UNCUT REVIEW: "Young Neil: The Sugar Mountain Years" by Sharry Wilson

Young Neil: The Sugar Mountain Years

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Last year, we published a review of "Young Neil: The Sugar Mountain Years" by Sharry Wilson, as well as, an in depth interview with the author.

Recently, UNCUT Magazine ran a review of the book and here's a clip by Allan Jones:

With Neil Young more than ever fixed in the public imagination as an ancient grump, possibly there may be no greater point to a book about his childhood than proving he had one. Sharry Wilson’s Young Neil: The Sugar Mountain Years is rather more than that, however. Across 400 pages dense with new testimony, this is a fascinating portrait of a life taking shape, a hugely detailed account of the first 20 years of Young’s life, the book ending in 1966 with Neil leaving Canada for Los Angeles, where he would soon be reacquainted with Stephen Stills and form Buffalo Springfield. Wilson’s account draws heavily on both Neil And I, by Young’s father Scott, the more comprehensible bits of Neil’s own Waging Heavy Peace, and Jimmy McDonough’s Shakey, but is supplemented significantly by much original first-hand research.

Wilson has clearly spent long hours in national and provincial newspaper archives, scoured town and city files, school records and yearbooks, and gleaned much from local historical societies. She’s also had valuable access to Scott Young’s papers at Trent University Archives, including unpublished letters to Neil and to his estranged wife, Rassy, who by late 1959 was separated from Scott and bringing up Neil alone in Winnipeg. Wilson also interviewed more than 150 people who knew Neil when he was growing up, and whose memories are often splendidly evocative.

Full review in UNCUT Magazine of "Young Neil: The Sugar Mountain Years" by Sharry Wilson by Allan Jones.

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