 | |
List Price: $17.95 | | Publisher: Anchor
Salesrank: 75135
Released: May 13, 2003 |
| Our Price: $10.55 |
| Used Price: $4.00 |
|
| Media: Paperback |
|
Editorial Review:
Neil Young is one of rock and roll’s most important and enigmatic figures, a legend from the sixties who is still hugely influential today. He has never granted a writer access to his inner life – until now. Based on six years of interviews with more than three hundred of Young’s associates, and on more than fifty hours of interviews with Young himself, Shakey is a fascinating, prodigious account of the singer’s life and career. Jimmy McDonough follows Young from his childhood in Canada to his cofounding 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 an essential addition to the top shelf of rock biographies.
Description of Shakey: Neil Young's Biography:
Cantankerous and secretive, Neil Young has banished authors from his inner sanctum--until now. In Shakey, Jimmy McDonough distills more than 300 interviews (including guarded yet revealing interrogations of Young himself) into the definitive biography: the skyrocket success, willful disasters, health horrors and triumphs, stunning comebacks, and highly colorful scuffles with equally impossible characters like Stephen Stills, David Crosby, and the incompetent yet brilliant musicians of Crazy Horse. Young is not quite the noble soul some thought--he's an astounding control freak. But he is never less than fascinating. "As ruthless as I may seem to be," Young tells McDonough, "you gotta do what ya gotta do. Just like a f-----' vampire. Heh heh heh." --Tim Appelo
Shakey: Neil Young's Biography Reviews:
Wish I could rate it higher 
2008-06-01 - I have given this book three stars, but here's how it could have gotten to five stars; start by eliminating all of the author's opinions, viewpoints, portions of his parts of discussions, etc. Then you could also remove all of the extensive opinions of the couple of fans that he has developed friendships with. What remains would have been of manageable length and it would have contained all the good parts of the book. In other words, it would have been "really innaresting, heh, heh, heh"(to coin an over-used set of words).
I come away from this book wondering if the author had slept with Neil or whether he merely DREAMS of sleeping with Neil. It has to be one or the other. The title should have been changed to "Shaky, the Story of My Hero Neil Young as Written by Me, His Biggest Groupie", by Jimmy McDonough.
This is the single biggest problem with the book and it's too bad too, as there is a lot of good info hidden amongst the parts ruined by the author. The latter part of the book is especially sad, as McDonough really spills his guts concerning what amounts to adoration for his subject. The final paragraphs are reminiscent of a set of diaglogue from a Saturday Night Live skit where they were purposely trying to be bad.
So here is my advice; if you love Neil's work, buy the book because unfortunately there isn't much else out there on the subject. You will find a lot to like, but unless you are as far around the bend about the subject as the author, you are also likely find his personal intrusion annoying.
Bernard Shakey exposed . . . 
2008-02-02 - This biography of a brilliant control freak with an inexorable sense of his own destiny is certainly well researched, the writing style a little bumpy, yet lively, and the narrative flow easy on the reader. Getting as much as he could out of his gregarious loner subject, it has to be acknowledged that Jimmy McDonough's job was mostly uphill. Young did after all greenlight this book, although it was accompanied with a shrug.
McDonough does capture the core and nuances of his subject pretty well, as well as other personalities like his manager, Stephen Stills, David Briggs, and D. Geffen. You really do get a decent sense of the man and all the ups and downs in his very intense life. Resilient and intrepid would be two appropriate adjectives for the life of Neil Young.
Since McDonough was anointed to do the personal interviews with Young, he uses the access to the enigmatic iconoclast well, an access that very few have known. He weaves these interviews throughout a detailed narrative, depicting Young's series of epileptic seizures; his relationship with his domineering mother; and mostly, his ambitions and hard driving focus underpinning his music. This book really does make you appreciate what this towering figure of rock music history is about. And Young comes across as the modest guy he really is. That others have misinterpreted him is only an indicator of his greatness.
In the ten years since this book was first published, Neil Young has already compiled enough living and episodes to fill another biography. It will be interesting to see how that one gets written up. It should be hoped that that book has a better copyeditor than this one did; there are very long poorly edited passages that detract from the narrative flow at times. And, since there are other flaws, such as McDonough's seemingly arrogant grandstanding on his self-appointed critical analysis of Young's work, a future book would do well to have a more distant personal involvement with the subject.
