Pegi Young performs at the International Congress Center in Berlin, Germany, on Feb. 26, 2008.The Associated Press
Pegi Young, the wife of the iconic musician Neil Young, is perhaps best known for co-founding in 1986 the Bridge School, a facility for children with severe physical and speech impairments (such as their son, Ben, a former student, who was born with cerebral palsy and is now 33).
But in 2007, she launched a belated musical career that so far has seen the release of three albums, including last year's Bracing For Impact.
The singer-songwriter spoke recently from a tour bus that takes her and her band the Survivors to Montreal's L'Astral (April 13) and Toronto's Great Hall (April 14).
Despite your three albums, do you think that some of the people who come to see you do so because of your well-known husband?
I'm sure there's some curiosity. It's quite natural that people would wonder what I do. Neil is so well known, and has had such a varied career in terms of his musical stylings. But I make my own music.
Some of the members of your band have connections with Neil. How would you describe your music?
Well, Spooner Oldham is on keys. Kevin Holly is our lead guitar player. They're both from Alabama, and have deep roots in the Muscle Shoals world. So, there's an undercurrent of R&B there. I've started playing some electric guitar now, so we've got some rockers. I think it's just good solid R&B and rock kind of music.
Does the name of your band, the Survivors, have anything to do with the death in 2010 of your original pedal-steel player, Ben Keith?
In the aftermath of his very unexpected, sudden passing, our name was born. Around the same time, our original guitar player Anthony Crawford left to do some stuff with his wife. So Rick and Phil and Spooner and I became the Survivors. We miss Ben. He was my go-to guy – my anchor.
Literally irreplaceable, given that you don't tour with a pedal-steel player any longer.
That's right. His playing was so unique. There are certain songs we don't do any longer, but that's okay. Life goes on, and we just go on in a little different direction.
You and your band opened up for Stephen Stills last year. I thought perhaps your band's name came about as a result of surviving that tour.
No. [Laughs] He couldn't have been nicer. He was gracious and completely welcoming. He invited me on stage to sing Neil's Long May You Run. He's like my brother, or, I guess, my brother-in-law, because he's like Neil's brother.
You once said that the fact that your marriage with Neil had lasted as long as it had, which was going on 30 years at the time, was amazing. Did you mean amazing as in fantastic, or amazing as in unexpected?
It's both. Divorce is not uncommon. So for us to have been married so long and be in the entertainment industry, you have to calculate it in dog years. But, you know, it's amazing in both ways. We get along really well. We love and respect each other. We like each other. We have fun together. And now we're going on 34 years.
That's more than 200 years in dog years.
You're right. [Laughs]That is amazing.
Have you ever written a song about him, or to him?
You take inspiration from a lot of places. But I live with him. I'm inspired by him everyday. Is he a character in a story or poem that I've written? No, it's more abstract than that. At least it is in my writing, and I believe it is in his as well.
The both of you are so busy and productive, musically and otherwise. It sounds like you're not so much surviving as thriving. Would you agree with that?
Sure would. It's works for me. The Thriving Survivors, yeah. We're not just taking up space on the planet. We're trying to make a difference.
This interview has been condensed and edited.