Neil Young was born in Toronto, Ontario, Canada to sportswriter and novelist Scott Young and Edna Ragland (known as Rassy), who had moved to Toronto from their family home of Manitoba to pursue a sport journalism career. He spent his early years in the small country town of Omemee, 130 km northeast of Toronto.

Young was diagnosed with diabetes as a child and a bout of polio at the age of 6 Read more...

Once they reached Los Angeles, Young and Palmer met up with Stephen Stills, Richie Furay, and Dewey Martin to form Buffalo Springfield. A mixture of folk, country, psychedelia, and rock lent a hard edge by the twin lead guitars of Stills and Young made Buffalo Springfield a critical success, and their first record Buffalo Springfield (1967) sold well after Stills' topical song "For What It's Worth" Read more...

After the breakup of Buffalo Springfield, Young signed a solo deal with Reprise Records, home of his colleague and friend Joni Mitchell, with whom he shared a manager, Elliot Roberts. Young and Nitzsche immediately began work on Young's first solo record, Neil Young (November 1968), which received mixed reviews. In a 1970 interview, Young deprecated the album as being "overdubbed rather than played," Read more...