I had always wanted to interview Pegi Young. Not just because she’s married to the singer-songwriter whom I happen to have collected the most discs by (41, including live recordings), but because she’s always seemed like the kind of person whose story could inspire others.

Pegi Young is a straight-talking, down-to-earth type. One of the first things I noticed while speaking to her is that she really listened to my questions (not always the case, let me assure you). I’d once read a quote from her (something about being careful never to take personally the occasional spaced-out behaviors of your loved one) in a story about her husband Neil Young and, at the time I came upon her words, that simple but practical advice had moved me to view things in a different light. For that I wanted to thank her. As a Neil superfan, I knew that Pegi had co-founded the Bridge School for children with severe physical and learning disabilities… I was just plain in awe of that. You could say I admired her in the same way I did Linda McCartney and Yoko Ono, the great loves of my two other favorite classic rockers. So when I heard that Pegi, who occasionally sang background with Neil, was stepping out as a singer-songwriter in her own right after 30 years of working quietly behind the scenes, it felt like an occasion for a victory dance. Pegi Young is the definition of “it’s never too late to live your dream” ideals, and it’s bound to inspire anyone who’s deferred one. And no, she didn’t ask Neil to help (though as it turns out, he couldn’t resist lending a hand).

“It was a pretty big deal, my first record, but I thought it was important for me to assemble the band and do it without relying on Neil for the musical support—even though he’s always supporting.” She says that at the outset of the project, she and Neil didn’t even talk at all about how he would or wouldn’t contribute.

“I’ve known all these guys, some of them for nearly 30 years. They’re my friends, and so I felt at least comfortable saying, ‘Guys, I’m kinda thinking about making a record and I’d love for you to play on it, and would you consider it.’ I was pleased everyone agreed to it and I was able to go in and make a record without Neil’s participation, though I’m exceedingly grateful he was able to join in because his add was just tremendous,” she says of her husband’s unmistakable leads, vocals, and harmonica parts.

So why did it take Pegi so long to make her solo debut?

For approximately 30 years, Pegi and Neil Young have lived on a ranch in Northern California, the same ranch on which Neil first encountered the “Old Man” whom he immortalized in song. It was 1974 and Young had just split up with actress Carrie Snodgrass (the mother of his son Zeke). He hadn’t yet met the loner, Pegi Morton, living up the road in a teepee, though not long after their meeting at a local watering hole in the backwoods (or as backwoods as it gets in rural San Mateo County in the San Francisco Bay Area), they became friends and eventually joined their lives. Pegi became Neil’s someone to love him the whole day through (they married in ’78), and the pair had two children, Ben and Amber (Zeke is also part of the family). These were the years rust never slept and Neil was godfathering grunge with Crazy Horse. Shortly after that, Ben was born and Pegi and Neil learned their boy had cerebral palsy. It was a startling coincidence (Zeke had also been born with CP), and a life-altering occurrence: In 1980, they enrolled in an extremely rigorous 18-month training program to help them better communicate with their son. Neil poured out his feelings about the experience on his Re-act-or album, while five years later Pegi quietly co-founded the Bridge School, devoted to serving children with severe disabilities. She still sits on its board, but in recent years she has become less involved in day-to-day operations, though her responsibility at the Bridge heats up particularly at this time of year. The initial funds to open the school came in part from the first-ever Bridge School Benefit Concert, now in its 21st year at Shoreline Amphitheatre in Mountain View. The shows, spread over two days at the end of October, mark the official closing of the outdoor concert season in the Bay Area. Rock’s biggest names (Bowie, Petty, R.E.M. and Red Hot Chili Peppers, to name but a fraction of them) turn up every year to play rare, acoustic sets, all in the name of the Youngs’ cause.

“I’ve been involved since the first concert and am always involved by way of floating ideas of who might play,” says Pegi, though as for whether she’ll turn in a set at this year’s event she laughs, “Boy, is that ever the zillion dollar question.” Pegi laughs easily throughout our conversation—it’s part of what makes it easy to talk with her—but the subject of playing to crowds clearly makes Pegi a little uneasy. It is, in part, why her touring schedule for the moment remains limited. “I’m really used to playing to about 200 people and that’s more like 20,000 people,” she says of the Bridge shows.

I remind her that in Jonathan Demme’s concert film Neil Young: Heart of Gold, which played in theatres all over the world last summer, she was seen by millions, singing and strumming, right beside her virtuoso husband no less. She looked like she was having a blast.

“I was! But I was just standing in front of a small group of people at the Ryman Auditorium,” she pleads, noting the double whammy of standing on a stage as historic as the Ryman (home to the Grand Ole Opry). Their stay in Nashville for the Heart of Gold shoot had not only a direct effect on the subsequent recording of Pegi’s album, but on the Youngs’ life in general. First of all, Pegi had never played the guitar in public until she played it in a movie.

“I think it was Jonathan’s idea. He said, ‘You play, why don’t you play guitar on this one?,’ and that was ‘Four Strong Winds.’ That was really exciting for me to do that,” she says.

“I wasn’t planning to play the guitar on the album, even though I was working up the songs on guitar, but then my producer Elliot Mazer said, ‘Why wouldn’t you play guitar? It’s important for the drummer to watch your right hand, it’s important for you,’ and I thought, ‘that’s right, why wouldn’t I?’ So I guess once I got started on the guitar it was hard to put it down again.

“I already had the album in the works, but I hadn’t gotten started in the studio yet. We were in New York for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and the whole aneurysm incident happened,” she explains, referring to Neil’s serious brain trauma following his induction of the Pretenders into the Hall of Fame in 2005.

“During that time, we started making Prairie Wind with many of the same players that I had thought about wanting to work with when I did get into the studio. I wrote ‘Love Like Water’ during the aneurysm time.”

“Love Like Water” is what you might call a uniquely Pegi song, featuring a direct, semi-autobiographical lyric that delves into deeper universals about love and loss. It is set to a melody that’s rooted in folk-rock, yet is slightly askew. The album version features Neil on electric sitar.

“For some reason I always had in mind a sitar sound. I’d heard a song… by Ravi Shankar’s daughter… Anoushka… on the radio, and she’s a beautiful sitar player and something about hearing her play stuck in my mind. When I wrote the song, it had this weird Eastern influence. When we got in the studio, I asked Larry Cragg, our wonderful guitar and all instruments tech, if he had an electric sitar and he said, ‘As a matter of fact I do.’ Ben Keith’s on auto harp, and we brought in those big drums, the djembe, and the chimes. Ben Keith overdubbed the finger cymbals. The towering Ben Keith playing the delicate finger cymbals is a sight one doesn’t forget easily. It was a beautiful thing,” she laughs.

But when Pegi says “Love Like Water” was written during the aneurysm time, I hesitate to probe, though I invite her to elaborate as little or as much as she would like. “It’s not like the whole song is exactly about our relationship or that incident, but I think it’s a thread that runs through it, and I think that’s probably true of most songwriters. I know that’s true with my husband’s work,” she says. “Hopefully my songs have that universal quality so people can apply them to their own life somehow.