[Graceful, he’s not, but no one understands the primal appeal of rock ‘n roll better than Neil Young. It’s the highest form of compliment when I say that he plays guitar like a gorilla, and a gorilla with silver hair hair beneath his grungy flannel shirt. Of course he’s Canadian. Go ahead, crank up the volume! SB SM]
Guitar Player Since 1977 Updated 1y
No one who plays the guitar, is familiar with Neil Young’s enormous output over the space of over 60 years, or who has even a basic understanding of music would condemn Neil Young for being a “One Note Solo” guitarist.
It’s true that Young’s song “Cinnamon Girl” has a very brief one-note solo. It lasts for only four measures, and he plays it twice, for a total of about 20 seconds.
Over and above the fact that it’s absurd to judge a musician by a 20-second riff played on one song, if you want to understand just how good a guitarist Neil Young is, listen to everything else he plays on that song. It’s a very tight little rocker, lasting less than 3 minutes, and his playing in rich and perfect for the balance of the song.
Here’s how Neil Young described it:
People say that it is a solo with only one note but, in my head, each one of those notes is different. The more you get into it, the more you can hear the differences.
And here’s how one music critic describes it:
The solo is mainly a repeating high pitched D note, which is used in the fashion of a pedal note, augmented by his whammy bar, ringing out over the top of the chord progression. The brilliance of it is, upon first or even tenth listen, it might not even sound like it’s one note that Young’s playing.
Praised for this reason, its simplicity but ingenuity, at the root of it, is another factor that’s added to Young’s status. He’s the master of simplicity and has always tacitly understood the meaning of ‘simple but effective’. It was via technique and emotion that he was able to drive the solo home, something that many guitar players forego when writing their lines.
During the solo, Young drags you into thinking that he will relieve himself of the D, and opt for some even more emotionally charged change in note, but he doesn’t, and this serves to embody the girl in the lyrics’ unwavering, lovelorn plea. It’s incredible.
That’s what Neil Young’s peers think of the solo.
P.S. The guy who wrote that description, Arun Starkey, is a lifelong Tottenham Hotspur fan. That, alone, speaks to his credibility.