Jeff Young

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This page is about the guitarist Jeff Young. For the rugby player, see Jeff Young (rugby player).

Jeff Young is a former member of the band Megadeth from 1987 to 1988, replacing original guitarist Chris Poland - now a solo artist.

Contents

1 Megadeth
2 After Megadeth
3 Equilibrium
4 See also
5 External Links

Megadeth

The 1985 Musician's Institute graduate launched his career in Los Angeles, California as a guitar teacher. Less than four years after arriving in California, Capital Records act, Megadeth inadvertently discovered Jeff. Poland's initial replacement, Jay Reynolds, had commissioned Jeff to ghost all of his solos, transcribe the previous Megadeth releases and teach him everything in time for the pending tours. However, after witnessing Young decipher Poland's solos from "Wake Up Dead" note-for-note in less than 30 minutes, frontman Dave Mustaine decided to cut out the middleman and enlist Young into the fold.

Jeff's entire career with Megadeth was spent recording and touring in support of their 1988 platinum selling album, So Far, So Good...So What! Young's short-lived turn with Megadeth seemed inevitable. He asserts that drugs were hampering Mustaine and making forward progress impossible for the band. Megadeth's version is that Young was fired because he was a bad fit for the band. A classically trained musician from age six, Young was known to wear his guitar high (like a jazz player), stand very still, staring intensely at his guitar while he played while the rest of the band acted much like other 80's metal bands at the time. Young also had no drug habit, instantly making him both a newcomer and somewhat of an outsider to the nucleus of Megadeth.

After Megadeth

Following his stint with Megadeth, Jeff began contributing the Fingerprints column for Guitar Magazine. For a portion of the 90's, Jeff stepped away from his career to deal with the untimely deaths of first his father and later his mother while immersing himself in the further study of classical, flamenco, gypsy jazz and other world music varieties. In 1998, he resurfaced with new Brazilian musical partner, Badi Assad.

Together, the duo crafted exotic soundscapes for their first collaboration entitled, Badi Assad - Chameleon. The album (co-written, arranged, and produced by Jeff), climbed to #1 in Europe while touring introduced their acoustic-world-fusion sounds to diverse audiences worldwide. Opening concerts for renowned artists including Joe Cocker and Cassandra Wilson, as well as performances on 1999's Lilith Fair and Farm Aid 2000 are testament to the considerable cross-over appeal of Badi and Jeff's "new world music" explorations. In 2003, the track "Waves" from Chameleon was featured in the Michael and Kirk Douglas film It Runs in the Family, as well as on the movie's soundtrack.

Equilibrium

Over the past five years, Young has been engaged in the creation of his debut release, Equilibrium while overcoming testicular cancer in the process. For the project, Young draws on flamenco, classic, 6 & 12 steel-string guitar styles as well as the electric guitar. The album features performances by Debby Holiday, Gilli Moon, Badi Assad, Lenine, Matt Chamberlain, Marco Suzano, Hilary Jones, Simone Soul, Tony Franklin, Sergio and Odair Assad, Carlos Malta, Viviana Guzman, and Siba. The album is slated for a late 2006 release.

External Links

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Jeff Young

Megadeth

After Megadeth

Equilibrium

See also

External Links