Johnny Young
Although the mandolin is not an instrument commonly associated with Chicago blues, it has been used by Chicago-based string bands or on Chicago-made recordings by artists such as Carl Martin, Charles and Joe McCoy, and Yank Rachell. However, the only artist to use it successfully in the later electric blues format was Mississippi-born bluesman Johnny Young.
An important figure in blues history, Young loved the rough-and-tumble string band tradition of the Delta, a style that readily co-existed with blues.
Young's initial 1947 Chicago classic, "Money Taking Women," exhibits the same exuberant down-home sound, fusing blues with the older country breakdown traditions. The string band ensemble sound suited street performance as well, whether in Memphis or in Chicago's open air Maxwell Street Market, where Young and his cronies were brought in off the streets to record. Over the years, Young's mandolin activity declined as Chicago's African-American blues audience demanded a more modern and urban sound. Since Young was also a skilled guitarist and a fine vocalist, he easily weathered the transition.
During the late '60s, an emerging white blues-revival audience proved eager for Young's mandolin styling. Unlike Yank Rachell, whose mandolin playing retained an older string band feel, Young's style was firmly grounded in a more contemporary postwar blues idiom, and he interacted well with other electric blues artists. Throughout his life, he had worked with the major figures of blues history, including Sonny Boy Williamson, Muddy Waters, Walter Horton, and Otis Spann. He was, he insisted, born to be a musician. When interviewed shortly before he died, he said he had struggled all his life trying to make it in the music business. An emotional man, he hoped he would live long enough to make enough money to buy a house. He never made it.
© Barry Lee Pearson /TiVo
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Chicago Blues
Blues - Released by Arhoolie Records on 1 jan. 1990
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Johnny Young And His Friends
Blues - Released by HighTone Records on 1 jan. 1975
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
The Complete Blue Horizon Sessions
Blues - Released by Sony BMG Music UK on 27 aug. 2007
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
We Took to the Sky
Johnny Young, The Stellar Dogs
Jazz fusion en jazz rock - Released by Menagerie Records on 27 mrt. 2023
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
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Never Let Go
Rock - Released by Menagerie Records on 5 sep. 2023
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Up All Night
Rock - Released by Menagerie Records on 12 okt. 2023
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Skinny the Kid
Country - Released by Johnny Young on 17 apr. 2024
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
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Flight of the Red Dragon
Johnny Young, The Stellar Dogs
Jazz fusion en jazz rock - Released by Menagerie Records on 5 jan. 2023
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
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SINFUL AQUAINTANCES
Hip-Hop/Rap - Released by Johnny Young on 23 feb. 2021
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
So Long (feat. Georgette Jones)
Country - Released by Johnny Young on 13 nov. 2021
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
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All My Lovin' EP
Pop - Released by Blue Pie Records USA on 1 jan. 1967
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Glock Tá na Mesa
Hip-Hop/Rap - Released by Young John on 21 apr. 2020
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
THE ARRIVAL
Hip-Hop/Rap - Released by Johnny Young on 24 feb. 2021
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo