Talk:The Youngbloods

Joe Bauer
There is no other page for Joe Bauer. I knew him at East High School in Memphis in the late '50's, and some details may be of interest in this context. Joe's father was a professional photographer, and they lived in a very nice neighborhood. Joe had two older brothers and a younger sister. The oldest, Fred Jr., worked in a record store, and that was Joe's introduction to music and particularly jazz. Fred was "wild", doing crazy things and drinking, not cutting his hair and wearing jeans, but also very intense. He challenged himself, for instance, to identify jazz musicians by listening for a matter of seconds. Joe wanted to be able to do that too. Fred also experimented with marijuana and peyote; Joe may have done some of that also. Fred lived in a room he customized from the garage, and tried to keep a raccoon as a pet. Joe lived in the redecorated attic, with only essential furniture, and his drum set. On the walls were his black-and-white experimental photos. John was a "straight arrow": handsome and well-groomed, popular, good student, on the football team. The one thing the three boys did together was hunt for Indian arrowheads and potsherds in plowed fields.

Joe had started playing drums with a small set for Christmas, and didn't stop. He took only easy courses in school to have more time to practice, and had a job playing drums in Arkansas bars on weekends. He used the money for a Volkswagon to get there and back, and to continue to improve his drum set, which eventually could not all fit in the little car even with the other seat out. He had no girlfriend. His idol was Shelly Manne, and that kind of drummer was all he wanted to be.

One year when the Tommy Dorsey band played the Peabody Hotel, Fred helped Joe get in for a rehearsal, where he asked to "sit in", a standard tactic for new players. The band leader was very impressed and asked Joe to sit in that night too, then to come back the next day for a try-out. After asking some questions and discussing his age, he set sheet music in front of Joe and asked him to play it. Joe just stared, never having seen any such thing. He was told to learn to read music, and get back in touch when he was older. Joe tried, until he cried, he said. But Joe just played drums, to music he heard, as he heard and felt it.

For the student talent show his graduating year, the curtains opened with Joe alone on the stage nearly surrounded by drums and cymbal stands, with one soft spotlight. Joe began on the medium tomtom with soft stick heads, setting a beat, and the audience went silent. Almost no one remembered ever seeing Joe in school. As he deftly changed sticks and instruments and rhythm and volume, it became a music they'd never heard, and did want it to stop. He played for some minutes, sweating as he bowed and swayed and made quiet vocal sounds too, and just played. When he stopped and stood and folded his arms, it took a while for the audience to erupt in applause, which continued long after the curtain closed for the next performer to begin. Because faculty did the judging, he placed second, after a girl who did a humorous reading.

A few years later, I went by his parents' house. His sister said that Fred had gone to California to be a potter, John was in a religious commune somewhere north of there, and Joe, the last they heard, was in New York, playing drums.

Citations & References
See Footnotes for an explanation of how to generate footnotes using the  tags Nhl4hamilton (talk) 06:56, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

External links modified
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"They never achieved widespread popularity."

 * They had a top 5 international hit that sold over a million copies. It's referenced sarcastically on Nirvana's "Nevermind," which suggests it remained in the public's consciousness.


 * They had an original composition, "Darkness Darkness," that's been covered by scores of famous artists (16 are mentioned on this wikipedia page), including a top 40 hit by Robert Plant.


 * Their song "Sunrise" seems to have shown up on the radio with a certain regularity throughout my lifetime, even if it was a lower-charting top 100 hit.


 * They were successful enough to have their own imprint, Raccoon Records, on Warner Bros.

By what measure are we defining "widespread popularity", given their era? That's a rather subjective assessment and probably needs to go. And I'm saying this as someone who's not especially a follower of this band. I just find them to be hard to avoid. I think the opening summary of their impact deserves revisiting.

Sojambi Pinola (talk) 17:16, 21 August 2021 (UTC)

Sorry, I meant "Sunlight," not "Sunrise." Sojambi Pinola (talk) 17:18, 21 August 2021 (UTC)

Lowell Levinger
I saw Lowell Levinger (of the Youngbloods) perform recently and didn’t realize who he was so did a little research. Obviously that research led to Wikipedia. I noticed his name was not hyperlinked anywhere so attempted to add his Facebook page. Wiki cautioned me about this but the person and page are legit. My attempt was crude but somewhat successful but only in one area. Perhaps someone smarter than me can do a better job. Thanks.

https://www.facebook.com/LowellLevinger 50.25.178.55 (talk) 10:46, 20 April 2023 (UTC)