Neil Young and Ian Anderson: More similar than we think?

[StevegSr]

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?

[pb2015]

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.

Anderson has also acknowledged Jansch as an influence (and, IMO at least, his vocal style on some songs like "Fat Man" and "Inside" sounds similar to Jansch). Not much else of significance he has in common with Neil Young that comes to mind for me.

[The Dark Elf]

You might as well throw in Jeff Beck. Nothing to do with folk or acoustics, but there wasn't a single band he could get along with for more than a couple albums.

As far as Ian goes, he had issues with Mick Abrahams, who wanted to play nothing but blues, and then Glenn Cornick for too much partying, but other than that the band remained a group of friends and acquaintances from 1968 to 1979, with Clive Bunker leaving only because he didn't want to tour anymore and Jeffrey Hammond quitting because he was more into painting. The 1970s Tull, according to interviews and actually listening to the music, was far more band-based than just Ian dictating. You don't have Thick as a Brick without Barrie Barlow and John Evan, and you don't have Aqualung without Martin Barre. But Tull became Ian Anderson after the original band left (except for Martin).

Listen to 80s Tull compared to 70s Tull. No insane drum flourishes like in the Bunker or Barlow eras, the keyboards become flaccid, monchromatic and synthed without the classical prowess of Evan. Even Dave Pegg, a great bass player, does not shine like he does on Fairport albums of the same vintage (and I'll listen to 80s Fairport before 80s Tull). Ian no longer wanted to share or be upstaged (even Martin got his one or two pee-break solos and that was it). Later Tull, like the TAAB2 and Homo Flaticus, sound like Ian hired a band at union scale and instead of a drum amped a metronome.

[spellbound]

Have you ever seen both of them at the same time in the same place? If not, they may be the same person.

[3LockBox]

Both made pitiable attempts at fashionably relevant albums in the '80s whose au courant production du jour was inexorably linked to the year, if not month, they were release.

[SteveSly]

Big fan of both, and for similar reasons so makes sense to me.

[StevegSr]

Both made pitiable attempts at fashionably relevant albums in the '80s whose au courant production du jour was inexorably linked to the year, if not month, they were release.

Yes, perhaps the most similar thing about both was their turn toward electronic sounds with the 80's album's Under Wraps by Tull and Trans by Young. Anderson excised his dislike of drummers talking back to him by turning to programmable and cheesy sounding drum sounds. Young, it seems, tried to exercise his voice with vocoder "enhancements."

So very strange for two artists that were rooted in the conventional rock sounds of the seventies.

[StevegSr]

Listen to 80s Tull compared to 70s Tull. No insane drum flourishes like in the Bunker or Barlow eras, the keyboards become flaccid, monchromatic and synthed without the classical prowess of Evan. Even Dave Pegg, a great bass player, does not shine like he does on Fairport albums of the same vintage (and I'll listen to 80s Fairport before 80s Tull). Ian no longer wanted to share or be upstaged (even Martin got his one or two pee-break solos and that was it). Later Tull, like the TAAB2 and Homo Flaticus, sound like Ian hired a band at union scale and instead of a drum amped a metronome.

Yes, I definitely agree with you on all accounts here. Dave Pegg is an awesome bass player on the scale of a Chris Squire but he only turned animal during live shows with Fairport where he was allowed to greatly improvise during his solos.

Anderson never allowed Pegg the show off his abilities and he does sound like a hired hand on most Tull albums. The exclusion of Martin Barre from Anderson's projects is one of the most disturbing of Anderson's acts of ego as Barre, like Pegg, always did what he was told and he brought some individual element to Tull aside from Anderson. Some reward after 40+ years.

Young has had he own blowups with Stephen Stills and Buffalo Springfield as well as his on again/off again relationships with CSN and Crazy Horse.

And come to think of it, I've never seen Anderson and Young together at the same time.

[JKL2000]

I never thought of Ian and Neil as being so different. I think some of Neil's albums are kind of proggy: re•act•or, Landing on Water, Trans. I love all three of those.

[pb2015]

I never thought of Ian and Neil as being so different. I think some of Neil's albums are kind of proggy: re•act•or, Landing on Water, Trans. I love all three of those.

His first album too (in a different way from those three).

[StevegSr]

I never thought of Ian and Neil as being so different. I think some of Neil's albums are kind of proggy: re•act•or, Landing on Water, Trans. I love all three of those.

