was curious to see what the author was going to think of the next song or the next album (if only to cringe and shake my head).

If you don't know that Neil liked to yell at Crazy Horse or about his (and his wife's) work with the Bridge School, go ahead and read it. It's also sort of fun to hear the retelling of the making of Tonight's The Night just because it's a (rare) revealing look at how rock and roll can beautifully fall apart. But for any true fan (anyone who's listened to Hawks and Doves in the last six months), don't waste the time. There are surely better bios of Young.

"A Dreamer of Pictures" is a fairly by-the-numbers account of the life of the great Neil Young. It makes for interesting reading if only because the reclusive Young is such a fascinating fuiure and there simply are no other comprehensive biographies of his life. The most interesting fact that I did not know was that Young's first professional band included the one and only Rick James! Young obviously offered author Downing no assistance in putting this biography together, and it shows. Maybe someday Neil will get the proper treatment that his place in rock music history deserves. Until then, we'll have to be satisfied by this "Dreamer."

Strange, but somehow appropriate, that no one has yet to write a definitive bio on Neil Young. There were some elements in here worth reading, but only if you're the most rabid of Young fans. Otherwise, stick with the The Rolling Stone Files, a comprehensive collection of articles and interviews with the man from the pages of that magazine.