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The Youngbloods
The band in 1968
Background information
Origin	Greenwich Village, New York City, United States
Genres	Folk rock psychedelic rock
Years active	1965–1972, 1984–1985
Labels	Raccoon Records,RCA Victor
Past members	Jesse Colin Young (deceased) Jerry Corbitt (deceased) Lowell Levinger Joe Bauer (deceased) Michael Kane (deceased) David Perper Scott Lawrence

The Youngbloods was an American rock band consisting ofJesse Colin Young (vocals, bass, guitar),Jerry Corbitt (vocals, guitar, keyboards, harmonica), Lowell "Banana" Levinger (guitar andelectric piano), and Joe Bauer (drums). Despite receiving critical acclaim, they never achieved widespread popularity. Their only U.S.Top 40 entry wasChet Powers's "Get Together".^[1][2]

Jesse Colin Young (born Perry Miller, November 22, 1941,Queens, New York) was a moderately successfulfolk singer with two LPs –Soul of a City Boy (1964) andYoungblood (1965) – when he met fellowfolk singer and formerbluegrass musician fromCambridge, Massachusetts,Jerry Corbitt (born Jerry Byron Corbitt, January 7, 1943,Tifton, Georgia).^[3][4] When in town, Young would drop in on Corbitt, and the two played together exchanging harmonies.

Beginning in January 1965, the two began performing on the Canadian circuit as aduo, eventually adopting the name "The Youngbloods".^[5] The band's name was a reference to Young's second album.^[6] Young played bass, and Corbitt sang and played piano, harmonica and lead guitar. Corbitt introduced Young to a bluegrass musician, Lowell Levinger (born Lowell Vincent Levinger, September 9, 1944,Manhattan, New York City). Levinger, known as "Banana", could play the piano,banjo,mandolin,mandola, guitar and bass; he had played in the Proper Bostonians and the Trolls, and played mainly piano and guitar in the Youngbloods. He knew of a fellow tenant who could flesh out the band, Joe Bauer (born September 26, 1941,Memphis, Tennessee), an aspiringjazz drummer with experience playing in society dance bands.^[5]

Once the line-up was set, Jesse Colin Young and the Youngbloods, as the group was then known, began building a reputation from their club dates. (Early demo sides from 1965 were later issued byMercury Records on theTwo Trips album.) Their first concert had been atGerde's Folk City inGreenwich Village; months later, they were thehouse band at theCafe Au Go Go and had signed a recording contract withRCA Victor.^[5] Young, however, was not satisfied with RCA.^{[citation needed]}

The arrangement produced one charting single, "Grizzly Bear" (number 52 in 1967 and number 35 inCanada^[5][7]). Several critically praised albums followed:The Youngbloods (1967, later retitledGet Together);Earth Music (1967); andElephant Mountain (1969), with the track "Darkness, Darkness".^[5]

In 1967, when the track "Get Together", a paean to universal brotherhood, first appeared, it did not sell well, reaching only number 62 on the chart.^[8] But two years later – afterDan Ingram had recorded a brotherhood promotion forWABC-AM in which the song was used as a bed for the promotion, and after theNational Council of Christians and Jews subsequently used the song in television and radio commercials – the track was re-released and cracked theTop 5.^[2][9] Thisdisc sold over one million copies and received agold record, awarded by theRIAA, on October 7, 1969.^[1]

Johnny Carson once reportedly refused to allow the band to perform onThe Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, saying they were overly demanding during the pre-showsoundcheck. In a 2009 interview, Young stated that the band refused to perform because the show reneged on a promise that they could play a song from their new albumElephant Mountain, instead demanding that they play only "Get Together".^[10]

Tensions existed within the band as well.^[11]

With Corbitt's departure from the band (for a solo career) in 1969, before the band recorded the albumElephant Mountain, Levinger assumed lead guitar duties and played extensively on Wurlitzer electric piano.^[5] The band became adept at lengthy improvisations in their live performances (as captured on the albumsRock Festival andRide the Wind, released after the band moved over to their own Raccoon label,^[5] distributed byWarner Brothers).

The group added the bassist Michael Kane to their lineup in 1971 and released two more albums:Good & Dusty (1971), which featured "Hippie from Olema" (an answer toMerle Haggard's "Okie from Muskogee"), andHigh on a Ridgetop (1972), before disbanding.^[5]

In 1971Jerry Corbitt and former Youngbloods producerCharlie Daniels formed a band called Corbitt & Daniels and toured. Young, Levinger and Bauer went on to solo careers; only Young had any notable success. Levinger, Bauer and Kane were part of another group, Noggins, in 1972, which released one album,Crab Tunes. Bauer died of abrain tumor in September 1982, at the age of 40.^[12]

Banana supplied guitar, banjo, synthesizer and back-up vocals toMimi Fariña's 1985 solo album,Solo, and also toured with her on and off from 1973 until the 1990s.^[13] During the 1980s and 1990s, he played with the jam rock band Zero on keyboards, vocals and rhythm guitar.

In late 1984, the Youngbloods briefly reunited for a club tour. The 1984 line-up contained Young, Corbitt and Levinger, plus new membersDavid Perper (drums, ex-Pablo Cruise) and Scott Lawrence (keyboards, woodwinds). Once the tour was completed, the group disbanded once again by mid-1985.

Jerry Corbitt died of lung cancer on March 8, 2014. He was 71.^[3][4]

Lowell Levinger released three self-producedbluegrass albums as "Grandpa Banana":I'll Do Anything For You (2009),Just Trying To Break Even (2011) andEven Grandpas Get The Blues (2012). He later joinedLittle Steven and the Disciples of Soul for their 2017 European and 2018 American tours in support of (Steven) Van Zandt's latest album,Soulfire.

In 2014 Sony Music Japan remastered the first three Youngbloods albums asThe Youngbloods – 3 Albums Collection 1967–1969 (Mini LP BSCD2).The Youngbloods andEarth Music, contain both mono and stereo versions of the album, plus bonus tracks.Elephant Mountain contains the full stereo version of the album, plus a few mono versions of selected tracks plus bonus tracks.

Michael Kane died in September 2022.^[14]

Youngbloods frontman and songwriter Jesse Colin Young died on March 16, 2025. He was 83.^[15][16]

The Youngbloods' sound and style are characterized by "temper[ing] theirblues andjug band influences with gentle Californiapsychedelia."^[17]

Richie Unterberger ofAllMusic called the Youngbloods "one of the better groups to emerge from the East Coast in the mid-'60s." He explained, "The Youngbloods could not be considered a major '60s band, but they were capable of offering some mighty pleasurable folk-rock in the late '60s, and produced a few great tunes along the way."^[18]

• Jesse Colin Young – vocals, bass, guitar(1965–1972, 1984–1985; died 2025)
• Jerry Corbitt – guitar, harmonica, vocals(1965–1969, 1984–1985; died 2014)
• Lowell Levinger aka "Banana" – lead guitar, piano, finger cymbals, pedal steel guitar, vocals(1965–1972, 1984–1985)
• Joe Bauer – drums(1965–1972; died 1982)
• Michael Kane – bass(1971–1972; died 2022)
• David Perper – drums(1984–1985)
• Scott Lawrence – keyboards, woodwinds(1984–1985)
• John Richard (Earthquake) Anderson – group manager, harmonica, vocals(1968–1972; died 2017)

• VH1 Biography: The Youngbloods
• The Youngbloods atIMDb
• Lowell Levinger Interview NAMM Oral History Library (2017)
• The Youngbloods discography atDiscogs

• American folk rock groups
• Psychedelic rock music groups from New York (state)
• RCA Records artists

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