If I had known, I wouldn't have posted this! (Just kidding.)

I can see Young looking at his music with a prog tint on the albums you mentioned and they some of his better recorded efforts, for sure. But I did feel that where Young and Anderson definitely separate is on how their album's were recorded. Anderson with a lot of EMI-Abby Road Studios styled recordings and Young with his "live in the barn" studio sound.

Young often went by the wisdom of "the more you think, the more stink", and recorded many of his albums on first takes and run-throughs with his bands, that were really "live in the studio" takes with his vocals added later.

[progholio]

So, are Neil Young and Ian Anderson more similar than we think?

I have to say no.

First Neil seems a lot less crotchety and he has a lot more hair (maybe why he's not so crotchety).
Second, IMO i think Neil has taken some artistic chances to good effect (i happen to like Trans, Reactor, This Note's For You as well as the classics). Ian seems to play it safe, you know what to expect (yeah, i know, Walk Into Light and Under Wraps were a little different but everyone was trying to catch the new wave in the 80's)
Third, i think Neil's later work will hold up better than Ian's. I can see myself listening to Psychedelic Pill or Storytone in years to come much more than Homo Erraticus or Dot Com.
Fourth - i think i would be on the edge of my seat to see a Neil Young concert and to hear him sing old classics as well as new music, Ian on the other hand, wellllllllllllllll...........let's not go there.

[StevegSr]

I have to say no.

First Neil seems a lot less crotchety and he has a lot more hair (maybe why he's not so crotchety).
Second, IMO i think Neil has taken some artistic chances to good effect (i happen to like Trans, Reactor, This Note's For You as well as the classics). Ian seems to play it safe, you know what to expect (yeah, i know, Walk Into Light and Under Wraps were a little different but everyone was trying to catch the new wave in the 80's)
Third, i think Neil's later work will hold up better than Ian's. I can see myself listening to Psychedelic Pill or Storytone in years to come much more than Homo Erraticus or Dot Com.
Fourth - i think i would be on the edge of my seat to see a Neil Young concert and to hear him sing old classics as well as new music, Ian on the other hand, wellllllllllllllll...........let's not go there.

I respect what your opinion, but you could look at from another angle. Both had major early seventies successes and also hit a peak at the end of the seventies with Rust Never Sleeps and Songs From the Wood, respectively from Young and Anderson.

Where Anderson differs is that he never got another worldwide album smash in the 90's like Young did with the album titled Freedom, which featured the song Rocking In the Free World.

And yes, the less said about Homo Anonymous, the better.

[JKL2000]

I have to say no.

First Neil seems a lot less crotchety and he has a lot more hair (maybe why he's not so crotchety).
Second, IMO i think Neil has taken some artistic chances to good effect (i happen to like Trans, Reactor, This Note's For You as well as the classics). Ian seems to play it safe, you know what to expect (yeah, i know, Walk Into Light and Under Wraps were a little different but everyone was trying to catch the new wave in the 80's)
Third, i think Neil's later work will hold up better than Ian's. I can see myself listening to Psychedelic Pill or Storytone in years to come much more than Homo Erraticus or Dot Com.
Fourth - i think i would be on the edge of my seat to see a Neil Young concert and to hear him sing old classics as well as new music, Ian on the other hand, wellllllllllllllll...........let's not go there.

Some good points. I'm a pretty big Neil fan yet have never seen him live. I used to watch that Berlin concert from the Trans tour a lot.

[StevegSr]

Some good points. I'm a pretty big Neil fan yet have never seen him live. I used to watch that Berlin concert from the Trans tour a lot.

Just for the record, Neil Young was a cranky SOB in the late seventies and early eighties. How do I know? I did live sound engineering for CSN&Y. Young got better with age I must say, just as many other people seem to do.

[PeterG]

Also, both have spent most of their careers, so far, outside their home countries. NY from Canada to the US. IA from Scotland to England.

[pb2015]

Just for the record, Neil Young was a cranky SOB in the late seventies and early eighties. How do I know? I did live sound engineering for CSN&Y. Young got better with age I must say, just as many other people seem to do.

From what I've heard about him Young seems more crochety than Anderson, or pretty much any other living musician except Van Morrison.

[StevegSr]

From what I've heard about him Young seems more crochety than Anderson, or pretty much any other living musician except Van Morrison.

Quite. But I never met a rock genius who wasn't.