Bridging the Young Generations : Tribute album salutes an acclaimed rock veteran and showcases today’s maverick forces

Record producer Terry Tolkin had two bridges in mind when he put together the Neil Young tribute album “The Bridge.”

The first is the Bridge School, a San Francisco-area education program for physically handicapped, non-speaking children that is sponsored by Young and his wife, Pegi. Part of the album’s proceeds will go to the project.

The second bridge is more conceptual.

The album is the most celebrated of the many recent “salutes” by generally maverick contemporary artists to some of rock’s most influential figures--in this case a tip of the hat to Young, who, after Bob Dylan, is the most consistently challenging of the still-active rock singer-songwriters to emerge in the ‘60s.

Tolkin, who released the record on his own New Jersey-based No. 6 Records, hopes the collection will encourage longtime Young fans to check out some of the new “underground” artists who offer imaginative interpretations of various Young compositions.

A longtime music fan, Tolkin, 30, has been discouraged by the way many of his friends, once active music fans themselves, have stopped searching out new sounds because they feel new bands no longer have much to offer.

“If they hear this record and can’t find at least two or three bands that sound interesting enough for them to go and buy one of those bands’ albums, then they’re pretty closed-minded musically,” he said by phone recently from his office in Hoboken, N.J.

“The Bridge” features 12 selections on the vinyl and cassette versions of the album, plus two bonus tracks on CD. They range from the Pixies’ jangly take on “Winterlong” and Victoria Williams and the Williams Brothers’ sparse, dramatic treatment of “Don’t Let It Bring You Down” to Nick Cave’s dirge-like reading of “Helpless.”

Though the thought may be unsettling to Young (who’ll be 44 next Sunday), these artists--as different as their normal studio work is--all sound on the album like his musical children.

It’s not just that the arrangements get right to the heart of the material, but also that so many of the vocalists sound as if they have a part of Young in their genes. Many capture almost uncannily several of Young’s distinctive vocal styles, often an uneasy cross between a lonesome wail and a wistful sigh.

“The Bridge”--which also features tracks by such admired bands as Sonic Youth (“Computer Age”) and Soul Asylum (“Barstool Blues”)--is the latest, and by far the best, in the recent series of tribute collections. Among the artists previously saluted: Buddy Holly, the Byrds, Captain Beefheart, Pink Floyd’s Syd Barrett, Johnny Cash and the Kinks.

The album’s opening tracks illustrate how the best of the new versions both salute Young by underscoring the continuing relevance of his best songs and assert an individuality that spotlights the strong artistic impulses of the younger musicians.

Soul Asylum’s version of “Barstool Blues” is an even more urgent statement of emotional disorientation in the aftermath of romantic betrayal than Young’s own rendition, which appeared on 1975’s “Zuma” album.

There’s a darker bite in the guitar assault and the lead vocal conveys every ounce of desperate search in Young’s lyrics. Sample line:

“And I saw you in my nightmares

“But I’ll see you in my dreams

“And I might live a 1,000 years

“Before I know what that means.”

For a further glimpse of the band, try the group’s “Hang Time,” a 1988 album released by Twin/Tone in association with A&M.;

By contrast, Victoria Williams’ vocal on the acoustic “Don’t Let It Bring You Down” reflects the softer, almost dream-like quality of Young’s delicate blend of disillusionment and hope of the song from 1970’s “After the Gold Rush” album.

Yet Williams also adds another layer to the song--a touch of the disarming innocence that characterized her own excellent but commercially ignored 1987 solo album, “Happy Come Home,” on Geffen Records. Williams has since left that company and is recording her follow-up for Rough Trade Records.

The album was released in mid-August and generated interest in various music publications and on some alternative radio stations, but interest in the package has increased dramatically since the release this month of Young’s own album, “Freedom.”

The latter is receiving the most consistently glowing reviews of any Young album in more than a decade, and several publications are mentioning “The Bridge” in their reviews of the new album.

Indeed, Rolling Stone magazine reviewed “The Bridge” alongside “Freedom” in its Nov. 2 issue, declaring it an album that celebrates “not only Young’s enduring songwriting but the iconoclastic spirit and anarchic glee with which he continually challenges rock myth and defies rock convention.” In addition, Reprise Records, which released “Freedom,” has sent copies of “The Bridge” to 500 rock radio stations around the country.

Tolkin, who has released the album in association with Caroline Records, said he was familiar with the Captain Beefheart and Syd Barrett tribute albums in England and was thinking of a similar project in this country when he read an interview in which Young spoke about his work with the Bridge School.

“Neil Young seemed a natural for one of these albums because of the quality of his music and the fact that we could raise funds for the Bridge School in the process,” Tolkin said. “So, I sat down and drew up a list of about 15 to 20 bands that I’d like to be involved, including R.E.M. and the Church. We couldn’t get them all, for various reasons, but most of them were very receptive.”

Tolkin had initially thought modestly of perhaps 10,000 sales, but “The Bridge” is already up to 40,000 in this country alone, and with the added publicity from the “Freedom” album, he thinks it could now hit the 60,000-to-80,000 mark by the end of the year. Things have gone so well with the album, in fact, that he is already thinking of another salute album. The subject: the Grateful Dead.