Album Notes

"Primal Young," released by Appleseed in 2000, was Southern singer-songwriter Steve Young's first US CD in six years and remains the most recent in his three decade career.
His fans include alt.country luminaries like Steve Earle, Lucinda Williams, and Dave Alvin, and his songs have been covered by the Eagles, Joan Baez, Hank Williams Jr., and Waylon Jennings, among others. He was also an integral part of the California country-rock and Nashville "outlaw country" sounds of the early 1970s and has worked with the late Gram Parsons, Stephen Stills, Chris Hillman and many more.

His latest CD takes us deep into Steve Young's world, featuring original, traditional and contemporary songs. Young's plaintive voice is displayed in the love song "Sometimes I Dream" and turns Lloyd Price's "Lawdy Miss Clawdy" into a languid celebration. His deep affection for Scotland manifests itself on the loving original, "Scotland is a Land," while "Handful of Earth" is an homage to Scottish singer and activist Dick Gaughan, who recorded the song as the title track of one of his most acclaimed CDs.

Of his original songs here (including "Jig," "Heartbreak Girl," and "No Longer Will My Heart be Truly Breaking"), the All Music Guide wrote, "so distinguished in composition and performance, one once again wonders why Steve Young has never been placed on an equal pedestal with the likes of Merle Haggard or Waylon Jennings."

Never one to forget traditional folk songs, Young performs two of them here with unbounded grace and style - "Little Birdie" and "East Virginia," both of which he rewrote to fit his own soulful outlook and delivery.