Sunday morning coming down | Power Line

I celebrated Jesse Colin Young’s birthday when he turned 83 last year. I wrote up this installment of my Sunday Morning series in honor of his 80th birthday. Listening to Albert O hosting Highway 61 Revisited on WUMB yesterday morning, I learned that Jesse died last week. Jim Farber’s New York Times obituary is here. It’s a Sunday morning coming down, indeed. I want to remember Jesse again this morning with this tribute.

You may have heard of Jesse as the founding member of the Youngbloods or as a solo artist. I love his work. It has meant a lot to me for a long time. It triggers a kaleidoscope of memories and feelings.

Jesse struggled over many years with a devastating case of Lyme Disease that went undiagnosed until he found his symptoms described in a book about it. Antibiotic treatment helped him overcome sufficiently to resume his career. If you saw him in concert after his recovery, you probably heard him talk about it. He wanted to shine a light on the disease.

Jesse came up in the Greenwich Village folk scene. He released two obscure albums as a folk artist. Soul of a City Boy (1964) was the first. “You Gotta Fix It” was one of six originals on the album.

Jesse recorded Young Blood on Mercury in 1965. The title pointed the way to the future. “Trouble In Mind” is one of several songs from that album that was rereleased by Mercury on Two Trips in 1970. It features the unmistakable sound of John Sebastian on harmonica.

Jesse himself wrote “Lullabye” for that 1965 album. Tom Rush recorded a beautiful cover of it for his self-titled major-label debut on Columbia in 1970, where I first heard it.

Jesse founded the Youngbloods in 1967 with Jerry Corbitt on guitar, Lowell “Banana” Levinger on keyboards, and Joe Bauer on drums. As I say, Jesse had come up through the folk scene and already had two solo albums to his credit by the time the he formed the group. Guitar is his first love. To make the group work, however, Jesse moved from guitar to bass.

The Youngbloods’ self-titled debut album (produced by Felix Pappalardi) included the top 10 hit “Get Together,” written by Chet Powers. (Powers played with Quicksilver Messenger Service and also wrote under the names Dino Valenti and Jesse Oris Farrow.) I interviewed Jesse by email after seeing him perform with his Celtic Mambo lineup at Rossi’s Blue Star Room in Minneapolis in 2006. I posted the interview in “Aloha, Jesse.” Jesse told me: “The Youngbloods were one of the house bands at the Cafe Au Go Go [in Greenwich Village] and I heard the song at an open mike there. Buzzy Linhart sang it and I fell in love with it and took it into rehearsal with the YBs the next day. There was no way we could not record it ’cause I was crazy about it.”

Released as a single in 1967, the song became a huge hit two years later. The National Conference of Christians and Jews adopted it as the soundtrack to a public service advertisement promoting national unity in 1969. The song had been recorded by others before it became a hit for the Youngbloods in 1969; it was Jesse’s ingratiating voice and passionate vocal that made this version of the song click. The NCCJ ad brought the recording to the attention of the country and struck a nerve. Jesse’s vocal grabbed our attention. He’s still playing the song generations later and still whispering “Listen!”

Blind Willie McTell was one of Jesse’s musical heroes. McTell’s “Statesboro Blues” is the song that Jesse wanted on that debut Youngbloods album (see Jesse’s podcast episode below).

The Youngbloods followed up their debut album with Earth Music. Their first two albums are both full of good songs. I don’t think RCA had any idea how to promote the group. “All My Dreams Blue” was one of the two songs Jesse wrote for the album.

Jesse adapted “Sugar Babe” from one of the field recordings made by John and Alan Lomax. I don’t think it ever sounded this good before or since.

I first heard the Youngbloods playing on the college circuit in the spring of 1970. By this time they had released Elephant Mountain (their third album, produced by Charlie Daniels). The album kicks off with Jesse’s “Darkness, Darkness.”

At the other end of the spiritual polarity is Jesse’s “Sunlight,” the fourth track on the album. When I saw him in 2006, Jesse said the song was based on his favorite chord. The song itself is easily one of my favorites of all time. How could this recording not have been a hit?

Elephant Mountain represented the Youngbloods at their peak. The album is full of great tracks. They noodled around on a few cuts, but it is an almost perfect album. They recorded several more good albums, including Good and Dusty and High on a Ridge Top, both reflecting Jesse’s love of folk, blues, country, and rock. If it was downhill (pun intended) from Elephant Mountain, it was a pleasant descent. Below, for example, is Jesse’s cover of Taj Mahal’s “She Caught the Katy (and Left Me a Mule To Ride).”

Jesse went on to a fruitful solo career in which he has recorded many albums backed by excellent musicians. My favorite of these is Song For Juli. The title track is for his daughter. He stuffs a few beautiful melodies into this one. I think he loved the girl.

Jesse thought he had found heaven at his ridgetop home in northern California. He lost it in the 1995 fire that broke out in Point Reyes National Seashore. Before the fire, he memorialized it in “Ridgetop.”

Jesse attended Phillips Academy on scholarship. His love of the guitar brought him into conflict with the authorities at school, however, and he was expelled during his senior year. You can hear his intelligence and his love of wordplay at work in “Miss Hesitation” as he adapts “Hesitation Blues” to his own uses.

When we saw Jesse in Minneapolis in 2018 he talked about his struggle with Lyme Disease. He said that he had stopped touring and thought he had retired. Then he went to his son’s graduation from Berklee College of Music and heard his son’s band of classmates play. He was inspired to team up and take them on the road. I think the video below shows the aggregation we saw at the Dakota: Tristan Young on bass, Donnie Hogue on drums, JennHwan Wong on keyboard, Jack Sheehan on sax, Aleif Hamdan on electric guitar, and Virginia Garcia-Alves and Sally Rose backing Jesse on vocals.

Let’s sign off with Jesse’s cover of T-Bone Walker’s “T-Bone Shuffle” from his 2017 session live at Daryl’s house. I remember the musicians on keyboard, sax, and lead guitar wailing on this song when we saw them all in Minneapolis.

Jesse’s site has posted the five episodes of his 2020 Tripping On My Roots podcast in video form. He kicked off the series with an episode on Blind Willie McTell. He called on F. Lewis Smith, then director of the McDuffie Museum in McTell’s Georgia hometown. At about 17:00 Smith turned the tables and asks Jesse about his own “Darkness, Darkness.” You can see the question caught him by surprise. In any event, this episode constitutes Jesse’s tribute to one of his formative musical heroes.

In episode two he recalled Little Richard. In episode four he caught up with Taj Mahal. The series whets my appetite for that autobiography.

RIP.