Jesse Colin Young is an American singer / songwriter / folksinger and a founding member and lead singer of the group The Youngbloods since the 1960s.
Young was born Perry Miller and raised in Queens and attended fourth grade with Art Garfunkel. His mother was a violinist and his father was an accountant with a strong interest in classical music. When he was 15 years old, Young received a scholarship to Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts, and was later expelled.
During the 1960s, while living in the Greenwich Village section of Manhattan, Young released two solo albums, The Soul of a City Boy and Young Blood. He then formed the group called The Youngbloods which included guitarist Jerry Corbitt, keyboardist/guitarist Lowell &Banana& Levinger, and drummer Joe Bauer. Their first album contained the song &Get Together&, written by Chet Powers, which was re-released as a single in 1969. Young and his band, founded Raccoon Records, and released four additional albums on it.
Young left the group in 1972 and released a solo album called Together. His fourth solo album, Song for Juli, had four singles and remained on the Billboard Top 200 chart for several months. In 1978, Jesse recorded the album American Dreams, which was followed by the album The Perfect Stranger in 1982. In 1987 he released the album The Highway Is for Heroes.
He continued touring and re-formed the Youngbloods band before going back to a solo recording career in 1987. In 1993 he began his own recording company called Ridgetop Music.
In September 1979 Young performed in the &No Nukes& concert.
His recording studio and house in Inverness, California, were destroyed in the Mount Vision fire in 1995. Young, his wife and their two children maintained a coffee plantation in Hawaii.