The lustre of Toronto\u2019s now-tony Yorkville has its origins in the music scene (centred on the famed Riverboat Coffee House)\u00a0that burgeoned there in the mid-\u201860s, where hordes of young people flocked to hear local stars, touring acts and a young, bound-for-glory Joni Mitchell. However, an even bigger name than hers struggled to find his place in that scene, and he soon moved on. From \u201cYorkville:\u00a0How a 1960s Coffeehouse Scene Rewrote Popular Music\u201d by Mike Daley.<\/p>\n
After his parents divorced, Neil Young and his mother moved from Toronto to Winnipeg. Neil became obsessed with the guitar in high school and put together a disciplined instrumental band called the Squires. With a burning desire to make it as a musician, he brought the band to Toronto on a whim in July 1965. At first he lived with his father, journalist Scott Young, and then in a series of crash pads from 88 Isabella St. to folk singer Vicky Taylor\u2019s flat above the Night Owl coffee house at 102 Avenue Rd.<\/p>\n
Neil connected with local manager Martin Onrot, who took on the Squires and renamed them Four to Go.<\/p>\n
Neil Young: The Yorkville scene. I\u2019d never seen anything like it. Music was everywhere … The Riverboat was an upscale thing \u2014 people who played there were really making a living … We didn\u2019t succeed in taking Toronto by storm. It was a tough time. We were small fish in a big pond, had no reputation, and really there was nothing special about us in the big city. We were out of our league.<\/p>\n
Four to Go broke up without ever getting a local gig. Neil, who was soaking up Yorkville folk music, tried his hand for a while as a solo folk singer and songwriter but met little success. He does not seem to have played even one advertised gig under his own name during his months in Toronto. The only exception he remembers is a last-minute fill-in for a sick performer.<\/p>\n
The only way Neil was going to play the Riverboat was by auditioning for the Monday night hootenanny. This was no open stage, but a multi-performer night with a small amount of pay and an audition for Estelle Klein (founder of the Folk Guild, the musicians\u2019 collective which ran the event)\u00a0to get a slot. Neil auditioned and did appear at least two times.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In a photograph from the winter of 1965-66, Neil sings at a Riverboat hoot, his overgrown Beatle haircut poking out from under a leather fisherman\u2019s cap. The microphone stand is too short for his lanky frame, and he is leaning over to sing, strumming a borrowed\u00a0guitar.<\/p>\n
The Folk Guild hoot was one thing, but an actual gig at the Riverboat would have been preferable. Neil asked Riverboat manager Burnie Fiedler for one, but was turned down.<\/p>\n
Vicky Taylor: One night they got into an argument and Burnie said that Neil howled like a dog and told him to take his horrible voice and never come in his club again. Neil said, \u201cYou know what, Burnie, some day you\u2019re going to beg me to play here.\u201d<\/p>\n
Adam Mitchell: (At the Riverboat) one night I walked in and this guy Neil Young was up on the stage. I remember standing there hearing that voice. He\u2019s playing (affects nasal, shaky voice) \u201cOh to live on Sugar Mountain.\u201d I remember thinking, \u201cOh dude, don\u2019t give up your day job.\u201d You know, dreadful.<\/p>\n
Not all of the feedback was negative. A few folkies on the scene believed in his talent.<\/p>\n
Neil Young: One night after hearing me at a hootenanny, Chick Roberts of the Dirty Shames told me he really liked my song \u201cSugar Mountain\u201d \u2014 that made me feel like I was somebody.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Provided to YouTube by Reprise<\/p>\n
Sugar Mountain (Live at the Riverboat 1969) \u00b7 Neil Young<\/p>\n
For a while, Neil lived with Vicky Taylor in her apartment above the Night Owl.<\/p>\n
Neil Young: I was at the bottom, kinda like the new guy. I wasn\u2019t that good, y\u2019know. My songs were pretty dumb … they were what they were. Vicky Taylor was just a good friend. She had an apartment above the Night Owl \u2014 I lived there a little while. She was a little bit crazy. She would get real sad about things … but not for long. She was a real party girl. Had a little bit of money, liked to have a good time. Let me sleep on her floor.<\/p>\n
