Shakey Read online

  Acclaim for Jimmy McDonough’s

  SHAKEY

  “A mammoth portrait of the artist and lively exhumation of rock ’n’ roll history…. [McDonough] traces a rich turbulent career in vivid detail.”

  —The New York Times

  “Imaginatively written…. Not only is Shakey an extraordinary literary feat of research and affection and endurance, it’s an insight into the art of biography itself.”

  —Fort Worth Star-Telegram

  “Delves further into the life and motives of one of music’s most private individuals than anything previously released…. Surprisingly comprehensive and thoroughly enjoyable…. The most detailed portrait of this shrouded artist to date.”

  —San Jose Mercury News

  “Exhaustively researched, impressively detailed…. The long passages in which McDonough steps aside to let Young talk are the most revealing. ‘One day I’m a jerk,’ Young says, ‘the next day I’m a genius.’ This book argues artfully for the latter.”

  —People

  “Like meeting Brando’s Kurtz in a cave at the end of Apocalypse Now. … Young comes across as a Jekyll-and-Hyde loner whose life has unfolded like a reckless chemistry experiment—a control freak on an endless quest for the uncontrolled moment.”

  —Maclean’s (Canada)

  “McDonough is an avid fan, music critic and impartial journalist all in one…. [He] deftly weaves Young’s life, actions and art together…. What was known of Young’s life before was akin to a series of rough demos. In Shakey, McDonough delivers a full double-album.”

  —Rocky Mountain News

  “Does what most rock bios don’t: It fails to fawn, it delivers the juice, it subjects the hero to the scrutiny and disappointment of a fan…. A pageturning good read.”

  —Houston Chronicle

  “Fascinating reading…. McDonough gives us as good a look at [Young’s] cards as we’re likely to get.”

  —The Tampa Tribune

  “[Shakey’s] unprecedented access makes for an entertaining read: McDonough, more than any music journalist since Peter Guralnick in his authoritative Careless Love: The Unmaking of Elvis Presley, has succeeded in stripping a star of his iconography.”

  —The Observer (London)

  “Crammed with razor-sharp insights and mind-boggling detail, Shakey is a rock-solid literary triumph, as inspired and inspiring as the eccentric figure it evokes with such frustrated devotion.”

  —The Guardian (London)

  “McDonough … pores through Young’s life with vivid prose and blunt detail, and he is unashamed to insert some stinging opinions. In his probing conversations with Young … he challenges the formidable artist in ways that few others would dare.”

  —Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

  “It’s hard to imagine anyone trying to better this book…. It has what Young values above all else … passion.”

  —Evening Standard (London)

  JIMMY MCDONOUGH

  SHAKEY

  Jimmy McDonough is a journalist who has contributed to such publications as Variety, Film Comment, Mojo, Spin, and Juggs. But he is perhaps best known for his intense, definitive Village Voice profiles of such artists as Jimmy Scott, Neil Young, and Hubert Selby, Jr. Jimmy is also the author of The Ghastly One: The Sex-Gore Netherworld of Filmmaker Andy Milligan. He lives in the Pacific Northwest.

  for George “The Johnson” Hedges

  for Carole Nicksin and her Razor Love

  Just think of me as one you never figured.

  —Neil Young, “Powderfinger”

  acknowledgments

  Without friend, lawyer, musician and soon-to-be author George Hedges, this book would not exist. Thanks to Christy Hedges, too.

  One very big reason this book made it to print is John Kopf. John, I was an absentee friend for many years and yet you still stood by me at a particularly critical juncture. I thank you for your many ideas, not to mention your finesse at delivering a summons. Thanks as well to Joni and Loretta Alice Kopf.

  Charlie Beesley has been a selfless force in many people’s lives—particularly my own. He went over the manuscript thousands of times, making countless improvements and bringing out the best of me in the process. I consider this his book as much as mine. By the way, Charlie—the monkey’s gone, but Darin stayed in.

  Editor Bruce Tracy entered the picture at the eleventh hour (well, the first eleventh hour), and saved this project from doom, making sense of a thousand-page-plus manuscript without diluting any of its many peculiarities. Bruce stuck by Shakey—for years. Ann Godoff, thanks for publishing this book. Diana Frost: a very heartfelt (but bland) thank you. Private joke.

