I've always loved Neil's music. I agree with the other observations here. His work is poetic at the core - his subject matter, words, his shaky vocals, his loose feel in his playing and the timbre of his guitar.
There once was a good article describing his gear linked to
HyperRust, the link is still there but broken.
Here's what I remember from that article. The info in
this wikipedia article on Neil is I think consistent with this.
Originally a P90 equipped goldtop LP, painted black early on, the bridge pickup failed since Neil had it and was replaced with a Firebird minibucker. The minibucker is very beat up and very microphonic. Deep pits in the fretboard and frets bardly worn. He doesn't want it any of it changed.
His tweed Deluxe apparently has a couple of sweet spots not exactly like those he has found in other tweed Deluxes, and he has bought a few hundred of them trying to find another one like it. He controls the Deluxe through his Whizzer, an electronic remotely controlled device that robotically turns the knobs to those sweet spots. They keep the amp cool in concerts with electric fans and have it positioned somewhere like under the stage on a platform to isolate it from vibrations of the stage. (Miked of course.)
A few of Neil's early songs were some of the first songs I liked enough and found suitable, that I learned them all the way through vocals and chords and a little picking mixed in with the chords. Like the wooden version of Cowgirl in the Sand from Woodstock.