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of the thrills for me on JazzThing was getting to do a duet with Lenny. We never recorded together when he was alive, but through the magic of digital technology we were able to play together. I had some candles lit in the studio, and I’d found a song that I felt I could comfortably sit in on called “Breau’s Place.” It felt just like jamming with him live. I also did the Gershwin standard “Summertime” with Lenny on tape. I made it as though we were in the studio together; I trade my vocals with his guitar and I scat with him and against him. The experience was almost seance-like. I could certainly feel his presence. When it came time to title the album a year later, I just figured I’d call it JazzThing because Lenny would always tell me I needed to do a jazz thing.
    NEIL YOUNG
    In the fall of 1960, not long after my informal lessons at Lenny Breau’s house, fifteen-year-old Neil Young moved to the south end of Winnipeg from Toronto. His mother, Rassy Raglan, was a celebrity on a local TV show called Twenty Questions, and my mother idolized her because she had a job and my mom wasjust a housewife. Neil formed his first band, the Jades, a few months after arriving in town. He later played in the Classics and the Esquires before he formed the Squires in 1963. That’s when I became aware of him. Neil used to watch me playing up onstage, and afterwards he’d wait around to ask me questions about things he’d seen me do on guitar. He was already writing and recording his own material. Like me, Neil developed an appreciation for Hank Marvin and the Shadows sound and even purchased an orange Gretsch 6120 Chet Atkins model guitar like I had. Neil’s distinctive guitar style is less about the technical virtuosity and more about the fire and intensity he brings to the instrument.
    The Squires recorded Neil’s first session at radio station CKRC in 1963, with deejay Bob Bradburn producing and Harry Taylor engineering. It was an instrumental called “The Sultan” backed with “Aurora.” The following year they cut Neil’s first vocal recording, a song he wrote called “I Wonder.” Afterwards he asked Harry Taylor what he thought and Harry replied, “You’re a good guitar player, kid, but you’ll never make it as a singer.”
    The first song Neil sang in public was at Kelvin High School in the cafeteria in early 1964. There was no microphone, but his manager, and my friend, Lorne Saifer, knew that the Shaarey Zedek synagogue nearby on Wellington Crescent had one. There was a banquet or something being held that night and a microphone had been set up at the head table. So Lorne and Neil “borrowed” it. Lorne says today that Neil “blessed” that microphone.
    I remember playing a dance at River Heights Community Club in the south end and being introduced to Neil Young. Lorne introduced us. Neil was a skinny, dark-haired kid who stood to the right of the stage, my side, and watched me all night. I’d heard of him because in Winnipeg you tended to know of other guitar players who were good. I’d run into him later at the Paddlewheelrestaurant at the Bay where all the musicians hung out or at Winnipeg Piano checking out the guitars.
    Neil had ambition. Community clubs weren’t enough for him. He was already writing his own songs. Other than us, most bands in the city weren’t doing that yet. He had a dream and nothing was going to stop him from fulfilling it. When he left Winnipeg most people laughed at him. “We’ll never hear from him again.”
    But, of course, we did hear from Neil Young. After trying his luck in Thunder Bay and Toronto, Neil headed to Los Angeles. In a Sunset Strip traffic jam in April 1966, he met up with Stephen Stills and Richie Furay, and together with Bruce Palmer and Dewey Martin, two Canadians, formed the Buffalo Springfield. With three singer/songwriters in one band, they