“Each show is an adventure,” says singer/songwriter Jesse Colin Young, who formed a new band with his son last year. “It’s a thrill.”
“It’s the most rockin’ band I ever had!” says folk-rock icon Jesse Colin Young, 76, of his new touring band. Best known for his work with The Youngbloods, and the sweet, pure tone of his voice, Young’s hit song “Get Together” became an anthem for the peace and love movement in the ’60s and ’70s.
After being diagnosed with Lyme disease in 2011, Young took a hiatus from touring. But seeing his bass player son Tristan’s senior recital at Boston’s Berklee School of Music last year inspired him.
“I’m confounded by it,” Young says by telephone from a tour rest stop in St. Louis. “I had no plans to start again. But the kids just blew me away, and all of a sudden this light came on in my heart.”
Tristan helped put the new band together with several of his Berklee friends, and they began touring last February. On Sunday, September 24, they’ll perform many of Young’s hits, along with new songs, for Whistlestop’s Whistlestock event at the Marin Center.
“They’re all brilliant kids and their energy is so pure at this point,” Young says. “They’ve come right out of a school that put them on such a high level of proficiency, and they all play and sing from their hearts.”
Young, who lived in Point Reyes for years, says that many of the band’s shows have sold out. “I attribute that to the hunger,” he says. “These are dark times for those of us who love the earth and like to get along with others. There’s a great hunger for this kind of loving and come-together music—and it’s real.”
Jesse Colin Young, Whistlestock, Sept. 24, Fairgrounds Island, Marin Center, 10 Avenue of the Flags, San Rafael; 4pm; $69-$129; 415/473-6800; whistlestop.org/whistlestock.
