The band Neil Young thought carried on his style of music

(Credits: Far Out / Alamy)

Mon 21 October 2024 17:29, UK

Any artist can only hope that someone will be inspired by their music later down the line. As much as a musician can claim to be writing for no one else but themselves, there comes a point where they hope that someone will actually care enough to carry on their legacy to the next generation of players and maybe even improve on what they had started back in the day. Though Neil Young seems like the last person interested in making music for anyone else, he admitted that one California band managed to take his style and push it that much further in the 1970s.

Young’s signature style of music, though, means looking at many different factors. Sure, he had his rock and roll side with records like ‘Cinnamon Girl’, but there was also that hint of folk and country music laced throughout his music that was impossible to deny when he started woodshedding his tunes with Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young.

But for Young, ground zero really was what Buffalo Springfield brought to the table. Compared to the other folk-rock adjacent bands from around that time, Young was the one bringing the edge back into the music, always making sure that his guitar was turned up as loud as it could and creating that psychedelic touch for being unapologetically loud whenever he took one of his solos.

That’s half the reason why his role in the supergroup worked so well. Outside of their heavenly harmonies, Crosby, Stills, and Nash did seem a bit too serene in some places, and having Young lay down the main riff to a tune like ‘Ohio’ gave their music the edge that it needed without it sounding like a bunch of folkies trying their best to learn from Led Zeppelin.

After Young had been in the game for a while, though, Don Henley and Glenn Frey started to pick up the slack for the country-rock movement. The Byrds had introduced everyone to country music, but Young reminded everyone that it was okay to be absolutely fearless when making a record, like putting on different instruments that no one had ever heard of or having the guts to play a one-note solo on a tune.

Although Young was busy making classics like Harvest, he still had his ear to the ground when looking at what Frey and Henley were doing with tracks like ‘Take It Easy’, saying, “If only for perfectly capturing the feel of LA, the Eagles are the one band that’s carried on the spirit of Buffalo Springfield.”

And the influence didn’t stop at putting a country spin on classic rock. Right as Young was starting to go against his record company and start making amateur inroads to electronic music on Trans and Reactor, the Eagles had started making some changes years before he had by using different effects on The Long Run before their breakup.

The teacher may have become the student in that particular instance, but it’s not like the Eagles were about to stake their claim as the ones that bested Neil Young. Judging by the fact that Joe Walsh was still playing ‘Cinnamon Girl’ during acoustic segments of his solo shows after the band dissolved, Young was as much a part of their sound during their breakup as he was when they first started.  

Related Topics

Subscribe To The Far Out Newsletter

_{Images are for reference only.Images and contents gathered automatic from google or 3rd party sources.All rights on the images and contents are with their legal original owners.}