CoronaVinyl Day 257 (Y): Light Shine by Jesse Colin Young

For an explanation of CoronaVinyl, click here.

Things got away from my Friday afternoon, so I didn't get a chance to listen to any vinyl, but such is life in a house with two parents working from home and three kids schooling from home three days a week.  Anywho, today's CoronaVinyl category is "Y," and I only have a few "Y" albums left, once of which is Jesse Colin Young's 1974 album Light Shine, his fifth solo studio album.

Before I listened to this today, I knew nothing about JCY, as I'm now calling him, for the sake of brevity.  Based on the picture and the year of release, I assumed this would be kind of a folky, singer-songwriter type album, but it's not.  It's does have some singer-songwriter tendencies, but it's mostly mid '70s soft rock, and has some elements of soul, jazz, Caribbean music, and jam bands in it.  I also assumed he is Canadian.  He is not.

As I just learned, JCY (who is from Queens) was the lead singer and bassist for the '60s rock group The Youngbloods, who had a big hit in 1969 with "Get Together," which reached #5 on the Billboard Hot 100.  After The Youngbloods broke up, JCY embarked on a solo career (though he had released a couple solo albums before The Youngbloods formed).

JCY didn't have a ton of commercial success as a solo artist, and Light Shine topped out at #37 on the Billboard album chart, his second highest-charting album of his solo career.  The first side dubbed on the back of the album as "California Suite," and it has three songs that are part of the suite.  The second side is an eclectic mix of songs.

JCY has continued to make music for most of the nearly 50 years since then, though he took a hiatus for a few years starting in 2012, when he was diagnosed with Lyme disease. 

Favorite song on Side 1:  "California Child"
The first song on the album is poppy little number with almost a little bit of a Vaudeville-type feel to it in a couple parts.  It could be the theme song to a '70s sitcom.

Favorite song on Side 2:  "The Cuckoo"
"The Cuckoo" is a nearly seven-minute jazz-tinged jam.