Neil Young's 76th Birthday Today, November 12 - Happy Birthday Neil!!!

Neil Young on his 74th - November 12, 2019
via Instagram

 

First off, Neil Young is 76 years young today, November 12. So Happy Birthday Neil!!!As noted last year on Neil Young's 75th birthday, his outstanding moral character can be demonstrated with his efforts for The Bridge School (USA) and Farm Aid (USA), as just two examples.

Neil Young & Bridge Kids
@ Bridge School Benefit Concert 2011
Photo Gallery by By Jay Blakesberg Photography
Farm Aid: The Music Industry’s Longest-Running Philanthropic Concert
Farm Aid executive director CAROLYN MUGAR (center), w/ DAVE MATTHEWS, JOHN MELLENCAMP, WILLIE NELSON and NEIL YOUNG (from left).
2008 - Mansfield, Mass., Photo by Mark O'Stow
We know that Neil Young is a humanitarian rebel with causes.


Neil Young
MusiCares Person Of The Year - 2010

 

In 2011, Neil Young was honored with the Allan Waters Humanitarian Award at Canada's Juno Awards. The award honors a Canadian artist whose humanitarian contributions have positively enhanced the social fabric of Canada and recognizes Young's compassionate legacy behind events such as Farm Aid, Live 8, and Bridge School Concerts.

As we have noted previously, rarely -- if ever -- has a single artist supported so many causes, for such a sustained period, raising considerable funds and awareness while reaching out to millions and millions around the world. When reviewing a listing of benefit concerts that Neil Young has played over the years, one is struck by the sheer diversity of causes he has supported over his 45+ year career.

One could contend that no other artist has made such an impact on causes involving social justice -- or a better moral character. As we documented in 2010, The Charitable Mr. Neil Young Keeps On Giving & Giving & Giving.

Neil Young
MusiCares 2010 Person of the Year

In 2010, Neil Young was honored as the 2010 MusiCares Person of the Year in Los Angeles, two days before the 52nd Annual GRAMMY Awards. An impressive roster of musicians lined up to honor Young which included Booker T. Jones, Jack Black, Jackson Browne, T Bone Burnett, Crosby, Stills & Nash, Sheryl Crow, Everest, Patty Griffin, Josh Groban, Ben Harper, Emmylou Harris, Elton John, Norah Jones, Lady Antebellum, k.d. lang, Dave Matthews, John Mellencamp, Ozomatli, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Leon Russell, James Taylor, Wilco, and Lucinda Williams.

Here is just a partial list of benefit concerts that Neil Young has played over the years that we posted on the Rust list back in 1994. And the diversity of causes is particularly striking. Of course, the two primary beneficiaries of Neil's generosity have been the Bridge School Benefit Concerts and Farm AID. The Bridge School concerts began in 1987 and are to benefit the school for children with severe speech and physical impairments. The Farm Aid concerts began in 1985 and benefit the small American family farm. Farm Aid is the longest running event of its type in music history.

Neil has performed annually at both the Bridge and Farm AID shows and has raised considerable sums for these causes. The performances at these two annual benefits are well documented.


The Farm Aid 4
Dave Matthews, John Mellencamp, Willie Nelson, Neil Young

You get the idea. He's got a heart of gold.

Pegi & Neil Young at Bridge 2005 Concert
photo by Craig Abaya

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Neil Young Night 

 Tonight's The Night Because Every Night is Neil Night

Happy Birthday Neil Young!!! Long May You Continue To Run & Run.

"Happiness is the valuable commodity and that's what makes life good." 

~~Neil Young 
Photo by Matt Furman for The Wall Street Journal
(Click photo to enlarge)

So Happy Birthday Neil!

Long may you run. It's all just a magical ride. enjoy.

Tribute for Neil's Birthday by Italian ONTARIO Band . Check them out!

A Neil Young Birthday Tribute
by Ian

 

UPDATE:  A MESSAGE FROM NEIL | NYA (on his birthday) 

 

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Dean Stockwell: 1936 - 2021

Dean Stockwell: 1936 - 2021

Lifetime actor Dean Stockwell has passed away at age 85.

Actor-writer Dean Stockwell and Neil Young have had a long friendship that goes back many years.

After The Gold Rush by Neil Young (1970)

The most well known connection between Dean Stockwell and Neil Young is regarding the 1970 album After the Gold Rush, which was inspired by a screenplay that Stockwell wrote and that Young transformed into one of his most enduring works. 

Later, Stockwell and Young would team up on the cult classic film Human Highway.

Russ Tamblyn, Neil Young (background) Dean Stockwell  

From an interview with Dean Stockwell in Premium Hollywood he discusses his relationship with Neil Young and his music:

PH: How did you and Neil Young first cross paths?

Dean Stockwell: (Long pause) You know, I can’t remember first meeting him.

But I moved to Topanga Canyon in 1965, and then he got in there shortly thereafter, and there was just an amazing amount of wonderful creative activity in that canyon for several years. And I had written a screenplay that Dennis Hopper encouraged me write, and it never got produced, but somehow someone got a copy of it to Neil, and…he had been going through writer’s block for the better part of a year, and his record company was pissed off at him, and someone handed him this screenplay, he read it, and it just opened him up and inspired the album After the Gold Rush, which was the title of the screenplay.

And even though I had Dennis behind me and I had Neil and all of this incredible music from that album…do you know that album?

PH: Yes, absolutely.

