FREE SHAKEY: NEIL YOUNGS BIOGRAPHY PDF Jimmy McDonough | 800 pages | 06 Feb 2003 | Vintage Publishing | 9780099443582 | English | London, United Kingdom Shakey: Neil Young's Biography - Download Free eBook Shakey - Neil Young Biography. Neil Young News. Read excerpts of "Shakey" Biography. The "authorized" biography's publication resulted in a lawsuit filed by none other than Neil himself. The lengthy publication delay and the surrounding controversy are just another chapter in the unpredictability of Neil. In an article on SlateMarc Weingarten writes on the "Shakey" lawsuit: "Shakey is a curious hybrid: part hagiography, part laundry list of perfidy. As the book makes abundantly clear, Young has always been at war with his own impulses. He's a ferociously ambitious artist who lives capriciously. He started out as a frail, polio-stricken fan of Little Richard and the Shadows' Hank Marvin living in a rural Canadian outpost where American records were hard to come by. His father was a popular journalist, his mother a tough- love matriarch. They divorced, and Young drifted into bands, but with his own interests at heart: He insisted that his first professional band, the Squires, rename itself 'Neil Young and the Squires' when they started gigging. I didn't want some watered-down flowery version of who I am - that's nothing but a self-serving piece of shit. Shakey: Neil Youngs Biography rather than let anything happen officially, I should have just let people do whatever they wanted to do. That was a mistake, but I'll live with it. I Shakey: Neil Youngs Biography it coming out because I wanted it delayed until after my daughter turned 18, and I managed to delay it for a couple of years, so I did OK. Only a real Rustie will feel the emotional peaks of the book: reaching for the Kleenex when original Crazy Horse guitarist Danny Whitten loses to the big H, laughing at the intricacies of David Geffen's Shakey: Neil Youngs Biography declaring Neil wasn't making 'Neil Young music,' humming along as McDonough describes the recording of obscurities like 'Ambulance Blues. Graham Nash comes off the best of the trio, but still a bit of a poncy hack. David Crosby goes from being Shakey: Neil Youngs Biography self- proclaimed 'King of the Hippies' and wearing a cape around L. Stephen Stills snorts away his talent with an Antarctic amount of coke, to the point of dressing like a soldier and reminiscing about false Vietnam memories. Sadly, the book's narrative cuts out inleaving unanswered why Neil recently chose to rejoin this traveling fat farm for an aggravating duo of tours and a worthless new album. One of the things Young aced in Dylan's class -- I'd bump him up to an A- by the way -- is how to harvest an air of mystery. But sometimes he can appear less integrated and more genuinely divided against himself than people think. The utopian-anarchic ''schizophrenia'' Young's word of his music reveals both a Spontaneous Neil and a Control-Freak Neil, each real and each peering over the other's shoulder, each trying to correct the other's misjudgments, each averting the other from perceived disaster. There is no better example of this than the recent misadventures of Young's authorized biographer. After signing a contract with both Young and Random House, Jimmy McDonough, a journalist, spent eight years writing, researching and interviewing more than people, all with Young's cooperation. But when McDonough delivered Shakey: Neil Youngs Biography manuscript at the end ofYoung Shakey: Neil Youngs Biography -- according to the publisher -- sabotaged'' the book by withholding his approval of it, and Random House dropped the biography. From Flak Magazine review by Bob Cook : "In the strong first part of the book, writing about Young from his birth in until the time he released his harrowing Tonight's The Night inMcDonough gets as close as anybody can to deconstructing a man and a musician that even his closest compadres haven't been able to figure out. But in covering the years afterMcDonough and his experiences with Young come to the fore. That flaw is what turns "Shakey" from a possibly definitive music biography, like Peter Guralnick's two-volume Elvis Shakey: Neil Youngs Biography, into merely a decent read. McDonough spent a decade writing his semi-authorized tome, the first three years just trying to get Young to talk. Even then it was like meeting Brando's Kurtz in a cave at the end of Apocalypse Now. McDonough, 42, has taken the trip upriver for every journalist who ever had a notion to interview Neil, and after reading the exhaustive results, I can only say better him than me. All you have to do is listen to the music, and feel. Who else communicates what it's like to be lonely, or to suffer a broken heart, as powerfully as Neil