The Youngbloods
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- This article refers to the 1960's band The Youngbloods. For other uses of the term please see Youngblood (disambiguation).
| The Youngbloods | ||
|---|---|---|
| Background information | ||
| Genre(s) | folk rock | |
| Former members | ||
| Jesse Colin Young Jerry Corbitt "Banana" Lowell Levinger Joe Bauer |
||
The Youngbloods was an American folk rock band consisting of Jesse Colin Young (vocals, bass), Jerry Corbitt (lead guitar), "Banana" Lowell Levinger (rhythm guitar), and Joe Bauer (drums). Despite receiving critical acclaim, they never achieved widespread popularity. Their only U.S. Top 40 entry was "Get Together".
Contents |
[edit] Band History
[edit] Background and formation
Jesse Colin Young (b, Perry Miller, November 11, 1944, New York City) was a moderately successful folk singer with two LPs under his belt--Soul of a City Boy (1964) and Youngblood (1965)--when he met fellow folk singer and former Bluegrass musician from Cambridge named Jerry Corbitt (b. Tifton, Georgia) When in town, Jesse would drop in on Jerry, and the two would play together for hours, exchanging harmonies.
Beginning in January 1965, the two began performing on the Canadian circuit as a duo (eventually as the Youngbloods, Young would play bass, and Corbitt would play lead guitar). Corbitt introduced Young to a bluegrass musician named Banana (b. Lowell Levinger, 1946, Cambridge, Massachusetts). Banana could play the banjo, mandolin, mandola, guitar and bass; he had played in the Proper Bostoners and the Trolls, and knew of a fellow tenant who could flesh out the band. Joe Bauer (b. September 26, 1941, Memphis, Florida), an aspiring jazz drummer with experience playing in society dance bands, was at first unmoved by the offer to perform in a rock and roll outfit, but soon gave in.
[edit] Small gigs lead to recording success
Once the lineup was set, Jesse Colin Young and the Youngbloods, as the group was then known, began building a reputation from their club dates. (Early demo sides recorded in 1965 were later issued by Mercury on the Two Trips album.) Their first gig had been at Gerde's Folk City in Greenwich Village; months later, they were the house band at the Cafe Au Go Go and had got a recording contract with RCA Records. Jesse, though, was not satisfied with the label. "Nobody at [RCA] was really mean or anything; everybody was just kind of stupid," he explained to Rolling Stone. "They never knew what to make of us, and tried to set us up as a bubblegum act...they never knew what we were, and never knew how to merchandise us."
The arrangement did produce one charting single in "Grizzly Bear" (#52, 1967). Several critically praised albums followed--The Youngbloods (1967; later retitled Get Together), Earth Music (1967), and Elephant Mountain (1969). When their version of the "Get Together," a paean to universal brotherhood first appeared, it did not sell too well (#62, 1967). But two years later--after the National Council of Christians and Jews used the song as their theme song on television and radio spots--the track was re-released and cracked the top five.
[edit] Breakup and aftermath
The Youngbloods recorded a few more albums, then split up. In an interview with Crawdaddy!'s Peter Knobler, Jesse ascribed the break-up to a conflict over one of his songs, "Peace Song."
"I played ["Peace Song"] the night I wrote it, during the recording session for Rock Festival at the Fillmore, and the people just went crazy, they loved it! And the next night the guys played on it, and I didn't dig it. I thought [their playing] detracted from the power of the song...For the first time since the band had been together, I said 'I want to do this alone.' Also Joe [Bauer] said, 'That's not Youngblood music, that's you; I don't want that on the Youngbloods album,' and it hurt."
According to Young, tensions with the Youngbloods came to a head a year later. "Banana came to me and said, 'Joe thinks that there's some value to the ["Peace Song"], some musical direction.' I said, 'Musical direction? Screw off!... It made me think, what am I doing in this band?"
The group's final LPs were Ride The Wind (1971), Good and Dusty (1971), and High in a Ridgetop (1972). Corbitt, who had left the Youngbloods in 1971, became a producer (Charlie Daniels, Don McLean) and cut two LPs on his own (Corbitt and Jerry Corbitt). Bauer made one solo record (Moonset) and, with Banana, recorded as Banana and The Bunch (Mid Mountain Range), and Noggins (Crab Tunes). Jesse, the Youngblood with the highest profile, established the solo career he apparently always wanted. He hasn't had a hit single yet, but albums like Light Shine (1974), Songbird (1975), and the live On The Road (1976) have sold well.
