Jesse Colin Young, singer who urged us to “gather,” dies at 83

Jesse Colin Young, who was adamant about one of the most loving national anthems of the hippie era with his sincere tenor vocals for Young Blood, won a top five hit in 1969.

His death was announced by his spokesman Michael Jensen.

Young did not write that he would “collect.” It was later composed by folk singer Dino Valenti, a member of the band Quicksilver Messenger Services, under the pseudonym of Chet Powers. But Young's voice made it ideal, and the chorus he sang – “Come to people now/Smile at your brother/Everyone is coming together/Let's love each other now” – became one of the most famous refrains of the 1960s.

“The lyrics just die,” Young told the Arts Hughes in 2018 on his website. “To this day it gives us the thrill of playing it.”

He composed many other important parts of Youngblood's repertoire during their prime in the late 1960s, including a gloomy “darkness, darkness,” which reflected the horrors that American soldiers imagined to be experiencing during the Vietnam War. “Nikko”, a fascinating Ode to passionate love. And then there's a jazzy Pean to freedom, “riding the wind.”

Many of the lyrics to Young's songs celebrated the gifts nature gives, from dreamy sunlight play on the skin to free-to-cleaning the wind of your hair.

“Love in nature is just as much a subject of my music as romantic love,” he told music lovers on the website in 2016.

Young's voice was as sensible as he said. Blessed with boyish and high pitch, he balances innocent characters with refined musicality with ease of use, with his ability to bend lyrics to the great dancers to navigate delicate movements. Like his compositions, his phraseology was drawn from a wide range of genres, both traditional and modern, including folk, jugband music, psychedelia, R&B, and jazz. To the same source, his solo work, especially a series of successful albums released in the mid-1970s, each defeated Billboard's Top 40, including “Light Shine” and “Songbird.”

Although Youngbloods' albums never enjoyed the success of the charts, their songs were popular on the FM stations of the era, and proved an inspirational cover from several major artists, including Robert Plant, whose take on “Darkness, Darkness” was nominated for a Grammy Award in 2002 for his best male rock performance.

The legacy of “together” highlighted the careers of both Mr. Youngblood and Youngblood, but they were not the first act to document it. Mr Valenti cut his own version in 1963, but was not published until three years later, by that time it was featured by the Forks Wingers (as an instrumental), the Kingston Trio and Jefferson Airplane, who featured it on their debut album. After the hit of Youngbloods, the song was rendered by many other artists, including Joni Mitchell and Nancy Wilson of Heart. Nirvana sarcastically put some of the words in her 1994 song, Territory Piss.

The Youngbloods version later appeared on the “Forrest Gump” soundtrack, covered by Lisa Simpson in an episode of “The Simpsons.”

Oddly, the song was not a hit for the first time Youngblood released it on his debut album in 1967. It was featured in the announcement of a massive public service by the National Conference of Christians and Jews, and the ambitious A&R people from RCA Victor, the band's record company, reached the charts in 1969.

Jesse Collin Young was born in Queens on November 22, 1941 to accountant Fredrik Miller and violinist and singer Doris (Vanciber) Miller. He chose the stage name for Western sound in the early 1960s by combining outlaw Jesse James with Cole Younger's moniker, and Formula One designer and engineer Colin Chapman.

Encouraged by his parents, he studied piano as a child and won a scholarship to attend Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts as a teenager. He studied classical guitar there, but played songs by the Everly Brothers.

He later enrolled at Ohio State, where he lived behind a record store and was exposed to the music of blues artists such as T-Bone Walker and BB King. After transferring to New York University, he was fascinated by the folk scene in Greenwich village and left school to play music full time.

Shortly afterwards, he met jazz pianist and songwriter Bobby Scott. Scott linked him to Capitol Records, who released Young's first album, “The Soul of A City Boy,” in 1964. His follow-up, “Young Blood,” had a similar sound.

While performing in Cambridge, Massachusetts, he met guitarist Jerry Corbitt, and the two formed young blood rounded up by pianist and guitarist Lowell Lewinger, known as Banana, and drummer Joe Bauer. The band had two other guitarists, so Young had switched to bass by the time Youngblood became the village Cafe Go Go house band.

That exposure helped them win a contract with RCA, who released their debut album. The deal allowed them to choose their own producers, and they chose Felix Pappalardi, who was well known for their folk circles, but who produced Cream's albums and quickly became known for being a member of the hard rock band Mountain.

On the Youngbloods album, Young dominated the lead vocals, but was handled by Corbitt or Levinger. Both wrote some of the group's songs. Young discovered that he would “gather” after hearing the buzzy Linhart play it at a village club. “Heaven opened up and my life changed,” he told Goldmine Magazine in 2021.

The group's third album left Mr. Corbitt, fearing flying. (He passed away in 2014.) By that time the group had moved to California. Produced by country rocker Charlie Daniels, the 1969 album “Elephant Mountain,” focuses more accurately on Young's talent and is widely regarded as the group's best work.

The live album “Ride the Wind” released in 1971 was a band at Instrumental Peak. However, the next two studio albums were watered down by the band's sound, and in 1972 he broke his solo career with the album “Together” leading Mr. Young.

By then he had lived in Marin County, but his rolling landscape and Broadvista found remorse not only for his lyrics, but also for his refreshing, jazz-oriented music. By the 1990s, Young's albums were no longer selling, but he continued to release independently with stable clips. He stopped playing in 2012 while battling chronic Lyme disease, but he returned to form four years later. His last album, “Dreamers,” appeared in 2019.

Mr. Young was survived by his wife and manager, Connie Darden Yong. their son, Tristan Young and daughter, Jazzy Young; and two children from his first marriage, Julie and Cheyenne Young.

Throughout his life, Young felt that he needed to cherish and ultimately fulfill the hopeful message of “together.” “It's like the finishing touch to a circle,” he told Maryland publication The Beacon in 2018. It's time to do it. ”