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He is a keyboard player and singer born in
England. His mother was a
piano player who played on the black notes, but this was enough to get him
started wanting to play boogie-woogie where the players would always play
on the white notes from what he could see. He became known as Englands Little Richard and his
first major appearances were on the television shows Drumbeat and Oh Boy!
in 1959. He performed in many
shows and became part of the John Barry Seven with the composer John Barry
who has since gone on to receive much recognition as a movie composer. He made his first recording in 1960
with "Just Keep It Up" for the Fontana label and toured as a guest artist
with Cliff Richard and the Shadows.
In 1961 he went to Hamburg, Germany, to perform in the Top Ten Club
and the Star Club and here he would meet and appear with Tony Sheridan and
The Beatles and they were really excited to meet him and looked up to him
as they were unknowns at that time and had been watching him on the
TV. He would later appear in
their 1966 tour of Germany and on several of their albums. In 1969 he became a member of the
Rebel Rousers and a year or two later he formed the Roy Young Band who
accompanied acts such as Chuck Berry, Eric Clapton, Jon Entwistle, Roger
Daltry, and Jeff Beck as well as Ringo Starr and George Harrison after The
Beatles break up. After the
band went their own ways he appeared with David Bowie on his albums Changes
and Low. After John
Lennon died he was involved in an Abused Children Foundation project where
he played Jon Lennon's Steinway piano from a glass case in the CN
Tower. Today he is still
performing and among his many recordings is his album Now and Then,
which is a tribute to his days with The Beatles and on the individual
tracks "Now and Then" is for George Harrison and "Beautiful Man" is for
John Lennon. In 2005 he formed The Star-Combo, which was made up of
musicians who all played with The Beatles at some time in their career, and
they recorded the CD The Lost Tribe of Rock and Roll. He is still currently touring to
this day with The Incredible Roy Young Band.
Chuck Berry Recordings
Johnny B. Goode (Chuck Berry)
My Ding-a-Ling (Dave Bartholomew)
Sources:
1.
http://www.royyoung.com/about.html
2.
http://beatles.ncf.ca/roy.html
3.
http://imdb.com/name/nm0950027/
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