The Youngbloods

Although the Youngbloods never ranked among the leading acts of the 1960s, they still delivered engaging folk-rock during the decade’s final years and left behind several memorable songs. As one of the stronger East Coast outfits to surface in the mid-1960s, the group fused blues and jug-band roots with understated California psychedelia, especially after settling in the San Francisco Bay Area. Listeners today tend to link them solely with the Top Ten success of “Get Together,” yet under singer-songwriter Jesse Colin Young they also issued a series of consistently worthwhile albums.

Young had already performed on the Boston and New York folk circuits and released a pair of solo albums before assembling the Youngbloods. John Sebastian played on Young’s second LP, prompting frequent comparisons between the two musicians and between the Youngbloods and the Lovin’ Spoonful. Both bands specialized in good-time folk-rock steeped more deeply in jug-band traditions than West Coast acts such as the Byrds, though the Youngbloods featured electric keyboards more prominently through the work of Lowell “Banana” Levinger. While they never matched the Lovin’ Spoonful’s run of outstanding singles, the Youngbloods, unlike that group, remained active well into the hippie and psychedelic period.

Jesse Colin Young always served as the band’s central presence, yet guitarist Jerry Corbitt supplied songs for the first two albums. Felix Pappalardi, already known for his productions with Cream, oversaw those sessions, resulting in the engaging if uneven folk-rock LPs The Youngbloods and Earth Music. Corbitt’s “Grizzly Bear” became a modest hit, as did “Get Together,” a composition by Dino Valenti previously recorded by Jefferson Airplane. The Youngbloods’ measured, soulful reading of the song proved definitive, yet it did not reach the Top Ten until its 1969 re-release after appearing in a television public-service announcement.

Once Corbitt departed, the Youngbloods carried on as a trio living in Marin County, California. Their 1969 album Elephant Mountain was produced by Charlie Daniels. Reflecting the gentler influence of San Francisco psychedelia, it stands as their strongest collection and contains some of Young’s finest compositions. The group disbanded in 1972, and Jesse Colin Young went on to sustain a lengthy solo career as a singer-songwriter with moderate commercial success.