| Jeff Young | |
|---|---|
| Born | March 31, 1962 Ann Arbor, Michigan, U.S. |
| Genres | Thrash metal, Heavy metal, Speed metal, Classical |
| Occupations | Musician, songwriter, record producer |
| Instruments | Guitar |
| Years active | 1986–present |
| Associated acts | Megadeth, Equilibrium, Souls on 11 |
| Website | http://www.soulson11.com |
Jeff Young (born March 31, 1962) is an American guitarist. He graduated from Musicians Institute in 1985, and is best known for his time with the thrash metal band Megadeth, appearing on the 1988 album So Far, So Good... So What!. In addition to his subsequent music projects, he served as an author in Guitar for the Practicing Musician.
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Young was born in Ann Arbor, Michigan. In 1980, he graduated from Fairmont High School in Kettering, Ohio, and moved to Hollywood to attend Musicians Institute/GIT in 1984. He graduated from the Institute in 1985 and began his career as a guitar teacher.
Young is the lead guitarist on Megadeth's platinum selling, So Far, So Good… So What! (1988 Capitol Records).
Megadeth's transient guitarist, Jay Reynolds (of Malice), had commissioned Young to play all of his solos on the new album, transcribe the previous Megadeth releases and teach him everything in time for the pending tours. However, after witnessing Young decipher previous guitarist Chris Poland's solos from Peace Sells... but Who's Buying? note-for-note in less than 30 minutes, frontman Dave Mustaine decided to cut out the middleman and enlist Young into the fold. Young joined the band with only two weeks left in the recording schedule and contributed half of the guitar solos and multpile electric & acoustic rhythm parts to the album.
Jeff's career with Megadeth was spent recording and touring in support of their 1988 platinum selling album, So Far, So Good...So What! His very first performance with the band appeared in The Decline of Western Civilization Part II: The Metal Years as a member of Megadeth.
While Young had joined a popular thrash metal band with a rabid fanbase, his own musical tastes were more diverse than Megadeth's technical style.
In 2009, Young issued an online reply to inaccurate statements made by Dave Mustaine. He replied to Mustaine's claim that he (Mustaine) "sang" Jeff's guitar solos to him. Jeff accused Mustaine of lying about this saying Mustaine never sang a solo to him nor was he even in the recording studio when Young recorded or wrote his parts.
Following his time in Megadeth, Jeff wrote the cult-classic Fingerprints column in Guitar for the Practicing Musician magazine. He also began intensive study of the blues with legendary guitarist, Steve Hunter (Peter Gabriel, Lou Reed, Alice Cooper, Jason Becker).
For a portion of the 1990s, Jeff stepped away from his career to deal with the untimely deaths of first his father and later his mother while immersing himself in the further study of classical, flamenco, gypsy jazz and other world music varieties
In 1998, he resurfaced with new Brazilian musical partner, Badi Assad. Together, the duo crafted exotic soundscapes for Verve/PolyGram records collaboration entitled, Badi Assad's Chameleon. The album (co-written, arranged, and produced by Jeff), climbed to in Germany, also topping JAZZIZ magazine's Readers Poll: "Best Brazilian Albums of the Year."
Opening concerts for renowned artists including Joe Cocker and Cassandra Wilson, as well as performances on 1999's Lilith Fair and Farm Aid 2000 are testament to the considerable cross-over appeal of Badi and Jeff's "new world music" explorations. Jeff's association with the Assad family also spawned songwriting collaborations with guitar luminary Sergio Assad and two pieces on Badi's Verde album.
In 2003, the track "Waves" from Chameleon was featured in the Michael and Kirk Douglas film It Runs in the Family, as well as on the movie's soundtrack.
In late-October 2009, his debut solo album, Equilibrium, was released on CDBaby.com.[1] Young began working on the album in 2000. He overcame testicular cancer in 2003. For the project, Young draws on flamenco, classic, 6 & 12 steel-string guitar styles as well as the electric guitar. The album features performances by Debby Holiday, Twinkle, Gilli Moon, Lenine, Matt Chamberlain, Hilary Jones, Tony Franklin and Viviana Guzman.
Jeff's eleven song solo debut, Equilibrium is available world-wide on his own water.songs.music label and on sale now on iTunes and at cdbaby.com
| Preceded by Chris Poland |
Megadeth lead guitarist 1987-1989 |
Succeeded by Marty Friedman |