Youngbloods frontman Jesse Colin Young has died, aged 83

nme.com:

Smile on your brother/Everybody get together/Try to love one another right now.”While Young didn’t pen the track, he wrote numerous other songs for the Youngbloods, with the statement announcing his death nodding to his “socially conscious lyrics with top-tier guitar skills and gorgeous vocals.”His social and environmental activism was a major theme of his career, and he went on to appear at 1979’s ‘No Nukes’ protest concert at Madison Square Garden alongside Crosby, Stills & Nash, James Taylor, Jackson Browne and more.Young grew up studying piano and classical guitar, with his love of blues leading him to Greenwich Village.

He released a pair of solo folk albums in the mid-’60s, ‘The Soul of a City Boy’ and ‘Young Blood’.After meeting guitarist Jerry Corbitt, the pair formed the Youngbloods alongside pianist/guitarist Lovell Levinger and drummer Joe Bauer, and the band gigged regularly around the Village, going on to release their self-titled debut in 1967.The Youngbloods’ two biggest hits, were ‘Grizzly Bear’ and ‘Get Together’, the latter of which initially only hit 62 on the Billboard Hot 100, but later became a far bigger success after being featured in a PSA by the National Conference of Jews and Christians.With stronger backing from RCA, the song later re-entered the charts and eventually peaked at Number Five on the Hot 100.

Following that, Young became their primary songwriter, writing two minor hits on their third album, ‘Elephant Mountain’, ‘Darkness, Darkness’ – as covered by Robert Plant in 2002 – and ‘Sunlight’.

The band shared a pair of live albums and two more studio records before disbanding in 1972.That same year, Young went solo career and released a string of albums, including ‘Song for Juli’ and.