LOS ANGELES (AP) -- A writer has sued Neil Young, claiming the musician rejected the authorized biography he spent nearly eight years writing.

Jimmy McDonough, a freelance writer based in Amboy, Wash., claims in a lawsuit filed Monday in Los Angeles Superior Court that the famed singer of "Sugar Mountain" and "Harvest Moon" owes him $1.8 million in compensation and lost profits.McDonough's attorney, Henry Gradstein, said Young hired McDonough as his authorized biographer in 1991. When McDonough, 40, produced a finished manuscript in late 1998, Young "apparently had a change of heart" that he never explained, Gradstein said.

Gradstein said "Shakey: The Biography of Neil Young" did not paint an unflattering portrait of Young.

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