Jesse Colin Young, of ‘Get Together’ Fame, Dies

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The Youngbloods in 1967 (l. to r.): Jesse Colin Young, Jerry Corbitt, Joe Bauer, Lowell “Banana” Levinger.

Jesse Colin Young, a songwriter and lead singer of the Youngbloods, best known for their recording of the ’60s anthem “Get Together,” died yesterday (March 16, 2025). The news of his passing at age 83 at his home in Aiken, S.C., was first reported by The New York Times on March 17. The cause of death was not revealed.

Young was born Perry Miller on November 22, 1941. From a biography on his website:

As the frontman of the Youngbloods, he immortalized the ideals of the Woodstock generation with their recording of the Chet Powers composition, originally titled “Let’s Get Together,” an international hit that called for peace and brotherhood during the turbulent 1960s. During the decades that followed, Young expanded both his audience and his artistic range, releasing a string of solo albums that mixed socially conscious lyrics with top-tier guitar skills and gorgeous vocals. An acclaimed songwriter, singer, instrumentalist, producer, label owner, podcast host and longtime social/environmental activist, he has established a permanent place in America’s musical landscape, while continuing to make modern music that’s every bit as vital as his work during the countercultural era.

Everything began in Queens, New York. Young was raised by his mother (a violinist who sang with perfect pitch) and father (a Harvard-educated accountant with a passion for classical music). It was a creative family, and he quickly grew into a talented multi-instrumentalist, playing piano one minute and studying the guitar riffs of blues icons like T-Bone Walker the next. By the 1960s, he was putting those lessons into practice with regular gigs in the nearby Greenwich Village, a national hub of America’s folk revival. Two solo albums, The Soul of a City Boy and Young Blood, followed, but it wasn’t until Jesse formed the Youngbloods with Jerry Corbitt — and released the band’s definitive version of “Get Together” — that he was catapulted from the New England clubs to the international stage.

The Youngbloods’ debut album

Upon its initial release in 1967, “Get Together,” as the Youngbloods retitled it, had stalled at #62, even falling behind their first charting single, the uptempo “Grizzly Bear,” which had hit #52. It quite possibly would have gone down in history as a footnote, but then, two years later, their recording of “Get Together” was used to score a public service announcement by the National Conference of Christians and Jews. In the months preceding Woodstock, in the spring of 1969, “Get Together” finally found its audience: The new exposure it received via the ad for the interfaith organization gave it a new life. For the week ending Sept. 6, the Youngbloods’ “Get Together” (produced, as was their entire debut album, by Felix Pappalardi, then Cream’s producer and later a member of Mountain) peaked at #5 nationally.

Jesse Colin Young in Central Park, NYC, 2018 (Photo by Jeff Tamarkin, used with permission)

In a 2019 interview with Best Classic Bands, Young recalled how “Get Together” found its way to the Youngbloods: “I walked into the Cafe Go Go [in New York City] on a Sunday afternoon, thinking it was dark. I was going to call up the guys and say, ‘Come on, we can rehearse.” We didn’t know what we were doing. We were making a band up out of a bunch of mavericks and folk singers and a jazz drummer. We needed a lot of work. So I walked down the stairs and there’s [singer/songwriter] Buzzy Linhart. I had seen him play vibes with Tim Hardin, but I’d never heard him sing and there he was singing ‘Get Together.’ I just rushed backstage and said, ‘I gotta have the lyrics, please, please,’ and he wrote them out for me right then. I must have memorized what Buzzy was singing for lyrics and it was pretty easy to figure out the chords. I don’t think I was reading his hand. He always played in open tunings anyway, so that would have confused me. I took it into rehearsal with the Youngbloods the next day. I was in love and I still yeah. It’s power. The worse things get, the more powerful ‘Get Together,’ and the hungrier people are to sing it.”

Related: Musician deaths of 2025

This ad for the single ran in the Oct. 25, 1969 issue of Record World.

Leaning on his multi-instrumentalist skills, Young played bass in the Youngbloods, with Corbitt serving as the band’s pivotal lower vocal harmony singer and 12-string guitarist. Keyboardist/guitarist Lowell “Banana” Levinger and drummer Joe Bauer rounded out the lineup. Jerry left the band while their third album — the eclectic Elephant Mountain, produced by Charlie Daniels — was being recorded in 1969, and Young took over as the group’s chief songwriter, penning national hits like “Darkness Darkness” (which would later be covered by Robert Plant in 2002, racking up a Grammy nomination along the way) and “Sunlight” (which would also be recorded by Three Dog Night).

Although the Youngbloods called it quits after releasing two additional albums and a pair of live recordings, Young maintained his prolific pace, building a home studio on a ridgetop in the San Francisco Bay Area and releasing a string of successful solo albums, including 1973’s Song for Juli (which remained on the Billboard 200 for nearly a year), Lightshine, and the Top 40 album Songbird.

Decades before Americana music would receive its own category at the Grammy Awards, Jesse Colin Young helped pioneer the genre’s rootsy sound throughout the 1970s. His solo albums were just as expansive as his influences, filled with blue notes, acoustic twang, electric stomp, jazzy detours, and folky storytelling. He used his art to encourage positive change, too, filling his music with social statements that pertained to the times. While the decade drew to a close, he played the first No Nukes Show at California’s Cuesta College with David Bromberg. Jackson Browne and Bonnie Raitt signed up to play additional shows, and as the movement grew, a new entity called MUSE was formed. During a string of legendary No Nukes shows in New York City, fellow icons like David Crosby, Stephen Stills and Graham Nash— with whom Young had toured the world back in 1974, serving as an opening act on Crosby Stills Nash & Young’s unprecedented stadium tour that summer — joined him in singing a spellbinding version of “Get Together” every night.

The Youngbloods’ recordings are available here. Many of Young’s solo albums are available here.