I made a living in the rock world and often retreated to the prog music world to escape it. But one rock artist that strikes me as being similar, in some ways, to one of my prog idols is my comparison of Neil Young to Ian Anderson. Blasphemy? Well, let me explain.
Both have had a singular ambition to be the driving creative force of their bands. Both have complete control over artistic direction with both being formidable songwriters in their respective genres. Both owe their acoustic guitar styles to the late sixties London folk scene. Bert Jansch as an inspiration for Young. Roy Harper as an inspiration for Anderson. Both have solid folk backgrounds, but both were riff rock masters. Aqualung for Anderson, Hey Hey, My My for Young, while both were incredible at acoustic based material.
Both men have had difficulties staying with longtime band members and have changed their playing partners numerous times, with Anderson writing off his Stromwatch era Tull line up in favor of the new line up for the album A. Young has dumped gigs with CSN&Y to play with Crazy Horse and then dumped Crazy Horse to play with bassist Rick Rojas and Chad Cromwell before reuniting with CH.
Both are entrepreneurs and astute businessmen outside of music with Anderson owning and operating successful salmon farms in the UK, and Young a part owner of the Lionel toy train company in the US. Both consider themselves "loners" and appear to have acerbic introverted personalities that are masked by their stage personas.
I can't find much musically similar about Young and Anderson, but they are both standout musical talents to me and are the premier "solo driving force" artists of their genres.
So, are Neil Young and Ian Anderson more similar than we think?
Bookmarks