Stephen Stills and Neil Young will perform together at L.A.’s Greek Theatre on April 26 for the biennial Autism Speaks fundraiser Light Up The Blues alongside special guests Linda Perry, Cat Power, Christina Applegate, Chris Stills, and Oliver Stills. Tickets go on-sale February 28.
The first Light Up The Blues took place in 2013 at L.A.’s Club Nokia with guests Crosby, Stills, and Nash, Don Felder, Jack Black, Lucinda Williams, and Ryan Adams. Over the past decade, everyone from John Mayer and Jack Black to Patti Smith, Joe Walsh, Willie Nelson, Brandi Carlile, Sheryl Crow, Beck, Burt Bacharach, Dax Shepard, Kristen Bell, Jakob Dylan, Nikka Costa, and the War On Drugs has taken part in the show.
“The genesis of it was when Neil left Northern California, came down here, and said to me, ‘You’re doing the Bridge School now,’” says Stephen Stills, referring to Young’s long-running Bridge School Benefit concerts series, which ended in 2016. “Neil is always supportive and ready to rock. And then we go from there. Anybody who wants to come and play with us is welcome.”
Booking the show was especially challenging this year because of the Los Angeles wildfires. “The focus was on a huge fundraising effort for the fire victims, which Stephen was also a part of at FireAid,” says Light Up The Blues co-host/organizer Kristen Stills. “It obviously just would have been incredibly insensitive to start talking about an event in the spring when we had this immediate need going on here locally.”
It was also hard to organize before artists had their spring tour schedules nailed down. But over the past few weeks, commitments started to come in. Billy Idol was one of the first to agree. “We saw Billy and Steve Stevens perform at the Bridge School Benefit many years ago,” says Kristen Stills. “It was an amazing performance that brought down the house. I’m an eighties kid, so this is incredibly exciting for me.”
Performers with autism will also be on the bill, including Love on the Spectrum star Abbey Romeo and film/tv composer John Frizzell, who Kristen and Stephen met at the 2023 Light Up The Blues event. “We arranged to have him come up to the house because he had been diagnosed with autism as an older adult not too long ago,” says Kristen Stills. “Autism Speaks helped him navigate that journey of announcing publicly that he has autism. And the next natural thing was to ask him to be a part of this show. As it turned out, he had just formed a bluegrass band where every member is on the spectrum.”
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Stephen Stills was delighted to learn that Frizzel’s relative is country/bluegrass icon Lefty Frizzell. “When I was a kid in Greenwich Village, Lefty was just a miraculous player of Bill Monroe’s stature,” he says. “All of the great bluegrass groups came to the Village in the early Sixties. I was like, ‘Wow, that was your relative?’ Wow!’”
John Frizzell has lived a happy and productive life with autism, and the goal of Autism Speaks is to help others accomplish the same thing. The Stills family got involved with the organization when their son Henry was diagnosed. “People who are marginalized in any way become pretty reliant on nonprofits to pay attention to them and try to help their needs to get met,” says Kristen Stills. “And diagnosis occurrences have gone up yet again. And as the occurrences increase, the need increases.”
One of the biggest needs is access to healthcare. “If you can’t pick up the phone and make a call to a healthcare provider, you need assistance,” says Kristen Stills. “And Autism Speaks helps with that. So that’s an important thing. The life expectancy of an autistic person is 54-years-old, so that means middle age would be 30 years old. And that’s just, quite frankly, unacceptable.”
Light Up The Blues has raised millions of dollars for Autism Speaks over the years, and it’s one of the few places fans can see Stills perform live after he stepped away from the road in 2018. He’ll be backed by Neil Young’s band, the Chrome Hearts, which features Promise of the Real members Corey McCormick and Anthony Logerfo alongside Micah Nelson and Spooner Oldham.
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“I’ve had the pleasure of working with them over the past couple of years,” Stills says. “What a bunch of gentlemen. They’re so well-mannered. I call them the Promise of the Willing because they’re willing to do whatever you want. It’s so different than the previous generation of musicians who all wanted to replace us.”
Beyond the money they hope to raise this year, the Stills family also wants to turn Light Up The Blues into an educational event. “We want to give people an incredible night of music and entertainment,” says Kristen Stills. “And we want people to learn more about autism. The whole purpose of the event is to create a world more inclusive to people with autism. We are also celebrating Autism Speaks 20th anniversary. Twenty years ago, there were hardly any resources available to parents like me and Stephen. Autism Speaks has profoundly changed that.”
