"I hope to be around a long time."

Neil Young told the San Diego Union-Tribune that two years ago — not about himself, but about his annual Bridge School benefit concerts at the Shoreline Amphitheatre near San Jose, Calif.

Launched in 1986 to raise money for a special-needs Bay Area school for students with severe speech and physical impairments (including his son, Ben), the all-star charity concert celebrated its 22nd anniversary with a lineup that included Young, Smashing Pumpkins, Wilco, Cat Power, Death Cab for Cutie, Norah Jones, Band of Horses, Sarah McLachlan and Josh Groban.

That so many young and veteran artists donate their time each year is a tribute not just to the Bridge School, but also to Young. He is one of the few still-active 1960s rock pioneers who has been a major influence ever since, if not a musical hero, to performers and listeners of all ages.

"I don't expect anything to last this long, so it's amazing," Young said of the Bridge Concerts' enduring success. "The school is going great guns, so we'll keep on doing it. I hope to be able to do what Willie Nelson's done. So, I hope to be around a long time."

The comparison with Nelson is apt, and not just because Young also has been a driving force behind the Nelson-fueled Farm Aid benefit concerts, which began in 1985.

Young, 62, and Nelson, 75, are icons of American music whose appeal transcends musical styles and generations. Each deserves to be called a maverick, solely for artistic reasons. Each has written classic songs that have become part of the national cultural fabric and collective consciousness.

Young is focusing on some of those classics on his current tour, which kicked off Oct. 16 in Minnesota. His repertoire at the first two concerts on the tour included "Heart of Gold," "Needle and the Damage Done," "Old Man" and "Rockin' in the Free World," along with such lesser-known songs as "Unknown Legend" and the new "Sea Change."

The tour comes three years after he suffered a potentially fatal brain aneurysm. Even so, this legendary musician isn't one to dwell on mortality, especially his own.

"The aneurism is a thing in the past," Young said. "It's gone, it's not even here anymore. We beat it."

His tone in conversation, much like his music, is direct, matter-of-fact and free of any affectation, even when discussing his near-death experience.

Yet, while the active Canadian-born artist has long preferred looking ahead over dwelling on his past, there's no denying he has been even busier than usual since his aneurism in early 2005.

On Thursday, March 17, two days after learning of his aneurism in New York, Young was in a Nashville studio to record three new songs, all of which he had written after finding out about his diagnosis. He returned to New York the following Monday for a pre-surgery exam, then went back to Nashville to write and record most of the other songs that appeared later that year on his whisper-soft album, "Prairie Wind."

The next year, apparently none the worse for wear or surgery, Young recorded another album, "Living With War." Made in just a week, it took a scathing look at the war in Iraq and the George W. Bush White House, as evidenced by such in-your-face songs as "Shock and Awe" and "Let's Impeach the President."

In the summer of 2006, Young reconvened Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young to mount a concert tour to perform "Living With War" live in its entirety. He simultaneously made a film documentary, the recently released "CSNY: Deja Vu," about the controversial tour, which prompted some angry, profanity-spewing fans to storm out of CSN&Y concerts.

"I thought it went good," Young comments in the film, after an especially contentious gig in Atlanta. "We heard a lot of boos, but probably not any more than at Irvine."

Before 2006 was over, he also released "Live at the Fillmore East," recorded in 1970 with the original lineup of his band, Crazy Horse. Last year saw him put out two more albums, the archival "Live at Massey Hall 1971" and "Chrome Dreams II" (the latter a sequel to a 1977 album, "Chrome Dreams," that was never actually released).

Young's fourth archival album of the past two years, "Sugar Mountain Live at Canterbury House 1968," is due out Nov. 25. Recorded at a Michigan solo concert, it was an early attempt by Young to see if his music would be accepted live in a stripped-down acoustic solo setting.

This spate of recorded activity comes at a deeply troubling time for devoted music fans. To be blunt, the album as we know it may be on its deathbed, a victim of shortened attention spans, sharply diminished sales and a younger generation's growing preference for ring-tones, singles and the iPod shuffle mode.

"Wow. I never thought about that much," said Young, who was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a solo artist (in 1995) and as a member of the pioneering 1960s rock band Buffalo Springfield (in 1997).

"I know I need to make them and that's all I'm concerned about. The songs are the album, and if you want to listen to one song, fine. But I try to have an album tell a story and to put them out, more than ever, in the order I wrote them.

"People buy the music and can do whatever they want with it. If you make an album, people into music that way will listen to it that way. People who aren't will pick their favorite song and say the rest is filler. I try not to use filler. I wouldn't listen to an iPod; it sounds so terrible."

But while Young objects to the alarmingly compressed audio quality of iPods, he's by no means a technophobe.

Earlier this year, the Canadian-born musician announced he would be releasing his oft-delayed music archive project in the multimedia Blu-ray format.

The first volume, a 10-disc set chronicling his music between 1963 and 1972, was due to come out this fall. It has now been pushed back until next year, but no matter.

"Blu-ray is the future," Young told Billboard magazine. "It sounds the best, the navigating system is the best. I've made a lot of CDs and we've made a lot of DVDs, and Blu-ray technology is so far superior to anything else. The fact there aren't many players out there now doesn't mean that much to me, because it is the future, so I would rather focus on what's next."

With a forward-looking perspective like that, who can doubt that Neil Young will indeed be around — in one form or another — for a long time to come?

To find out more about George Varga and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

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