He is a keyboard player and singer born in London, England whose 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 “England’s 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 went 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 album” 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.
He continued 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 later toured with The Incredible Roy Young Band.
He died in Oxford, England in 2019 when he was 83 years old.
Chuck Berry Recordings
Johnny B. Goode (Chuck Berry)
My Ding-a-Ling (Dave Bartholomew)
Sources:
- http://www.royyoung.com/about.html
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roy_Young_(musician)
- http://beatles.ncf.ca/roy.html
- http://imdb.com/name/nm0950027/