Young in one of his sad songs? Who else can make electric guitar sound so raw, so brutal, so ruthless? When we listen to Young's music we hear his vulnerability. We hear a man who is fragile and sensitive. We also hear a man who admits that he's blown it, again and again. Who Shakey: Neil Youngs Biography would record Shakey: Neil Youngs Biography song called 'Fuckin' Up'? Young's music is about more than that, of course. Over the years, hundreds of thousands of words have been written about him and his songs. But for me, Young's music is mostly about that ache, that pain you feel when love is gone, when you're Shakey: Neil Youngs Biography alone, when you're down and it all seems quite hopeless. We learn that McDonough, in an Indianapolis head shop, stared 'forever' at the cover of Young's album Zuma on the day of its release in We learn that after seeing Young perform 'Like a Hurricane' on a TV special in — 'I'll tell ya, it looked real' — McDonough and a girl 'I was obsessed with' were inspired to hop in a Grand Prix and '[blast] down the highway, headed for a cheap motel. It might as well be me. From Human Highway. Review - Shakey: Neil Young's Biography" by Jimmy McDonough - The story of the "Godfather of Grunge" is a tale of sickness, health, overweening ego, spectacular talent and reckless abandon. Excerpt from book with interview with Elliot RobertsNeil Young's manager. This is where Jimmy and Neil first meet up. Neil Young Shakey: Neil Youngs Biography Reviews. - Shakey Neil Young's Biography by James McDonough Goodreads helps you keep track of books you want to read. Want to Read saving…. Want to Read Currently Reading Read. Other editions. Enlarge cover. Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Open Preview See a Problem? Details if other :. Thanks for telling us about the problem. Return to Book Page. Preview — Shakey by Jimmy McDonough. He has never granted a writer access to his inner life — until now. Jimmy McDonough follows Young from his childhood in Canada to his Shakey: Neil Youngs Biography of Buffalo Springfield to the huge success of Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young to his comeback in the nineties. Filled with never-before-published words directly from the artist himself, Shakey is Shakey: Neil Youngs Biography essential addition to the top shelf of rock biographies. Get A Copy. Paperbackpages. Published May 13th by Anchor first published May 1st More Details Original Title. Shakey: Neil Youngs Biography Editions Friend Reviews. To see what Shakey: Neil Youngs Biography friends thought of this book, please sign up. To ask other readers questions about Shakeyplease sign up. Lists with This Book. Community Reviews. Showing Average rating 4. Shakey: Neil Youngs Biography details. More filters. Sort order. Start your review of Shakey: Neil Young's Biography. Pretty inneresting stuff y'know - heh heh heh Perhaps in an ironic way, the book itself is a literary epitome and reflection of Young's music: it's way too long, has its own ups and downs, mostly repetitive and raises questions Pretty inneresting stuff y'know - heh heh heh Perhaps in an ironic way, the book itself is a literary epitome and reflection of Young's music: it's way too long, has its own ups and downs, mostly repetitive and raises questions more than it answers. Reading this book fifteen years after its publishing, with the hindsight about everything that has changed in Young's life including his recent separation with Pegi, the love of his life during the writing of the book and knowing that he has recorded fifteen more albums since then almost equal to the studio catalog discussed in this book only adds up to the impenetrable, mysterious character of Young - whom I finally had the chance of seeing live onwith his band of misfits Crazy Horse. Up until that time Neil Young was my musical hero, and I guess he still is even though some of the things about him that were unbeknownst to me like his support for Reagan or his comments on gay community during his full "redneck" period frustrated and disappointed me to a great extent. But overall impression of the book, and the message that it conveys providing it has one Shakey: Neil Youngs Biography, is Shakey: Neil Youngs Biography anger and resentment towards Neil would be redundant as you will never know which Neil Young is the real one as he is capable of changing constantly and shifting from one character to another to the detriment of people who are close to him. So, even though this might be the only book that will ever come close to revealing the true nature of Young - since nobody will ever show the patience author Jimmy McDonough has displayed with Young's twist and turns - it still falls short in terms of "peeling the onion" of Neil Young.