The Youngbloods, their story

Come on people now/Smile on your brother/ Everybody get together/Try and love one an­other, right now.” Classic lines indeed. “Get Together” was jangling 12-string folk-rock, message music, and—as faithful fans will attest—the Youngbloods at their very best.

Jesse Colin Young (b. Perry Miller, Nov. 11, 1944, New York City) was a moderately suc­cessful folksinger with two LPs under his belt—Soul of a City Boy (1964) and Young­blood (1965)—when he met a fellow folkie and former bluegrass picker from Cambridge named Jerry Corbitt (b. Tifton, Ga. ). When in town, Jesse would drop in on Jerry, and the two would jam for hours, exchanging harmonies.

Beginning in January 1965, the two began gigging 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 boy named Harmon Banana (b. Lowell Levinger, 1946, Cambridge, Mass. ). “Banana” was handy with the banjo, mandolin, mandola, guitar, and bass; he had played in the Proper Bostoners and the Trolls, and knew of a fellow tenant in his building who could flesh out the band. Joe Bauer (b. Sept. 26, 1941, Memphis), an aspir­ing jazz drummer with experience playing in society dance bands, was at first quite un­moved by the offer to perform in a rock and roll outfit, but soon gave in.

Once the line-up was set, Jesse Colin Young & The Youngbloods, as the group was then known, began building a solid 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 snagged a recording contract with RCA Records. Jesse, though, was not too 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 solid item in “Grizzly Bear” (#52, 1967). Several classic  albums followed—The Youngbloods (1967; later retitled Get Together), Earth Music (1967), and Elephant Mountain (1969). When that paean to universal brotherhood, “Get To­gether," first appeared in the Summer of Love, 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 radio spots—the track was re- released and cracked the top 40.

The Youngbloods recorded a few more al­bums, then split up. In an interview with Craw- daddy's Peter Knobler, Jesse ascribed the leg­endary act's break-up to a conflict over one of his tunes, “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, Ί 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 within the Youngbloods came to a head a year later. “Ba­nana came to me and said, ‘Joe thinks that there’s some musical value to the [“Peace Song”], some musical directioa’ 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 on 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 & The Bunch (Mid Mountain Ratige) and Noggins (Crab Tunes). Jesse, the Youngblood with the highest profile, established the solo career he apparently always wanted. No hit singles so far (not even “Peace Song”), but albums like Light Shine (1974), Songbird (1975), and the live On The Road (1976) have sold well.