Yet, McDonough did make a determined effort to reveal an almost intractible mystery to the public; for this he has been successful and should be given alot of credit. He has produced a good book, considering the difficulty of his subject, and it is an entertaining read.
The Cloud Reckoner
Extracts: A Field Guide for Iconoclasts
Think of It As An 800-Page Newspaper Column
2007-11-27 - When I read any biography, I take it for granted that the author has a point of view and compensate accordingly. But reading "Shakey" is like playing a game of Hollywood Squares in which the discerning reader must constantly be asking if the characters quoted are telling the truth, making something up, or even capable of recognizing that there's a difference between those two things. There are so many layers of potential misdirection in this book, beginning with McDonough's obvious biases, and freefalling from there to include the biases of the people he interviewed, his freedom to select among those interviews for statements that support his opinions, and the notorious unreliability of memories on life support in the brains of long-time substance abusers, that it's absurd to take any of this book on face value. Even if many of the people he interviewed can recall accurately what they thought of a particular event that took place 30 years earlier, why should we think they were sober enough to comprehend what was going on in the first place?
At least one other reviewer compares McDonough's insertion of himself and his opinions to the celebrated school of Gonzo Journalism and the work of Hunter Thompson. Puh-leeze! That's like comparing McDonough to Hemingway on the strength of the fact that verbs can be found in both writers' sentences. McDonough's immature and condescending practice of spelling certain words the way Young pronounces them ("Innaresting" being the prime example) and of appending the grating "heh heh" to half of Young's comments (NOTE TO MCDONOUGH: "[laughs]" is the way confident writers do it) suggests to me that he either doesn't know any better, or doesn't know that writing biographical books calls for adjusting one's writing from the style appropriate for opinion-based columns and features - the writing forms that constitute the majority of his published output. Instead of insisting on making yourself an 800-page center of attention next time around, Jimmy, take some popular advice from your colleagues who write sports columns, and act like you've been there before [laughs].
Superb read... 
2007-08-22 - I'm a 40-something former Canadian... Neil Young was part of my growing up, but a not a big part... colleague at work loaned my SHAKEY, and the obsession began... This is a fascinating read. Full of interesting historical anecdotes of the time. Neil's parents are very interesting aspects of media history in Canada (http://archives.cbc.ca/IDC-1-74-1728-11881-11/that_was_then/people/scott_young). I learned more about the man that I probably ever wanted to know. But I listen to his music now more that ever. Tonight's the night...
Great bio, a bit too opinionated on the music
2007-08-12 - How could a Neil Young biography NOT be long and rambling and occasionally overblown? "Shakey" is all these things, but I don't see why anyone who knows anything about the man and his music would be surprised at that.
McDonough's research is exhaustive and he interviewed an impressive cast of people in and out of Young's life since his childhood, so the length is justified and perhaps even necessary. There is a lot to be learned about his pre-fame years in Canada and Los Angeles, about how he handled his celebrity once it arrived, and especially about how he arrived at the trademark, edgy and deliberately raggedy sound that defines his best work. Along the way, we also get at least a glimpse at curiosities like his fondness for cars and model trains, the motifs behind his stylistic changes over the years, and even what he might have been thinking with all those wonderfully awful 1980s albums. McDonough frequently breaks up the narrative with pages-long transcripts of his interviews with Young. These are sometimes unnecessarily long, but they are probably the clearest look any of us will ever get at the reclusive star.
McDonough also at least tries to offer some insight into what all those songs mean. The trouble with this is that he often strays from interpretation into expounding on his own opinions of the songs. More often than not, those opinions amount to little more than "the albums that didn't sell are a lot better than the ones you bought, and they're all no good compared to the unreleased recordings that I've heard and you less serious fans haven't." Okay, Jimmy, we get it. You don't like "Harvest." No need to beat the point into the ground every few pages.
As long as you can get past his fan-snob attitude about most of Young's released albums, though, it is a great look at a very enigmatic but important figure. Well done, for the most part.