Vicky Taylor: I was the only one with an actual job; I was making $50 ($500 in 2025) a week. So I rented this apartment over the Night Owl club on Avenue Road. And it was just one huge room. It had a bathroom, but no kitchen. And it had a bedroom in that. That was my private space. But when I came out in the morning, I never knew how many bodies would be there or who they would be. The door was never locked. I was the mama. I took care of everybody and I fed everybody with this concoction that my mother taught me called guck, which is sort of like chili without the chili in it. I would just make a huge pot of this stuff. And then when it was gone, I would make more, but there were times when it was Kraft Dinner, and boy, I have never been able to eat Kraft Dinner since. There was a whole bunch of instruments in there and everything, people\u2019s belongings, and nothing was ever taken.<\/p>\n
There was only one chair in the place, a big green chair in the corner and (Neil) would be curled up in there writing his songs. I remember when he wrote \u201cNowadays Clancy Can\u2019t Even Sing,\u201d and that song really impressed me. I saw genius in that boy, that\u2019s for sure. Not that I had much power to do anything for anybody, but, you know, I tried to do whatever I could.<\/p>\n
Salvation came in the form of Bruce Palmer, Mynah Bird bassist, who met Neil precisely at the moment that the band was desperate for a new lead guitarist.<\/p>\n
Bruce Palmer: I ran into Neil on Yorkville Avenue. He was carrying an amplifier on his head. You didn\u2019t see many people carrying that around back then. He was looking for people to play music with, so I asked him to join my group.<\/p>\n
Neil moved into an apartment on Isabella Street with Ricky James Matthews; this flat was later commemorated by Neil along with other Toronto locations, including the Riverboat, in his 1972 song \u201cAmbulance Blues.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Joni Mitchell at the Riverboat Coffee House in 1968.<\/p>\n
Dick Darrell\/Toronto Star<\/p>\n
Rick James: Neil and I had just started writing together, and while our songs were good, I was sure that in a few more weeks they\u2019d be great. Neil had this machine-gun style on the guitar that inspired melodies and lyrics out of me.<\/p>\n
After the breakup of Four to Go, Neil had traded in his electric guitar for an acoustic 12-string with a pickup mounted in the soundhole, which lent the Mynah Birds a folk-rock patina. Soon\u00a0Eaton\u2019s retail empire scion and Mynah Birds benefactor John Craig Eaton bought Neil a Rickenbacker electric to use. Neil played only a handful of gigs with the Mynah Birds before they travelled to Detroit to record at Motown.<\/p>\n
There, in addition to recording their own album, the Mynah Birds found themselves being used as studio musicians for other acts, in line with the company\u2019s assembly-line approach to record production.<\/p>\n
Rickman Mason (drummer): Twenty-four seven, day and night until we dropped. They would take us into the studio individually \u2014 I bet you I did maybe 30 tracks by myself. I still listen to Motown songs and wonder if that\u2019s me playing on them.<\/p>\n
Neil Young: It was a very cool time and place. We even went to choreography school to learn how to move, and I\u2019m sure we flunked, but they treated us well. They fitted us for clothes. We were on our way to the big time!<\/p>\n
A single, \u201cIt\u2019s My Time\u201d\/\u201cGo On and Cry\u201d was prepared for release on Motown\u2019s V.I.P. imprint. Co-written by Ricky, Neil and R. Dean Taylor, \u201cIt\u2019s My Time\u201d offers a glimpse of what might have been. Ricky sings the tightly written, dramatic soul-rock song with a confident swagger and a compelling, gravelly voice. Neil plays a memorable 12-string acoustic guitar line that floats ethereally on top of the mix.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
With the album in the can, the rest of the band went back to Toronto. Ricky was waiting for his share of the $25,000 ($233,000 in 2025) royalty advance from Motown. When the band\u2019s handler Morley Shelman couldn\u2019t produce it, the two got into a physical altercation. As revenge, Shelman told Motown that Ricky was a Navy deserter. Motown brass, uneasy about this situation, convinced Ricky to give himself up to the authorities. Reportedly the very day that the \u201cIt\u2019s My Time\u201d single was to be issued, Motown cancelled the release.<\/p>\n
Back in Toronto, Ricky broke the news to Neil Young and Bruce Palmer before returning to Buffalo, where he gave himself up to the FBI. He was sentenced to five months of hard labour, escaped, then turned himself in and spent more time in prison.<\/p>\n
With their frontman in the Navy brig, Neil and Bruce quit the Mynah Birds. The rest of the group soldiered on with replacements, still backed by John Craig Eaton, and closed up shop in the early summer of 1967.<\/p>\n
