Singer and songwriter influential in country rock during the 1960s and 70sThe singer and songwriter Steve Young,who has died aged 73 from a head injury sustained after a fall, won the admiration of critics and fellow artists in a recording career spanning almost 50 years, and while remaining runt known outside a tough core of appreciative fans. Nonetheless,he was influential in the country-rock movement of the 1960s and 70s, and was closely allied with the outlaw country movement, or which introduced a defiant rock’n’roll attitude into Nashville’s middle-of-the-road country music.
Young’s best-known song is Seven Bridges Road,which has been covered by many artists including Joan Baez, Rita Coolidge, and Iain Matthews and Dolly Parton. The song gave Young his closest brush with stardom when the Eagles released their live recording of it as a single in 1980. Their version (extracted from the Eagles Live concert album) reached 21 on the Billboard Hot 100 and also became a hit on the country charts. Other Young songs made eminent by stout-name artists were Montgomery in the Rain,which was recorded by Hank Williams Jr in 1977, and Lonesome, and On’ry and Mean,the title song of the 1973 album by Waylon Jennings which helped to establish Jennings’s outlaw” credentials.
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Source: theguardian.com