George Redburn Young was born on November 6, 1946 in Glasgow.
George was the fifth born son of William and Margaret Young, the family lived at 6 Skerryvore Road in the Cranhill district of Glasgow in 1963 and Scotland had just endured the ‘big freeze’, the worst winter on record in Scotland with snow eight feet deep and an advert came on the TV offering assisted travel for families for a different life in Australia, so off the family went in June that year, 15 of them in all, they even left two behind!
The family originally stayed in a immigration camp in big nissen huts near Sydney, it was there George met Dutch immigrant Harry Vanda, the two would go on to form the band The Easybeats and have a massive worldwide hit with Friday on my mind in 1967, the magazine Australian Musician magazine selected this meeting as the most significant event in Australian pop and rock music history.
The Easybeats were the first Australian band to have a big pop hit overseas – the significance of this must not be understated. They were the band that told the world they needed to pay attention to Australia, that little country that must have felt so inaccessible in a time where travel was onerous and computers were practically a pipe dream.
George wasn’t just content on playing music, with his help, his wee brothers formed AC/DC, George would later recommend Bon Scott become their new vocalist after their original one left in 1974. With Vanda, Young produced Let There Be Rock, Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap, T.N.T., Powerage and High Voltage, five of the most influential rock'n'roll records of all time. George also produced AC/DC’s 2000 album, Stiff Upper Lip on his own. The band would later admit, “Without his help and guidance there would not have been an AC/DC.”
George also wrote the worldwide hit Love Is in the Air for fellow Scot immigrant, John Paul Young, who was no relation. After retiring from the music industry in the late 1990s, Young resided mainly in Portugal with his family.
George Young died of undisclosed causes on October 22th, 2017, aged 70.
