John Young (British musician)

John Young (musician)

John Young at "Baltic Progressive festival" in Lithuania.
Background information
Birth name John Smith
Born 31 May 1956
Liverpool, England
Genres progressive rock, rock, jazz, pop
Occupation(s) Musician, Performer, Songwriter
Instruments vocals, Keyboard
Years active 1974 - present
Labels Heritage Records
Associated acts John Young Band, Scorpions, Bonnie Tyler, Greenslade, Asia, John Wetton, Fish, The Law, Paul Rodgers, Qango, Uli Jon Roth, Roy Wood, Lucio Battisti
Website
John Young performance at "Baltic Progressive festival".

John Young (born 31 May 1956) is a British progressive rock keyboardist and singer from Liverpool.

Biography

Young spent his early years at the Liverpool Cathedral where he was classically trained on the keyboard and voice. His first bands were mainly semi-pro jazz rock bands, and he played in these into the mid 1980s. His first major break came in 1985 when he auditioned and became part of Uli Jon Roth's Band (ex-Scorpions). After a world tour, Young did studio and session work with artists including Steeleye Span and Bon Jovi. He formed a band with Jon Camp (Renaissance) which signed to Warner Bros, but failed to produce any material before the project was disbanded. Young went on to play with the MTV band in London and during this time he met John Wetton who asked him to join Asia for two European tours. Shortly after that he joined Paul Rodgers and Kenney Jones in a very short lived band called The Law. They played a single show at the Bowl in Milton Keynes with Bryan Adams and ZZ Top.

Young joined Bonnie Tyler in the mid 1990s and has since worked with her. In 2001, Young joined the Scorpions for a world tour of their CD Acoustica. 2001 saw him co-writing the Fish album Fellini Days with John Wesley and also appearing on the resulting live album Fellini Nights. John Young has also worked as part of the re-generated Greenslade appearing on the albums Large Afternoon and Live 2001.

In 2002, Young formed his own band and released the albums Life Underground and Significance. The John Young Band continues to play and has a fairly fluid line-up depending on the availability of its various members.

Young has worked with Jon Anderson of Yes. The first product of that union saw Jon Anderson touring Europe and playing the song "Sooner (Than Later)", a track co-penned with Young.

Young's most recent work has seen him as keyboard player with The Strawbs on their November/December 2010 Canada/UK tour, alongside Dave Cousins, Dave Lambert, Chas Cronk, and Tony Fernandez.

A small number of John Young Band gigs took place at the end of 2012 and during 2013. In the meantime work continued on a new John Young Band album, which is likely to include several tracks first played during recent gigs, including "Different". The new JYB album was hoped to be released in 2013.

Young also completed an album of instrumental music. "Financial Meltdown" continues the series of albums in the vain of "political Agenda and "Scientific Breakthrough". Music from these album is often used on various TV productions.

During the last two year,s John Young has been working with Nick Beggs (Steven Wilson Band), Frosty Beedle (Cutting Crew) and Steve Rispin (Sound Engineer - Asia) on a new prog rock orientated project called "Lifesigns", which was signed to Esoteric Records. The Lifesigns album was to be released in early 2013. As well as the core band members, Lifesigns also features guest contributions from Steve Hackett (Genesis), Jakko Jakszyk (Jakszyk Fripp & Collins)(King Crimson), Thijs van Leer (Focus), Robin Boult (Howard Jones, Fish). Lifesigns began performing live in 2014. This version includes Jon Poole (ex-The Cardiacs) on bass/vocals and Niko Tsonev (ex-Steve Wilson band) on guitar/vocals.

The album comprises 5 tracks - "Lighthouse", "Telephone", "Fridge Full of Stars", "At the End of the World" and "Carousel". A live DVD "Under the Bridge - Live in London," culled from two performances in January 2015, is expected in October/November 2015. Work on the second studio release is expected to begin in the summer of 2015, with a target release sometime in 2016.

Current band members

Others also associated with the John Young Band have included:

References

    External links

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