Neil Young
Neil's Hearse
In 1966, Neil Young wasn't driving a flashy sports car or a tour bus. He was driving a hearse.
After his band, the Mynah Birds, fell apart when bandmate Rick James was arrested and before the group could record for Motown, Young and bassist Bruce Palmer decided there was little reason to stay in Toronto. They gathered what little they had, climbed into a black 1953 Pontiac hearse, and headed for Los Angeles in search of a fresh start.
It wasn't a publicity stunt. The hearse was simply cheap, roomy enough to sleep in, and happened to be the vehicle they owned.
The trip wasn't exactly glamorous. They slept in the back of the hearse, scraped together money for gas, and spent days trying to track down Stephen Stills, whom Neil had met in Canada months earlier. Los Angeles was overflowing with hopeful musicians, and Stills seemed to have vanished.
After nearly a week of searching, Young and Palmer gave up. They pointed the hearse north, deciding to leave Los Angeles for San Francisco.
Then fate intervened. As the hearse rolled through slow-moving traffic on Sunset Boulevard, Stephen Stills happened to be riding in another vehicle with Richie Furay. Stills glanced across the traffic, saw a black hearse with Ontario license plates, and immediately recognized it.
"I'll be damned if that ain't Neil Young."
The vehicles pulled over, the old friends reunited, and within days they were putting together a new band.
That band became Buffalo Springfield. It's difficult to imagine a more unlikely beginning for one of the most influential groups of the 1960s. No auditions had been arranged. No manager orchestrated the meeting. There was no carefully planned introduction.
Just two old friends spotting each other in Los Angeles traffic because one of them happened to be driving a hearse.
The hearse itself didn't enjoy a long Hollywood career. Not long afterward, its driveshaft failed, leaving it stranded on Sunset Boulevard.
But by then, it had already completed the most important journey of its life.
Without that battered old hearse, one of rock's greatest chance encounters might never have happened, and the history of Buffalo Springfield could have unfolded very differently.
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