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FARON YOUNG

Categories:

Entertainers, Entertainers F, Entertainers Y

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BIOGRAPHICAL DETAILS

Description: Vocalist, Guiarist, Composer, USA

Known For: “Hello Walls” (written by Willie Nelson)

Instruments: Voice

Music Styles: Country

Location: United States of America

Date Born: 25th February 1932
Location Born: Shrevport, Louisiana, United States of America

Date Died: 10th December 1996
Location Died: Nashville, Tennessee, United States of America
Cause Of Death: Suicide

Memorial: His deteriorating health were cited as possible reasons why Young shot himself in 1996. He died in Nashville the following day. By Daniel Cooper.

Photo Comments: This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was first published in the United States without copyright notice prior to 1978, which causes the work to be irrevocably in the Public Domain.

CONTACT DETAILS
Web Site: Faron Young at the Country Music Hall of Fame

Other Links: See below:

YOUTUBE

BIOGRAPHICAL PROFILE

Faron Young

Faron Young (February 25, 1932 – December 10, 1996) was an American country music singer and songwriter from the early 1950s into the mid-1980s and one of its most successful and colorful stars. Hits including “If You Ain’t Lovin’ (You Ain’t Livin’)” and “Live Fast, Love Hard, Die Young” marked him as a honky-tonk singer in sound and personal style; and his chart-topping singles “Hello Walls” and “It’s Four in the Morning” showed his versatility as a vocalist. Known as the Hillbilly Heartthrob, and following a movie role, the Young Sheriff, Young’s singles reliably charted for more than 30 years. He committed suicide in 1996. Young is a member of the Country Music Hall of Fame.

Born in Shreveport, Louisiana one day before Johnny Cash, Young was the youngest of six children of Harlan and Doris Young. He grew up on a dairy farm that his family operated outside the city. He began singing at an early age. Young who originally wanted to be Pop singer went with some friends to see Hank Williams perform on the Louisiana Hayride, that night Williams did 9 encores and Faron Young was left so impressed that he switched to Country Music instead. He performed at the local Optimist Club and was discovered by Webb Pierce, who brought him to star on Louisiana Hayride on KWKH-AM in 1951. He graduated from Fair Park High School that year and attended Centenary College of Louisiana.

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Recording career

Young recorded in Shreveport, but his first releases were on Philadelphia’s Gotham Records. By February 1952, he was signed to Capitol Records, where he recorded for the next ten years. His first Capitol single appeared that spring.

Young moved to Nashville, Tennessee, and recorded his first chart hit, “Goin’ Steady”, in October 1952, but his career was sidetracked when he was drafted into the US Army the following month. The song hit the Billboard country charts while Young was in basic training. It peaked at No. 2, and the US Army Band took the young singer to replace Eddie Fisher on tours—its first country music singer—just as “If You Ain’t Lovin’” was hitting the charts. He was discharged in November 1954.

From 1954 to 1962, Young recorded many honky-tonk classics for Capitol, including the first hit version of Don Gibson’s “Sweet Dreams”. Most famous was “Hello Walls,” a 1961 crossover hit for Young written by Willie Nelson. It sold over one million copies, and was awarded a gold disc.

During the mid-1950s, Young starred in four low-budget movies: Hidden Guns, Daniel Boone, Trail Blazer, Raiders of Old California and Country Music Holiday. He appeared as himself in cameo roles and performances in later country music movies and was a frequent guest on television shows throughout his career, including ABC-TV’s Ozark Jubilee. His band, the Country Deputies, was one of country music’s top bands and they toured for many years. He invested in real estate along Nashville’s Music Row in the 1960s and, in 1963, co-founded, with Preston Temple, the trade magazine, Music City News.

The same year, Young switched to Mercury Records and drifted musically, but by the end of the decade he had recaptured much of his fire with hits including “Wine Me Up”. Released in 1971, waltz-time ballad “It’s Four In The Morning” written by Jerry Chesnut was one of Young’s finest records and his last number one hit, also becoming his only major success in the United Kingdom, where it peaked at No. 3 on the pop charts. By the mid-1970s his records were becoming overshadowed by his behavior, making headlines in 1972 when he was charged with assault for spanking a girl in the audience at a concert in Clarksburg, West Virginia, who he claimed spat on him, and for other later incidents. In the mid-70s, Young was the spokesman for BC Powder.

