I’ll preface this by admitting that I was 14 in the fall of 1964. That’s when I first saw Neil Young perform.  In 1964 and 1965 he spent a lot of time in Fort William, Ontario, now part of Thunder Bay. He was on his way to fame via the Trans Canada highway which took him to Toronto and then on to L.A. But in 1964 he was famous only in small circles, like the Fourth Dimension, a coffee house down by the river that let under-age teenagers in for afternoon sessions where alcohol wasn’t served. The band played on a small stage right next to the customers. This was before Heart of Gold was written. Neil and the Squires, or later, the High Flying Birds, played old standards like “Oh Susannah”, “Tom Dooley” and “Louie Louie” - and a couple of originals.

After that, I didn’t see Neil in person again until the early eighties, when I had moved to Southern Ontario and he played at Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto. But whenever I hear or see him play, in whatever musical style he’s chosen for the night - even Greendale - his voice still takes me back to the Four-D. In my mind there’s an inextricable link between the music of Neil Young and the music scene in Thunder Bay, and they each have influenced the other.

So when I joined a group of ex-Thunder Bayites in December of 2008 at Neil Young’s concert at the ScotiaBank Centre in Ottawa, I put together this Neil Young quiz, which you pretty well have to have been a fan in Thunder Bay in the sixties to answer - or have listened to Randy Bachman’s Vinyl Tap on CBC Radio and read “Shakey”.

1. What was Neil Young’s first vocal recording?
2. Who sang backup vocals on the classic recording of Heart of Gold?
3. What commercially successful song did Neil write in Thunder Bay (aka Fort William)? And what hotel was he staying in?
4. Name two night clubs in Fort William where Young played.
5. What year did Neil meet Stephen Stills and where?
6. What musician played with Crazy Horse and later the E Street Band?
7. What year and where did Randy Bachman and Neil Young meet?
8. What was the name of Neil’s hearse? (Used to transport the band’s equipment.)
9. What was the inspiration for the song “Long May You Run”?




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1. I Wonder
2. Linda Ronstadt and James Taylor (they were in Nashville at the same time, for performances on The Johnny Cash Show).
3. Sugar Mountain and the Victoria Hotel.
4. The Fourth Dimension and the Flamingo Club
5. 1965, Fort William, playing at the Fourth Dimension
6. Nils Lofgren
7. 1958 or 1959 in Winnipeg (Bachman isn’t sure)
8. Mort
9. Mort