Elliot Mazer – better known as Neil Young’s producer – passed at 79 after suffering from dementia for years. Boonie Murray confirmed to Rolling Stone that a heart attack caused his death. Though he is already greatly missed, it’s not hard to say he lived his life to the very fullest. “Elliot loved music,” stated Murray. “He loved what he did; he was a perfectionist. Everybody has so much respect for him, and he’s been suffering for a couple years.”
Perhaps Mazer’s most known projects were Harvest, Journey Through the Past, Times Fade, or Tonight’s the Night, all of which perfected alongside Neil Young. Mazer has worked on masses more like his designs with Bob Dylan, Michael Bloom Field, and Dead Kennedys. He’s helped craft the staples of American music.
The duo of Young and Mazer first got together in 1971 at a dinner party. Young had asked Mazer to produce Harvest along with finding a drummer, bass player, and steel player and have them in his studio by the next day. After tedious digging, Mazer crafted a band to work beside Young on Harvest. “Weldon Myrick, the steel player, couldn’t make it because he had to do his regular gig on The Grand Ole Opry,” he said. “So we found Ben Keith, who went on to work with Neil for the next 30 years.”
“Harvest was just easy,” remarked Young. “I liked it because it happened fast. Kind of like an accidental thing. I wasn’t looking for the Nashville sound, they were the musicians that were there. They got my stuff down and we did it. Just come in, go out, that’s the way they do it in Nashville. There were no preconceptions. Elliot Mazer was in the right place at the right time.”
The man was critical to music as a whole. Mazer was perhaps even a staple. And he loved what he did endlessly with every fiber of his being. To see him go is beyond devastating. However, for his suffer against dementia to come to an end makes it loads easier to accept.
