Carol Young is an Australian musician, and a founding member of the American bluegrass band The Greencards.

Biography

Early life

Young is originally from

Coffs Harbour Coffs Harbour, locally nicknamed Coffs, is a coastal city on the Mid North Coast of New South Wales, Australia, north of Sydney, and south of Brisbane. It is one of the largest urban centres on the North Coast, with a population of 78,759 a ...

New South Wales New South Wales (commonly abbreviated as NSW) is a States and territories of Australia, state on the Eastern states of Australia, east coast of :Australia. It borders Queensland to the north, Victoria (state), Victoria to the south, and South ...

. Prior to the founding of The Greencards, Young won the Australian Independent Country Artist of the Year award in 2000, and had recorded two No. 1 Australian-charted country music singles. Early on, Young was a singer in

Outback The Outback is a remote, vast, sparsely populated area of Australia. The Outback is more remote than Australian bush, the bush. While often envisaged as being arid, the Outback regions extend from the northern to southern Australian coastli ...

country bands and acts, including

Gina Jeffreys Gina Jeffreys (born 1 April 1968), also known as Gina Jeffries, Gina Hillenberg and Gina McCormack, is an Australian country singer-songwriter and radio presenter. Career In 1991, Jeffreys competed in the Toyota Star Maker Quest at the Tamworth ...

. Young was previously nominated as "Best Female Vocalist" by the

Country Music Association of Australia The Country Music Association of Australia (CMAA) is an association formed in 1992 that promotes and represents the Australian country music industry. As the peak national industry body, its activities include organisation, promotion and stagin ...

, and won the Australian independent country artist of the year award in 2000 due in part to her No. 1 singles "True Blue Fool" and "Part of the Past".

The Greencards

Before the band formed, Kym Warner and Young both knew each other, and according to Warner had been drawn to bluegrass and

American roots music The term American folk music encompasses numerous music genres, variously known as ''traditional music'', ''traditional folk music'', ''contemporary folk music'', ''vernacular music,'' or ''roots music''. Many traditional songs have been sung ...

through an appreciation of George Jones and Merle Haggard. Warner and Young toured together in

Kasey Chambers Kasey Chambers (born 4 June 1976) is an Australian country music, Australian country singer-songwriter and musician born in Mount Gambier, South Australia, Mount Gambier to musicians Diane and Bill Chambers (musician), Bill Chambers. Her older ...

's band. After meeting, Warner and Young made the decision to emigrate to America, to pursue musical careers there. Later, Young and Warner were living together in Sydney, and trying to find work in the moribund Australian bluegrass scene. After leaving Australia, they spent time in

West Texas West Texas is a loosely defined region in the U.S. state of Texas, generally encompassing the desert climate, arid and semiarid climate, semiarid lands west of a line drawn between the cities of Wichita Falls, Texas, Wichita Falls, Abilene, Texa ...

before relocating to Austin. Young and Warner met the other founding member of The Greencards,

Eamon McLoughlin Eamon McLoughlin is an English musician based in Nashville, Tennessee. Primarily a fiddle player, he has toured and recorded with artists in the country music, bluegrass, and Americana fields. He holds the position of Staff Fiddle player at The ...

, at a recording session. Warner was producing an album for the recording artist Bill Atkins, and found they needed a fiddle player, which led to the recruitment of McLoughlin. Initially, they got to know one another through their mutual love of

Monty Python Monty Python, also known as the Pythons, were a British comedy troupe formed in 1969 consisting of Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle, Terry Jones and Michael Palin. The group came to prominence for the sketch comedy ser ...

Benny Hill Alfred Hawthorne "Benny" Hill (21 January 1924 – 18 April 1992) was an English comedian, actor and scriptwriter. He is best remembered for his television programme, ''The Benny Hill Show'', a comedy-variety show whose amalgam of slapstick, bu ...

, and

Fawlty Towers ''Fawlty Towers'' is a British television sitcom written by John Cleese and Connie Booth, originally broadcast on BBC Two in 1975 and 1979. Two series of six episodes each were made. The series is set in Fawlty Towers, a dysfunctional fictional ...

. They began to have jam sessions afterwards, and according to Warner, there was evident chemistry between the trio, leading to their writing songs together. They named themselves The Greencards, for the fact that all three band members carried United States green cards. They eventually began to perform shows locally in Austin to finance the recording of what would become their debut album, 2003's ''Movin' On''. In the process, they became one of the most popular musical groups in Austin. Representative of an emerging "newgrass" movement, The Greencards' acoustic sound was said to incorporate eclectic influences from Irish traditional, European gypsy, and Latin American sources. Their first performance together as a band was at the Austin

Irish pub In Ireland, a "pub" is an establishment licensed to serve alcoholic drinks for consumption on the premises. Irish pubs are characterised by a unique culture centred around a casual and friendly atmosphere, hearty food and drink, Irish sports, ...

, Mother Egan's. Given a noon to 3:00 pm time slot, they surprisingly began to fill the pub with patrons week after week, with fans there calling them the "Bluegrass Bunch". Several months later, The Greencards began performing an additional three to five times per week in Austin, in addition to their Mother Egan's Sunday show. Warner credited the frantic pace of their performance schedule during their Austin formation for their cohesion as a group and for driving them to create more new original music. During their time performing locally in Austin, they toured with various local Texas musicians, including

Robert Earl Keen Robert Earl Keen (born January 11, 1956) is an American country singer and songwriter from Houston, Texas. Early life and education Keen was born and grew up in Houston, Texas. As a teenager, he was an avid reader who excelled in writing an ...

. Young's voice was noted for its "dreamy, haunting quality". In a review of ''

Viridian Viridian is a blue-green pigment, a hydrated chromium(III) oxide, of medium saturation and relatively dark in value. It is composed of a majority of green, followed by blue. The first recorded use of ''viridian'' as a color name in English wa ...

'', Embo Blake of ''Hybrid Magazine'' noted Carol Young's vocal skill, as she "effortlessly

diphthong A diphthong ( ), also known as a gliding vowel or a vowel glide, is a combination of two adjacent vowel sounds within the same syllable. Technically, a diphthong is a vowel with two different targets: that is, the tongue (and/or other parts of ...

s cadence" on the track "Waiting on the Night".

References

External links

Official site, thegreencards.comOfficial MySpace for the GreencardsCountry Music Television ProfileThe Greencards collection
at the

Internet Archive The Internet Archive is an American 501(c)(3) organization, non-profit organization founded in 1996 by Brewster Kahle that runs a digital library website, archive.org. It provides free access to collections of digitized media including web ...

's live music archive {{DEFAULTSORT:Young, Carol Living people Australian bass guitarists Australian expatriates in the United States Australian women guitarists Australian women singers Australian women bass guitarists Musicians from New South Wales Women bluegrass guitarists Year of birth missing (living people)