  Bill Bentley, senior vice president/Media Relations at Warner Bros./ Reprise Records, got me to Neil Young in the first place, and he believed in this project when everybody else laughed in my face. He is a rare entity at a record company: He loves music and the people who make it. I owe it all to you, Bill.

  I would particularly like to thank three of the greatest guys in the world: the late David Briggs, the late Jack Nitzsche and Frank “Poncho” Sampedro.

  Joel Bernstein went to absurd lengths to help this project, while at the same time remaining loyal and protective of his boss (not to mention his archives). It is regrettable that he was unable to go over the manuscript for errors before publication, but as Joe Simon once sang, “It be’s that way sometimes.” Hopefully Joel’s eight-CD edit of the Neil Young Archives will someday see light of day. David Briggs certainly approved of the idea.

  Bruce Van Dalsem worked through the many, many complexities of publication with the finesse of a master jeweler. I still don’t know how he did it.

  Thanks to the mighty Henry Gradstein and also Greg Bodell.

  Agent Jeff Posternak stayed the fraught-with-obstacles course while policing every detail. Andrew Wylie guided with an iron hand. Special thanks to the extremely patient Bridget Love (wherever you are).

  A long time ago I wrote a story about Gary Stewart. It evolved into an epic longer than the Bible. Kit Rachlis recognized my abilities when no one else cared and taught me plenty about how to tell a story. A writer couldn’t have a better mentor.

  Yuval Taylor is a great editor who initially unlocked the ideas I had within. His help came at a crucial time.

  It has been my good fortune to have a once-a-week lunch with Richard Meltzer for the past few years. We were in some awful hamburger joint one smoky afternoon when Richard pointed to one of my interview transcripts and suggested an idea that completely changed the direction of my last two books. Idiots who don’t know any better label Meltzer a music writer. Richard’s talents are way beyond that. He doesn’t compromise, and he stands taller than any of his peers. One day the world will recognize him for what he is: a complete original.

  My deepest thanks to Allison Brown—wherever you are—for playing me “A Man Needs a Maid” many years ago.

  So many people around Neil Young helped me and asked nothing in return. Some remain off the record; others spoke freely. Interviewees are listed in the Source Notes. In particular I would like to thank Zeke Young, Sandy Mazzeo, Ralph Molina, Billy Talbot, Ken Viola, Brian Stone and Charlie Greene. Personal to Dave McFarlin: It’s all your fault. Special thanks to Leo Trombetta for all his ideas, and for keeping me laughing.

  My thanks to the archivists: Pete Long was helpful with many a panicked last-minute query. His book Ghosts on the Road: Neil Young in Concert remains definitive. Also thanks to Scott Oxman, Jef Michael Piehler, Bill Wilner, Neil Skok, David Koepp, Steve Espinola, Mike Thomas, Nathan Wirth, Steve Virone, Kristopher J. Sproul and Frank Zychowitz. A particular thanks to Dave Zimmer and video archivist extraordinaire David Peck at Reelin’ in the Years Productions. Colleen Jean Matan for her friendship and support. NPF
Hs do amount to something, Colleen.

  Janet Wygal (aka the “Wygalator”) and her copyediting crew did a superb job fine-tuning a total mess of a manuscript (special thanks to Beth “Mouth Like a Sailor” Thomas). My thanks as well to Daniel Rembert for the stunning cover design, and Katie Zug, who was exceptional at handling production details and ferreting out photo rights.

  My brother, John McDonough, was a great help when I needed it most. My gratitude goes out to Janet, Nancy, Megan and Kate McDonough; Mary Jo, Robert, Andy, Emilee and (the future) Lee Berner; Chris and Kelly Richards. I believe I got a lot of my moxie from my father, Joe McDonough. Too bad you’re not around to see this, Dad.

  Thanks to those who have always been there one way or another: Elizabeth Main, Bruce Kitzmeyer, Eliza Paley, Craig Leibner, Krissy Boden, Leo Trombetta, Dale Lawrence, Sally Mayrose, Sarah Heldman, Kat Heldman, Joy Heldman, Nicki Laurin, and in particular my guardian angel, Neva Friedenn. A very special thanks to Bettina Briggs. And, as always, the incomparable Lux and Ivy.

