Jesse Colin Young passed away just over a year ago, on the 16th of March, at the age of eighty-three. Born Perry Miller and raised in Queens, New York, to musical parents, Young initially found fame as a founding member of the seminal 1960s group the Youngbloods, who first achieved international success when their cover of Chet Powers’ Get Together, originally from their eponymous debut album, was re-released in 1969. Though he would go on to be recognised as the band’s main songwriter, few of the Youngbloods’ earlier material was written by Young, contributing only two for the debut album and four on the sophomore release Earth Music that appeared just a matter of months later. However, the departure of the guitarist Jerry Corbitt from the band during the production of the Charlie Daniels-produced third album, Elephant Mountain, saw Young step up to the plate, writing or co-writing nine of the thirteen tracks, including the opening number, Darkness, Darkness. The album would prove the high point of the band’s career, appearing in the book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die, while years later, Rolling Stone magazine said the album “bridges the gap between the last days of psychedelia and the outbreak of country-rock”. Despite the critical acclaim the album achieved, it only mustered a modicum of chart success, and after another two rather lacklustre offerings, the band called it a day in 1972.
At this time, Young returned to a solo career that had seen him release two albums between 1964 and 1965, having built a recording studio next to his home in Inverness, California, from where the album Together was recorded and released in 1972. The album’s success led Young to disband the Youngbloods, and the remaining decade would see him release another five albums, including Song for Juli(1973), which remained on the Billboard 200 for almost a year, and Songbird (1975), which reached number 26 in the U.S. and number 20 in Canada.
Though his commercial success would be much more diminished through the following decades, Young continued to record and release albums right up to Dreamers, his seventeenth solo studio release, which saw the light of day in 2019. In 2006, he and his family moved to Aiken, South Carolina, the hometown of his second wife, and it would be here that he passed away in 2025. arguably receiving less coverage than his achievements deserved.
Despite writing some excellent songs throughout his six-decade career, one in particular has always stood out. The much-covered Darkness, Darkness. Having originally appeared on the Youngbloods’ seminal album Elephant Mountain. The song has gone on to be recorded by a wide array of artists, including Ian Matthews on his 1976 album Go for Broke, while the song would become the title track for former Animals frontman Eric Burdon’s 1980 release. American rock band Screaming Trees, seen as one of the pioneers of grunge, covered the song for the 1994 True Lies soundtrack. Around the same time, legendary American folk singer-songwriter guitarist Richie Havens recorded a version for his 1994 album Cut to the Chase, while more recently, none other than Robert Plant released a stunning version of the song as a single from his 2002 album Dreamland, which received a nomination for a Grammy Award for Best Male Rock Vocal Performance.
In many ways, this article could just as well have been written as an obituary, and would have been perfect as a For The Sake Of The Song feature, dare one suggest even More People Really Should Know About, and in truth, I hope it works on all levels. In the meantime, I have attached a clip of Young performing an acoustic version of Darkness, Darkness at the All-Star Jam, live at the Capitol Theatre, Passaic, New Jersey, June 9th, 1984. I hope you enjoy.
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