Banana Recalls Youngbloods Classics
taoboy@cox.net
Posted On July 14, 2015
Get Together – Banana Recalls Youngbloods Classics is a disc that brings back memories of days long gone, but fondly remembered for the camaraderie between wanderers on a journey. The Youngbloods were Jesse Colin Young, Lowell Levinger (AKA Banana), Joe Bauer, and Jerry Corbett initially. Over the few years they were together, there were a few changes in personnel, but they always stayed true to the sound that brought them together. This collection presents new, re-imagined versions of their most popular songs, for the band’s 50-year anniversary.
It was important for Lowell that Jesse Colin Young — the only other surviving original member of the band — be part of this. The main songwriters of the group were Jesse Colin Young and Banana, also known as Lowell Levinger. Between the two of them, they wrote six of the songs on this disc, with Banana writing four, and Jesse two. Some of the songs they did back then were always on the radio are here, particularly their version of the Dino Valenti-penned anthem of the times “Get Together.” This is a collection of their most popular songs, which have been re-recorded and re-arranged by the multi-instrumentalist Banana and Ethan Turner, the co-producers of this disc.
These are not the versions of the songs from back then, but the way these two co-producers now see the songs. This was a disc Banana wanted to do, and he wanted Jesse to be a part of it. He asked Young to sing on the songs, and Young delivered. His best song, for example, “Darkness, Darkness,” isn’t about the darkness of cold and death, but of peace, comfort, and celebration.
To give you an idea of the kind of help they enlisted, a few names that pop up on the disc include folks like Ry Cooder, David Grisman, Darol Anger, and Nina Gerber. Banana still tours and many of these songs still get the audiences singing along. There is a good-time feel on this disc, that encompassed their music. This album is definitely a trip into the past but the times have changed — so have the perspectives, and the people.
