"I Am Not Neil Young": The Musical

Well, another entry in the "Neil is everywhere" department.

Seems that there is a musical play titled "I Am Not Neil Young".

It's based on the true story of Frank Wilks’ amazing recovery from the highs and lows of rock and roll playing with/as Neil Young. Frank Wilks -- who led and played in the band "Buffalo Springfield Revisited" (which featured the late Bruce Palmer and Dewey Martin) -- performs as Neil Young.

Performing as Neil Young at Massey Hall, the work examines battles with fame and the more personal, ubiquitous problems many face with drugs and alcohol. The musical contains three motifs: first, the serendipity and insanity of becoming a rock star, second, the related descent into drugs and alcohol, heaven and hell with the climb back to redemption and third, living for a while under the shadow of a superstar like Neil Young and then moving on as Frank evolves into an artist and songwriter in his own right.

From I Am Not Neil Young-The Musical | Cashbox Magazine Canada by Lenny Stoute:

At the beginning, Frank and co-founder of ‘Buffalo Springfield Revisited’, Hall Of fame bassist Bruce Palmer are straight and sober. Frank delivers ‘The Needle and the Damage done’ as a cautionary tale of which he and Palmer take serious note.

Five years later, the walls came crumbling down and Steven Stills ‘4x20’ is used as mirror for Frank’s situations. Round about here is where the play shows its teeth, and Frank Wilks finds himself in a life or death struggle with drug and alcohol addictions. To his credit, while Wilks doesn’t shrink from laying out the gruesome details, this is no misery fest as the dude is now six years sober.

Instead, by the time he gets to the humorous and touching ‘No Drinking in NFLD’, the thing has become a sweet testament to one man’s triumph over the dark side. The whole thing is saved from going all preachy by the music and its place in the soundtrack of our lives. That, and the fact that Wilks never loses his innate likeability even when he’s talking about days into weeks in a crack house.

And that's a core part of the play’s appeal; that it goes from top to bottom in the key of bittersweet.

There were no firm tour dates but plans are afoot to put the show on the road this summer.

More on I Am Not Neil Young - Frank Wilks - The man, the band, the music.

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