DS: I had all of that music, and the fucking guys at Universal still wouldn’t make the movie. (Laughs) Pardon my French. But it’s just as well. Now, I look back over at a lot of years, and I don’t know if I was really ready to do a movie that, uh, people could follow. (Laughs) I think I would’ve stepped out a little too far.

PH: Well, on a possibly related note, what was the experience of working on “Human Highway” like?

DS: Oh, that was fabulous! That was great. That came up after that, and…I love Neil. I love him as much as anyone I love or have ever loved. He’s an absolutely great guy. Not only a super great artist, but also as a human being, he’s just beautiful. So we have a lot of fun, and so “Human Highway” was a lot of fun. It was…the concept was Neil’s, and it had some silly-ass things to it, but I just went with that… (Laughs) …and there you have it: “Human Highway.”

PH: Do you remember how Devo first got involved?

DS: I got them involved. I cast a lot of the people in it: Russ Tamblyn, Dennis, Devo, and several others. And not that it matters, but my favorite scene in the whole damned movie is Booji Boy in the crib singing, “Hey Hey My My.” (Laughs) That’s just fabulous.

[See  How Neil Young* Got DEVO on ‘Saturday Night Live’ in 1978 ]

PH: So the Canyon must’ve built some strong, long-lasting friendships.

DS: Oh, it did, yeah.

Rare Human Highway Film Poster

(via Steve Cross)

(Hand numbered #109/200 edition and signed by Neil Young , Russ Tamblyn and Dean Stockwell at the bottom border, dated 3/19/1980. This poster appears to be an early version/promo that came out before the often seen movie poster. )

‘American Stars ‘n Bars’ by Neil Young’s (1977)

Stockwell also designed the cover for Neil Young’s 1977 album ‘American Stars ‘n Bars’.  Rumor has it that it is Stockwell in fishnet stockings. on cover.

More on Neil Young's 1970 album After the Gold Rush,   An Evening With Neil Young as 'Human Highway' Goes Nationwide! , How Neil Young* Got DEVO on ‘Saturday Night Live’ in 1978 and other friends of Neil Young.

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"Philadelphia" and The Cities of Brotherly & Sisterly Love

"Sometimes I think that I know What love's all about And when I see the light I know I'll be all right. Philadelphia."Neil Young Performing "Philadelphia"  1994 Academy Awards Ceremony

Neil Young's song "Philadelphia" -- from the 1993 Jonathan Demme film "Philadelphia" --  received an Academy Award nomination  and Young performed the song during the Oscar ceremony in 1994.

Both Bruce Springsteen and Young were nominated for Best Song in a film for Jonathan Demme's "Philadelphia". Bruce's nominated song was the film opening "Streets of Philadelphia" and Neil's was the closing title track "Philadelphia".

 

Neil Young Performing "Philadelphia" @ 1994 Academy Awards Ceremony

(Background vocals by Pegi Young and Astrid Young)

 

The 1993 Jonathan Demme film "Philadelphia" plot involves a gay lawyer with AIDS who files a lawsuit against his law firm for wrongful termination. The AIDS-stricken lawyer, played by actor Tom Hanks, is unable to find an attorney willing to take his case, until a homophobic lawyer, played by Denzel Washington, takes his case. 

 

The events in the film are similar to the events in the lives of attorneys Geoffrey Bowers and Clarence Cain. Bowers was an attorney who, in 1987, sued the law firm Baker McKenzie for wrongful dismissal in one of the first AIDS discrimination cases. Cain was an attorney for Hyatt Legal Services who was fired after his employer found out he had AIDS. He sued Hyatt in 1990, and won just before his death.^[8]

During the 1980's AIDS crisis, there was widespread misinformation, stereotypes, hostility and discrimination. 

Mary Steenburgen in "Philadelphia"

 

Mary Steenburgen, who plays the law firm’s  defense lawyer,  sat down with director Demme at the end of the day of the first day of filming and said, ‘I’m a wreck, I don’t know if I can play this part.’ And he said, ‘Mary, it’s not about AIDS. It’s about everybody in this country is entitled to justice—they’re entitled to their representation.’ And from then on, I was fine.” [Smithsonian Magazine]

 

Neil Young & Jonathan Demme

 

Reflecting on the film in 2003, director  Jonathan Demme said: "What I feel more than anything is I’m glad to see that AIDS doesn’t bear really remotely the stigma which was quite overwhelming at the time, that it did 20 years ago."

Andrew Beckett and Joe Miller

 (Tom Hanks and Denzel Washington)

The impact of the film got people talking about HIV-AIDS and served to humanize the difficult subject. Marla Gold, a former assistant city health commissioner, HIV doctor, and public health dean at Drexel University, says Philadelphia managed to do what health leaders had tried and tried to do, yet often fell short: fostering an accurate public awareness about the AIDS epidemic. [WHYY.org]

 

 

 Tom Hanks as Andrew Beckett

 

Today, we reflect back on the lessons learned during the 1980's AIDS crisis about the stigma and discrimination against marginalized populations that must be tackled in order to eliminate medical prejudice and apartheid.  Thank goodness for those lessons we learned from the AIDS crisis which taught us not to fear the invisible unknown and to be kind and compassionate to those suffering.

Or did we? 

Only then can we all live  in  "The Cities of Brotherly Love."

 

"City of brotherly love 

Place I call home 

Don't turn your back on me 

I don't want to be alone 

Love lasts forever."

"Here's the final heart breaking scene of "Philadelphia" as it plays over the "family movies" of the characters as children. If anyone can watch that scene with this song playing over it and not be moved...well, you just don't have a heart."

Final scene of "Philadelphia"

More on Film Director Jonathan Demme and Neil Young.

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