  Also thanks to: Wendy Swanson, Rudolph Grey, Kathy Kerr, Arvella Kinkaid, Dave Dunton, Jaan Uhelszki, Jonny Whiteside, Karen Schneider, Bill Rhodes, Jerry Morris, Kim Morgan, Amy Salit, Gregg Turkington, Link and Olive Wray, Jimmy Vapor, Maria Wirtanen, Gary Kincade, Barb Dehgan, Anna Hinterkopf, Isaac the waiter, Isaako Si’uleo, Jill Nees, Mark Linn and Christy Canyon. In Australia: Kate, Carl, Sean and Debbie Wisdom; Bill, Eleanor and Graham Bowen; Kerry and Rita Wisdom; and movie expert supreme Sam McBride. Thanks to the Waser and Roberts families, particularly Lorraine and Ray Waser—a great logger, farmer and good friend. Thanks to Stan Pachter for just about everything. Hair by Jerry Ripley, Tonsorial Parlor. Eliza Wimberly, period. In dreams.

  In the early years of this project, Kent and Nancy Beyda not only put up with me but kept a roof over my head and food in mouth. I turned their lives upside down in the process, and I don’t know why they put up with it, but they never gave less than everything. Their daughter, Emily, always brought a smile to my lips, even in the darker moments. Emily, your parents are true patrons of the arts.

  A very special thank you to the Fabulous Lucy Fur and her favorite Shakey fan, Mike “Mad Dog” Merrigan.

  Natalia Wisdom endured many a hippie nightmare in the past decade plus. Against all odds, she kept me—and my crazy dreams—alive. Natalia, I know the many sacrifices you made so I could finally accomplish what I set out to do. Now let’s make a few of your dreams come true.

  —Jimmy McDonough

  innaresting characters

  —Who gave you the Nixon mask?

  I can’t recall, as John Dean would say. I’ll always tell ya if I remember, Jimmy. You talk about things and it comes back.

  —Every question seems to stir up something in you.

  Not the answers you were looking for … but they’re answers, heh heh. Hard to remember things. It’s all there, though. Maybe we oughta go into hypnotherapy, fuckin’ go right back. Take like, six months to get zoned in on the Tonight’s the Night sessions—exactly what was happening? “Okay, we’re gonna go back a little further today, Neil….”

  —I’m frustrated.

  Hey, well, you’ve been frustrated since the beginning, heh heh. You’re not frustrated because of this—we’re doing it. You’re asking questions and I’m answering them. What could be less frustrating than THAT?

  —Maybe I should tell people in the intro you don’t wanna do the book. You can tell ’em if you want. The bottom line is if it went against the grain so hard, I wouldn’t be doin’ it. The thing is, it’s not necessarily my first love. I think that’s a subtle way of puttin’ it. Heh heh.

  The first time Jon McKeig really encountered Shakey he was under a car. Shakey’s a nickname—from alter ego Bernard Shakey, sometime moviemaker. It’s just one of many aliases: Joe Yankee, overdubber; Shakey Deal, blues singer; Phil Perspective, producer. The world knows him as Neil Young.

  McKeig had been toiling away on Nanoo, a blue and white ’59 Cadillac Eldorado Biarritz convertible of Young’s, for months without actually seeing him. The car was a mess, but McKeig would soon realize that this was Shakey’s M.O., buying beyond-dead wrecks for peanuts, then sparing no expense to bring them back to life. “I can name five automobiles he has that the parts cars were in better shape than the cars that were restored.” McKeig shook his head. “That’s extreme. I don’t believe anybody anywhere goes to that length. If the car smells wrong, you’re screwed; if it squeaks, it’s not cool … he’s fanatical.”

  One day Neil happened in for a personal inspection. “Neil came right over to the car, looked at it and—I’ll be damned—all of a sudden he went down to the concrete and slid right underneath. All you could see was his tennis shoes.”

  McKeig asked Young how far he wanted to go with the thrashed Cadillac. “Neil looked me straight in the eye and said calmly, ‘As long as it’s museum quality.’” McKeig shuddered. “I never heard it said like that—‘museum quality.’ Then he left. That’s all that was said. I never saw him—for years after.” Decades later, Nanoo still isn’t finished.

  Cars are a major part of Shakey’s world. He’s written countless songs in them and they figure into more than a few of his lyrics: “Trans Am,” “Long May You Run,” “Motor City,” “Like an Inca (Hitchhiker),” “Drifter,” “Roll Another Number (For the Road),” “Sedan Delivery,” “Get Gone”; the list goes on.

