Steve Young

by Jason Ankeny & Steve HueyA singer, tunesmith, and purveyor of what he dubbed Southern music — a brew of country, folk, rock, blues, gospel, and Celtic styles — Steve Young was a songwriters songwriter, an acclaimed performer whose work found its greatest commercial success in the hands of other artists and earned him praise from the likes of Waylon Jennings, Townes Van Zandt, and Lucinda Williams. Born in Georgia and raised throughout the South, by his teens Young was already playing guitar and writing his own songs. In the early 60s, he moved to New York City and became affiliated with the burgeoning Greenwich Village folk music scene. After a brief return to Alabama, where hed spent time growing up, he settled in California in 1964.On the West Coast, Young found work as a postal carrier while striking up friendships with the likes of Stephen Stills and Van Dyke Parks. A tenure with the psychedelic folk unit Stone Country yielded an eponymous 1968 LP, and a year later, Young issued his solo debut Rock Salt & Nails, a country-rock excursion featuring cameos by Gram Parsons, Chris Hillman, and Gene Clark. He moved to Reprise in 1971, and with the title track of that years Seven Bridges Road, he offered perhaps his best-known composition, popularized through a series of covers by artists like the Eagles, Joan Baez, Rita Coolidge, and Ian Matthews. He had another tremendous success when Waylon Jennings covered Lonesome, Onry and Mean in 1973, turning it into a signature anthem of the outlaw country movement; later on, Hank Williams, Jr. notched a hit with Montgomery in the Rain. As for his recording career, Young released 1975s Honky Tonk Man on the tiny Mountain Railroad label before his songwriting success earned him a shot with RCA. The result was two excellent albums, 1976s Renegade Picker and 1978s No Place to Fall.Despite his success as a songwriter, Young flirted with the charts but never rose beyond a devoted cult following. He spent the majority of the 1980s touring the world, garnering a reputation as a standout live performer, and released occasional records like 1982s To Satisfy You, 1987s Look Homeward Angel, and 1990s Long Time Rider, the latter two of which were recorded in the Netherlands. The trend continued into the next decade, and in 1991 he issued his first concert recording, Solo/Live, an acoustic collection summarizing his career to date along with pop and soul covers like You Dont Miss Your Water and Drift Away. A second LP on Watermelon, Switchblades of Love, followed two years later and continued his creative renaissance, but he fell silent for much of the rest of the 90s. In early 2000, he finally returned with Primal Young on the Appleseed label. Songlines Revisited, Vol. 1 appeared in 2006.