Pegi Young

Pegi Young logged multiple years traveling as a backing vocalist alongside her husband at the time, Neil Young, before she finally turned to capturing her own songs in the opening years of the 2000s. Although she had started composing material while still in high school, responsibilities such as raising her son Ben, who entered the world with cerebral palsy, joining her spouse on tour, and helping establish the Bridge School left scant opportunity for a solo path. In 2006 she laid down her introspective, roots-flavored debut album under her own name, which included guest spots from the Jordanaires, ex-Crazy Horse players, and Neil Young himself; Warner Bros. issued the project twelve months afterward. Two years later Vapor Records put out her sophomore effort, Foul Deeds, for which she supplied original or co-written material on three of the nine tracks while turning to outside numbers from sources both expected and surprising, among them Lucinda Williams’s “Side of the Road” and Devendra Banhart’s “Body Breaks.” By 2014 her group, rechristened the Survivors and anchored by keyboardist Spooner Oldham, delivered its next collection, Lonely in a Crowded Room, helmed by producer Niko Bolas and issued through New West. That same year she and Neil Young ended their long marriage, an experience she addressed head-on on the unflinching 2017 album Raw. Pegi Young passed away on January 1, 2019 following a struggle with cancer.