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Personal life

Faron Young briefly dated Billie Jean Jones before her marriages to Hank Williams and Johnny Horton. It was through Young that Billie Jean was first introduced to Hank Williams. After their relationship ended Billie Jean married Williams in October of 1952.

In 1952 Faron Young met his future wife Hilda Macon the daughter of an Army Master Sergeant and the great granddaughter of Uncle Dave Macon while Young was stationed at Fort McPherson. The couple married two years later in November of 1954 after Young was discharged from the Army and had four children sons Damion, Robyn and Kevin and a daughter Alana. Faron and Hilda Young divorced after 32 years of marriage in 1986.

Young’s later life was plagued with bouts of depression and alcoholism. On the night of December 4, 1984, Young fired a pistol into the kitchen ceiling of his Harbor Island Home. When he refused to seek help for his drinking problem Young and his Wife Hilda separated, sold their home and bought individual houses. When asked at the divorce trial if he feared hurting someone by shooting holes into the ceiling Faron Young answered “Not Whatsoever. I figured if I wanted to shoot holes in the ceiling, I could shoot it anywhere.”

Faron Young’s son Robyn Young followed him into the Country Music Business starting in 1975. Robyn was the main headliner at his father’s night club Faron Young’s Jailhouse. In the early 1980s Robyn began touring with his father performing as an opening act.

Damion Young, the oldest of Faron and Hilda Young’s four children died on November. 25, 2006 at the age of 51 after suffering a long illness. Coincidently he died at four in the morning, the title of his father’s last number one hit and three weeks before the tenth anniversary of his father’s death.

Faron Young’s youngest son, Trey Young began a career in country music during the 1990s, touring and performing classic country standards and many of the hit songs his father recorded. In 1996, singer Trey Young released the album “Generations,” which featured a duet with Faron Young that was recorded before his passing.

Later years

Young signed with MCA Records in 1979 but the association lasted only two years. Nashville independent label Step One signed him in 1988 where he recorded into the early 1990s (including a duet album with Ray Price), then withdrew from public view. Though new country acts including BR549 were putting his music before new audiences in the mid-1990s, Young apparently felt the industry had turned its back on him. That and despondency over his deteriorating health were cited as possible reasons that Young shot himself on December 9, 1996. He died in Nashville the following day and was cremated. His ashes were spread by his family over Old Hickory Lake outside Nashville at Johnny Cash and June Carter Cash’s home while the Cashes were away.

Young died at the age of sixty-four of a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

Albums include

1957 Sweethearts Or Strangers
1958 Object of My Affection
1958 This Is Faron Young
1959 My Garden of Prayer
1959 Talk About Hits
1960 Sings The Best
1961 Hello Walls
1961 The Young Approach
1963 All Time Greatest Hits
1964 Memory Lane
1965 Falling in Love
1966 If You Aint Lovin’ You Aint Livin
1966 It’s Great Life
1966 Faron Young
1968 The World of Faron Young
1968 Just Out of Reach
1969 I’ll Be Yours
1963 This Is Faron
1963 Aims At The West
1964 Story Songs for Country Folks
1964 Country Dance Favorites
1964 Story Songs of Mountains and Valleys
1965 Pen and Paper
1965 Greatest Hits
1966 Sings The Songs of Jim Reeves
1967 Unmitigated Gall
1968 Greatest Hits 2
1968 Here’s Faron Young
1969 I’ve Got Precious Memories
1969 Wine Me Up
1970 The Best
1970 Occasional Wife
1971 Leavin’ and Sayin’ Goodbye
1972 Its Four in the Morning
1972 This Little Girl of Mine
1973 This Time The Hurtin’s On Me
1973 Just What I had in Mind
1974 Some Kind of Woman
1974 A Man and His Music
1976 I’d Just be Fool Enough
1977 The Best 2
1978 That Young Feelin’
1979 Chapter Two
1980 Free and Easy
1987 Funny How Time Slips Away w/ Willie Nelson
1987 Here’s To You
1987 Greatest Hits
1988 Country Christmas
1993 Live in Branson

Hits included.

“If You Ain’t Lovin’ (You Ain’t Livin’)”
“Live Fast, Love Hard, Die Young”
“Sweet Dreams”
“Alone With You”
“Hello Walls” (written by Willie Nelson)
“It’s Four In The Morning” (written by Jerry Chesnut).
“Here I Am In Dallas”
“I’ve Got Five Dollars and It’s Saturday Night”

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