At loose ends, Neil and Bruce hung out at the Cellar (a venerable Yorkville coffee house) at 169 Avenue Road. The club was still open but its founders, Steve Ciotlos and Sam Shirose, were no longer at the helm.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cYorkville: How a 1960s Coffeehouse Scene Rewrote Popular Music\u201d<\/p>\n
Mike Daley<\/p>\n
Sutherland House Press<\/p>\n
340 pages<\/p>\n
$36.95<\/p>\n
In September 1965, Ciotlos had rented the Cellar to Scotty Mair, a former\u00a0Toronto Telegram reporter, and two Yorkville waitresses, Jeanine Hollingshead and Bev Davies.<\/p>\n
Jeanine Hollingshead: We had taken over the Cellar and we were keeping it open as an all-night caf\u00e9. Neil played in there and Daisy DeBolt played in there. The jug bands played in there. This was in the days when the\u00a0Telegram was out on strike. Scotty was one of those reporters that got displaced during the strike, and he was very active around Yorkville. He said, \u201cLook, let\u2019s just do this. Let\u2019s just have an after-hours club.\u201d I think we were practically living in it.<\/p>\n
Around the corner at 182 Dupont (still standing in 2025), Ciotlos opened a second Cellar, which he called the Cellar Jazz Club (as opposed to just \u201cthe Cellar\u201d) on New Year\u2019s Eve 1965. This was a much bigger space than the tiny Avenue Road location \u2014 250 seats \u2014 and Ciotlos was thinking bigger with his bookings as well. The public was confused, and no doubt a few jazz fans showed up at the old Avenue Road location to find a skinny longhair named Neil strumming an acoustic guitar in a corner.<\/p>\n
Neil Young: I was in Toronto, in the middle of the night, sitting in a funky after-hours dive called the Cellar. I was with Bruce Palmer … The group had just broken up, Bruce and I were just sitting there, probably pretty stoned, and I asked Bruce if he wanted to go down to L.A \u2026 He said yes, so we sold all the band\u2019s equipment (even though it had been purchased for the Mynah Birds by\u00a0John Craig Eaton) to buy a \u201953 Pontiac hearse<\/a>. We loaded it up with three girls and another guy, all from Yorkville Village.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n Provided to YouTube by Rhino\/Elektra<\/p>\n Nowadays Clancy Can’t Even Sing \u00b7 Buffalo Springfield<\/p>\n Buffalo Springfield<\/p>\n \u2117 1966 Atlantic Recording Corp.<\/p>\n Writer: Neil Young<\/p>\n On Tuesday, March 22, 1966, Neil and Bruce headed to Los Angeles with Jeanine, folk singer Tannis Neiman, Judy Mack and Mike Gallagher. Somewhere along the way, Jeanine, Mike, and Tannis peeled off from the group, which arrived in Los Angeles on April 1. What follows is the stuff of rock legend, as Neil and Bruce found themselves stuck in L.A. traffic when they were spotted by Stephen Stills, an acquaintance of Neil\u2019s. This led to the formation of Buffalo Springfield, the innovative group that launched Neil, Bruce, and Stephen into the big time.<\/p>\n Mike Daley, author of \u201cYorkville: How a 1960s Coffeehouse Scene Rewrote Popular Music.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Jen Squires photo<\/p>\n \u00a0Back in Toronto, the Avenue Road location of the Cellar was closed, abandoned by its young proprietors. Around the corner at the Dupont location, Steve Ciotlos was losing money on his new high-profile jazz bookings. He vented to jazz promoter and journalist Dave Caplan about the reception of his ambitious new club. \u201cWhere are all those so-called jazz fans who are endlessly screaming for more jazz around town? When I give it to them they don\u2019t show up.\u201d Just over six months after opening, the Cellar Jazz Club on Dupont was shuttered.<\/p>\n \u00a0Excerpted from\u00a0\u201cYorkville: How a 1960s Coffeehouse Scene Rewrote Popular Music\u201d by Mike Daley.\u00a0Copyright \u00a9 2026 Mike Daley. Published by Sutherland House Books. Reproduced by arrangement with the Publisher. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The lustre of Toronto\u2019s now-tony Yorkville has its origins in the music scene (centred on the famed Riverboat…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":920354,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[49,48,75,341],"class_list":["post-920353","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-entertainment","tag-music"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/920353","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=920353"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/920353\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/920354"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=920353"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=920353"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=920353"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/p>\n