Jesse Colin

In celebration of the 50th anniversary, Jesse Colin Young has announced a fully remastered release of one of his most iconic albums, Song for Juli, due out on September 15. Originally released on September 4, 1973, the all-new version will be available on all streaming platforms as well as extremely limited-edition vinyl. Fans can pre-order the album beginning Friday, July 21, when the first remastered single “Morning Sun” will also be released.

Veteran singer/songwriter Jesse Colin Young, former frontman of the folk-rock band The Youngbloods, will release his 22nd solo album, Highway Troubadour, on November 27.The 11-track collection features new solo acoustic versions of songs from throughout Young’s 50-year-plus career, including renditions of the Youngbloods tunes “Darkness, Darkness” and “Sugar Babe,” and the recent song “Cast a Stone” from his 2019 solo album, Dreamers.Highway Troubadour was inspired by Young’s online video series “One Song at a Time,” which he launched during the COVID-19 lockdown and features him playing various songs from his back catalog accompanying himself on acoustic guitar. You can check out the series on Jessie’s YouTube channel and Facebook page.

Veteran singer/songwriter Jesse Colin Young, former frontman of the folk-rock band The Youngbloods, will release his 22nd solo album, Highway Troubadour, on November 27.

Today is the culmination of 3 years of writing, playing, recording and seeing our incredibly diverse country. I want you to know that America is alive and well with wonderful people doing great things in the North, South, Midwest, South West, North West and West. I dreamed that I would be healthy enough after a long battle with Lyme’s Disease to do this recording and touring. And I dreamed that my young band of 20-somethings from around the world (Donnie Hogue, JennHwan Wong, Aleif Hamdan, Sally Rose Stempler, Virginia Garcia Alves, Jack Sheehan and my son, Tristan Young) would be able to tour and record this topical music while the moment was hot.

Jesse Colin Young got his start as a folksinger in Greenwich Village coffeehouses in the early '60s, releasing two major-label albums, The Soul of a City Boy (April 1964) and Young Blood (March 1965). He met guitarist Jerry Corbitt in Cambridge, MA, and with keyboardist/guitarist Lowell "Banana" Levinger and drummer Joe Bauer, they formed the Youngbloods, initially playing in the jug band, good-time style of the Lovin' Spoonful. Signed to RCA, they released their debut single, Corbitt's "Grizzly Bear," a chart entry, in November 1966, followed by their self-titled debut album in February 1967.

Brooklyn-based composer/guitarist Colin Cannon’s latest release McGolrick blends prog-rock, electronic music, and jazz into a dizzying suite, providing a portrait of a community under duress, under quarantine. Joining Cannon’s regular trio are Hideaki Aomori (winds), Gabriel Cabezas (cello), CJ Camerieri (trumpet), and Rob Moose (violin/viola). This music was inspired by a day-to-day reality of writing, thinking and listening to the sounds of a small neighborhood in Brooklyn. It takes place on the far north side of the borough, not far from Long Island City, around a loud but lovely little area called McGolrick Park.

It was distinctly ironic: at the very zenith of America's postwar space-age love affair with TV, 3-D, and rock & roll (and other disposable cultural ephemera), a grassroots movement set out to recapture the country's lost musical heritage. These curious minds not only found it in a wealth of seemingly forgotten protest songs, spiritual blues, and country laments, but also forged new songs in its image. That this crusade sprang from lower Manhattan's Washington Square and the doorstep of New York University made the paradox all the sweeter. Ted Myers, the producer of this triple-disc anthology, grew up just blocks from the epicenter of that folk-quake, and his generous sense of place and time permeates this rich collection. Generally misunderstood and historically pigeonholed, the era finally gets its due, chronicled here by 72 tracks that extend far beyond the roots-conscious work of Woody Guthrie, the Weavers, Ramblin' Jack Elliott, and Pete Seeger on one hand, and the more popular material by the Kingston Trio, Limeliters, Joan Baez, and Bob Dylan on the other. Culturally, the Folk movement was the alt-rock of its day–if eminently more conscious of history and politically committed. Musically, it encompassed an ethos that enthusiastically blurred the boundaries between blues, Appalachian ballads, jug music, pure country, honky-tonk, work songs, and even unbridled novelty; this set explores them all, often with a palpable sense of discovery. Historically, the movement championed preservation at the same time it gleefully tweaked old sensibilities in pursuit of new inspiration. Listen and you'll hear music that became touchstones for artists as diverse as the Byrds, Roberta Flack, Rod Stewart, and–wittingly or not–every passionate coffeehouse minstrel who's strode on stage with a guitar ever since. –Jerry McCulley

Jake & Friends, the second Jake Shimabukuro album with Mascot ( the previous - "Trio" - entered the Billboard Contemporary Jazz Chart at # 1), sees the Jimi Hendrix of the ukulele, the Michael Jordan of his instrument (he has done a "Master Class" like Malcolm Gladwell and Serena Williams) in the company of a multi generational cast - from Willie Nelson and Bette Midler and Jimmy Buffett to Ziggy Marley and Billy Strings and Willie's son Lukas.

Something about the 1975 Loss Leader, I Didn’t Know They Still Made Records Like This, seems a little different… yet the same. Starting with the album cover, whose design reeks of some long-ignored graphics designer and photographer teaming up to hatch a surefire scheme to meet hot cover models. Then there’s the curious song selection. It’s always great to hear Van Morrison’s “Moondance,” but the album it came from was released five years prior, in 1970, while Randy Newman’s “Mama Told Me Not To Come” comes from his already ancient ’71 live album. Joni Mitchell’s “Carey” is from her 1971 LP, Blue, and Arlo Guthrie’s cover of “City Of New Orleans” was first issued in 1972. Now… these are all great songs, and considered ‘should-owns’ for any collection, but on the surface it looks like Warners didn’t have any new music to promote. Perhaps they were just pushing the back catalog, or maybe it’s as the cover suggests… they don’t make records like this anymore, and here are some of them again to remind you. The uncredited liner notes offer no reasoning, and are more historical than revelatory. So, I Didn’t Know They Still Made Records Like This ends up being an oddball entry in the ongoing series… one that wasn’t even advertised all that much (if at all) via inner sleeves, either. All the while stylistically seeming like an earlier edition in the series, thanks to the older material. Something I didn’t know (or just refused to remember) is that Leo Sayer’s career was kickstarted when The Who’s Roger Daltry specifically picked him to write songs for his debut solo album. Now you know who to blame.