JESSE COLIN YOUNG, WHO LED FOLK-ROCK GROUP THE YOUNGBLOODS, DIES AT 80

Jesse Colin Young, who seamlessly blended folk, blues, jazz, country and rock as the leader of The Youngbloods and subsequently during a lengthy solo career, died at his home in Aiken, South Carolina, Sunday (3/16). He was 83. The news came from his wife and manager, Connie Darden-Young. No cause of death was given.

As the frontman of The Youngbloods, Young captured the ideals of the Woodstock generation with "Get Together," an international hit that called for peace and brotherhood during the turbulent 1960s. The Youngbloods’ only major hit, it was released in 1967 but did not peak at #5 for two years.

Born Perry Miller in New York in 1941, Young dropped out of NYU to join the Greenwich Village folk circuit. He recorded the solo albums Soul of a City Boy (Capitol, 1963) and Youngblood (Mercury, 1964), the latter with John Sebastian, before forming a duo in 1965 with guitarist Jerry Corbitt. The Youngbloods lineup was set with the addition of drummer Joe Bauer and multi-instrumentalist Lowell “Banana” Levinger. The group fulfilled Young’s contractual obligations with Mercury with Two Trips in 1967, then signed with RCA. Its self-titled debut album included “Get Together,” written by Quicksilver Messenger Service’s Dino Valenti under the pseudonym Chet Powers.

After relocating to California, The Youngbloods released the critically acclaimed, Charlie Daniels-produced Elephant Mountain as a trio following Corbitt’s departure. That album, the act's masterwork, included the intense rocker “Darkness, Darkness,” the jazzy “Ride the Wind” and the idyllic “Sunlight.” (Robert Plant received a Grammy nomination in 2002 for his cover of “Darkness, Darkness.”)

The group signed to Warner Bros. as a trio, scoring its own label, Raccoon, which released three little-heard albums. The Youngbloods disbanded in 1972.

Young then embarked on a solo career, recording a series of folky albums featuring his supple tenor, among them Song for Juli (WB, 1973), Songbird (WB, 1975), American Dreams (Elektra, 1978) and The Highway Is for Heroes (Cypress, 1987). What would be his final album, Dreamers, was released in 2019 on BMG.

In recent years he hosted a podcast and ramped up his long-standing social/environmental activism.

Young is survived by Connie Darden-Young, son Tristan, daughter Jazzie and two children from his first marriage, Juli and Cheyenne.