The Mynah Birds

Neil Young and Rick James in the same band?  You mean Neil Young of Buffalo Springfield, Crosby Stills Nash & Young and a long solo career and Rick James, the master of funk and of the immortal tune Super Freak, one of the most frequently sampled songs of the past 30 years (and there's even a bluegrass version)?

Yep, sorta like Neil Young doing Sexy And I Know It!

In the summer of 1964 a young AWOL American sailor turned up in Toronto, Canada.  Rick James was an aspiring musician who loved the Rolling Stones and by August he'd put together the first lineup for The Mynah Birds.  Over the next two years, before being arrested by U.S. authorities for desertion and spending a year in prison, James had a rotating lineup for the band.  Included among his band mates were two musicians who later became part of Steppenwolf (Born To Be Wild), Nick St Nicholas and Goldy McJohn, and one of the founding members of Buffalo Springfield, bassist Bruce Palmer.  It was Palmer who in January 1966 introduced James to Neil Young, a Canadian guitar player.  Young joined The Mynah Birds who were signed by Motown Records as its first rock n roll act.

In early 1966 The Mynah Birds recorded an album for Motown but Rick's arrest led it to shelve the record.  Palmer and Young headed out to Los Angeles where they met Stephen Stills and Richie Furay, forming Buffalo Springfield later that year.

And here are The Mynah Birds with It's My Time co-written by James and Young which was to be the first single from the album.


THC was vaguely aware of this history but it was reading the recent post in Open Culture and the obsessively detailed story of the band as compiled by Nick Warburton that filled in the details.