  Young would even advise me on touch-up paint and carburetor problems—until I flipped my ’66 Falcon Futura twice off the side of a twolane, nearly killing myself. Out on the road in his bus, Young called me a few days after. “See, Neil?” I said. “You tried to bump me off, but I’m still here. Now I gotta finish the book.” Unnerved, he immediately called back after we hung up. “Jimmy,” he said, his voice awash in cellular static, “just want ya to know I’m glad ya didn’t die in the wreck.” Shakey and I had a colorful relationship. But that was all in the future.

  Right now it was April 1991, and I was in Los Angeles, watching McKeig—now Young’s live-in auto restorer and maintenance man—pilot members of Neil’s family through the service areas of the L.A. Sports Arena in a sleek black ’54 Caddy that Young called Pearl: He nicknames everything. It was a stunning vehicle. He had paid $400 for the car in 1974 and spent years and a fortune restoring it. Legend has it that some rich Arab saw Young tooling Pearl through Hollywood and offered him a pile of loot on the spot.

  Out of the Caddy’s backseat emerged Neil’s wife, Pegi, a striking blonde and a powerful force in her own right. She and Neil have two children, Ben and Amber. Family is a priority to both of them. Ben, born spastic, nonoral and quadriplegic, went everywhere with his mom and pop. It wasn’t unusual to see him at the side of the stage in his wheelchair, watching his father work.

  “Spud,” Ben’s nickname, graced the door of Pocahontas, which was parked not far from Pearl. A huge, Belgian-made ’70 Silver Eagle, forty feet long and sporting a souped-up mill, the bus had been Young’s home on the road since 1976. Young had gone to outlandish lengths in customizing it. Down one side was an extravagant stained-glass comet circling the earth; the roof was domed with vintage Hudson Hornet/Studebaker Starlight Coupe cartops that acted as skylights. The interior of the bus—designed under Young’s supervision to resemble the skeletal structure of a giant bird—was lavish with hand-carved wood, down to the door handle of the microwave. Above the big front windows hung a large brass eagle’s eye. “This bus is so fucked up and over the top,” Young would tell me with a grin. “Which is just how I was back in the mid-seventies when I built it.”

  Bus driver Joe McKenna was making sure Pocahontas was shipshape for Neil’s arrival. An Irishman with a low-slung belly, a silver pompadour and a voice lower than a frog’s, Joe loved the golf course and let little faze him. He seemed to have a calming effect on Young, who once dubbed him “The Lucky Leprechaun.” McKenna would beat cancer after Young helped him get alternative medical help. “Neil Young saved my life,” he told me. �
��Put that in your book.”

  Next to the steering wheel hung a sign that read in bold block letters, DON’T SPILL THE SOUP. I wouldn’t have driven that bus for love, money or drugs. When it came to Pocahontas, Shakey was like a hawk. He knew every ding and dimple and wanted the ones he didn’t know explained immediately.

  An intense relationship with his bus drivers, I mused, but tour manager Bob Sterne set me straight. “In all honesty, I think the intense relationship is with the bus,” said Sterne, a big, bearded, no-nonsense monolith with a constantly peeling nose and sporting a Cruex jock itch ointment T-shirt. Sterne and Joe McKenna weren’t exactly the best of pals. Sterne was forever seeking info on Young’s elusive doings and one of McKenna’s jobs was to keep the world away.

  Bob was no stranger to that task—his makeshift office inside the sports arena was plastered with signs like IF YOU WANT A BACKSTAGE PASS, GET LOST. Sterne was hard-core. It came with the territory. “Neil’s not gonna do what you think he’s gonna do or what he said last week—it’s not a good place for the average person to be. The people who are looking for a paycheck don’t last long.”

  Young likes to keep everyone on their toes. “Neil’s come to me and said, ‘Go get all the set lists and throw ’em in the trash can’—and he said this to me fifteen minutes before the show,” said Sterne. “He’s not just talking about the band’s set list, he’s talking about the lighting guys, the sound guys—every single set list in the building.”

  Sitting in the office not far from Sterne was Tim Foster, Young’s stage manager and primary roadie. Foster had worked for Young off and on—mostly on—since 1973. With a Dick Tracy chin, a mustache and a baseball cap pulled down to his eyes, Foster saw everything and said little. “Tim never gets flustered,” said Sterne. “He understands Neil has no schedule.”