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Shakey: Neil Young's Biography | 
| Author: Jimmy Mcdonough
Publisher: Anchor
Category: Book
List Price: $17.95
Buy Used: $6.49
You Save: $11.46 (64%)
New (30) Used (32) from $6.49
Rating:  122 reviews
Sales Rank: 24693
Media: Paperback
Pages: 816
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 2.2
Dimensions (in): 9.1 x 6.1 x 1.2
ISBN: 0679750967
Dewey Decimal Number: 782.42166092
EAN: 9780679750963
ASIN: 0679750967
Publication Date: May 13, 2003
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Amazon.com Review
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
Product Description
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.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 117 more reviews...
 Shakey April 18, 2009
B. Greishaw (Gainesville, FL)
This biography is excellent! I ordered this copy for a friend and it came in a timely manner and in great condition. Thanks!
 A wheel in the ditch and a wheel on the track February 26, 2009
David Hewitt (Ardmore, PA)
Part of me thinks 'Shakey' deserves more than a middling review. It's a highly entertaining, informative, and thorough biography, and I definitely gained all kinds of insight about Young and his music from it. However: too much of the story is not told, but rather filtered through the holier-than-thou lens of Jimmy McDonough.
Yes, it's wonderful that this isn't the standard hagiography that rock stars are usually adorned with - but McDonough seems all too conscious about presenting his biography in a contrary fashion, to the point of sheer pretense. McDonough goes out of his way to give Young hell both in his interviews (which are otherwise an essential asset to the book) and in his assessments of various records, career moves, and personal decisions - seemingly as if to convey (if not slam the point over one's head) what a refreshing pillar of integrity HE is - never mind Neil Young. The book thus becomes about whether Young, at various stages of his life, measures up to the biographer's standards of authenticity - really the height of rock-critic arrogance. One of the many shameful consequences of such an attitude is that several important songs in Young's discography are all but ignored simply because the author doesn't like them; in turn, the reader is made to feel like a know-nothing lightweight for not favoring "Tonight's the Night" over "Harvest". McDonough notes that those who have remained within Young's ever-changing circle of cohorts have tended to be the most difficult and irascible types of people, and it's almost as if he decided he had to be an a-hole himself in order to be taken seriously by and therefore close to Young.
I can even live with the author inserting himself into the story, at least on occasion. The format itself works pretty well. What I can't live with is a guy pretending to be objective based on his propensity to criticize rather than praise. This isn't objective biography, it's judgment. And incidentally, it's needlessly long. Omission of the detailed passages about what types of alcohol and drugs the musicians were using would alone have knocked off a hundred pages.
surprisingly interesting! February 5, 2009
Vickie Monson (Ogden Utah)
Bought this book for my husband, and we are both Young fans. He absolutely got into that book like nothing I ever saw. He says its written to keep you reading just to see what happens next. Young's life is totally different then what we had known about, and he has persevered some real tough issues with all kinds of stuff. But this is not your usual type of book, its well written, unusual, and surprising.
I recomend it to any good fan of Neil Young, doubly so.
Its a big book but you will not be able to leave it down. Learning from this book has given us a deeper understanding of YOUNG.
Heart of Gold, Book of Lead January 15, 2009
amok3000 (Southern New Jersey)
Overall this is a good read. If you want to know what goes on behind the works of Neil Young you can not go wrong. You will get the indepth bio's of Neil, his band mates, the producers, the janitors at the recording studio, his fans, their moms, and pretty much everybody else that likes neil, or, for that matter, music in general. Yes, I jest, but the point is the book is detailed. Which is why I liked it, but also why I can only give it three stars.
The hardcover edition I read had about 800 pages (where are the Cliffnotes)and found to be a marathon read (going up a mountain, not down). I found the read more like a guy trying to win the free meal by eating a 1 pound steak then an enjoyable read. And the only real problem was editing. I don't think there was any. It was too long for no good reason. Conversations and events repeated themselves by different people telling them. The author (towards the last 100 or so pages) begain to say too much and force too many of his opinions on the reader that really got on my nerves. This book could have easily been only 400 pages top and not have lost a thing.
Bottom line: Read it, but bring a sandwich. It is going to be long one.
The REAL Neil. November 28, 2008
Mike (San Jose, CA)
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
If you wonder why this book seems to stop on a dime, it's because Neil had the opportunity to review a first draft.
Jimmy McDonough was an insider. He was granted insiders' access. He accepted it, did what any reputable journalist would do, and reported on what he'd found.
Then Neil saw a first draft of the book. He didn't like it. He cut off access.
Neil Young is one of my all-time favorite performers. As a human being, if 50% of what Jimmy McDonough documents in this book is true, Neil needs to learn a lot about being a human being.
This book is not a review of Neil's CDs. It's a biography. As such, Neil may not be quite so admirable as a man as he is a rock star.
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