[fintstone]

Originally Posted by herr_oberst

I was talking about Elvis. I think Neil would have been fine. His dad was a famous Canadian sportswriter, he (Jim) wrote a very popular YA novel about Hockey that's still regarded highly today. He could've very easily traded on his dad's fame to get started on a career.

(JC Penney - now that's a contemporary reference!)

Elvis? Why?

Young's bio seems to indicate that his father and mother split when he was young and he was raised by his mother. It also indicated that he was not very good at anything but music (which his father encouraged him to leave as he saw no future in it). Once again, imagine that after putting all his (Young's) eggs into music (no real education, job, or prospects in another industry), a big artist of the era like Elvis or McCartney had the venues and record companies ban his music as he has tried to do with other artists. Things sure would not look the same for him or music as they do today.

You generally do not get a job as a writer (or anything) just because your father wrote a book (or many) ...unless your remarried father (who took your brother but not you), is wealthy enough to buy you a job (and decides it is the right thing to do).

Of course the point is that Young was in the wrong for what he did (trying to blackball other artists), not that he might have been the first rocket surgeon despite of his poor scholastic record.