Neil Young wins Americana award

Saturday, 23, Sep 2006 04:16

The latest politically-laden record from rock superstar Neil Young has won a prestigious prize at this year's Americana awards.

Living With War, which was put together in under a month earlier this year and was released on the internet, was enough to land Young the artist of the year award in Nashville, Tennessee, for the American Honours and Awards ceremony which lauds bluegrass, folk and country music.

Its ten heavily tracks met with great praise from the judges. All of them are heavily anti-Bush, including Rockin' In The Free World, Let's Impeach The President, Shock And Awe and Lookin' For A Leader.

The album is his second in a year, following up from Prairie Wind, released 12 months ago.

Living With War has attracted generally favourable reviews from music critics. While the Los Angeles Times described its "sheer brazenness" as "refreshing", the Austin Chronicle condemned it as "American Idiot for hippies".

Neil Young's gravitas as a veteran US musical giant is certainly impressive: the singer-songwriter, now 60 years old, has always lent himself to political pontifications since his emergence in the folk-rock band Buffalo Springfield in the mid-1960s.

The album and singer of the year Americana awards were both given to James McMurtry, while Drive Truckers won the band of the year award.