Four in the Morning Special Edition: Jesse Colin Young/The Sunshine Company: Jesse Colin Young — “Four in the Morning”, The Sunshine Company — “Four in the Mornin’”: Brace for the Obscure (60s rock)! — September 13, 2025

THE GREATEST SONGS OF THE 1960s THAT NO ONE HAS EVER HEARD

1,716) Jesse Colin Young — “Four in the Morning”

This devastating “haunting, all acoustic solo masterwork, [is] so stark and so blue you can almost hear the water dripping in his apartment.” (Mark Rosen, https://www.facebook.com/groups/240098362684435/posts/23878830535051219/) It lead off JCY’s first LP, ’64’s The Soul of a City Boy: “A stripped-down production of solo folk performances . . included a cover of the George [also known as Robin] Remaily song ‘Four in the Morning’ which gained radio airplay and helped launch Young’s career.” (Matt Collar, https://www.allmusic.com/artist/jesse-colin-young-mn0000331846#biography)

Ellaysium enthuses:

i fell in love with this song the moment i heard it. the lyrics are poignant, saturated in melancholy. it tells the tale of a man so haunted, so deranged, and so entrenched in his own pain that he murders his old girl and her new lover. he’s also troubled by alcoholism it seems – the phrase “lying on my back” draws to mind the image of an insect, floundering before it dies. this man is dying without a drink. the cockroach, in his fevered mind, mocks him. the lyrics are subtly genius and beautifully dark. this is, in my opinion, the most devastating melody i have ever heard – from the lonely acoustic picking to sorrowful singing. the deep, profound misery of this tune reminds me of jackson c. frank [see #8]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D7ohgDWEkWU

Young’s friend Remaily (Greg Cahill, https://acousticguitar.com/album-review-jesse-colin-youngs-solo-acoustic-highway-troubadour/) was to join the folk group the Holy Modal Rounder. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Holy_Modal_Rounders) Remaily’s other songwriting credits (https://www.discogs.com/artist/1749529-George-C-Remaily) include “Euphoria”.

William Ruhlmann gives the LP a tepid review:

Twenty-two-year-old Perry Miller was spotted by pianist/composer Bobby Scott at Folk City in Greenwich Village and signed to Capitol Records under the auspices of Scott’s employer, Bobby Scott. Scott took Miller, now renamed Jesse Colin Young, into New York’s A&R Studios in the spring of 1964, and they emerged four hours later with this 31-minute, 11-track acoustic-guitar-and-vocal debut album. Young proved to be an adept guitarist conversant with all the basic fingerpicking folk patterns, and to have an expressive, elastic tenor voice with just a touch of graininess to keep him from sounding too smooth. His six originals were fine but unexceptional, and his covers of songs like “Rye Whiskey” were pleasant. In the folk boom of the early ’60s, The Soul of a City Boy was just one more entry in the dominant style, and it would not be remembered today if Young had not gone on to bigger and better things. But it demonstrates that in his early 20s, he had a good grasp of the playing, singing, and writing talents upon which he would build in later years. The album did not sell upon release . . . .

https://www.allmusic.com/album/the-soul-of-a-city-boy-mw0000175784

Matt Collar tells us of Young’s early years:

Born Perry Miller . . . . [he] enrolled at Phillips Academy Andover in Massachusetts where he took classical guitar as an elective. His musical interests soon overtook his other school studies . . . . [and he] was ultimately expelled from the academy, and after finishing high school enrolled at Ohio State University. There, he lived behind a record store and further expanded his musical knowledge, digging deeper into folk, blues, and jazz artists. . . . By 1961 he had transferred to NYU and spent several years balancing his studies with playing gigs at local Greenwich Village coffeehouses. Dropping out of school, he took a day job . . . and continued playing solo folk shows. . . . Prior to [The Soul of a City Boy’s] release he had adopted the name Jesse Colin Young (an amalgamation of western outlaws Jesse James and Cole Younger, and Grand Prix racer Colin Chapman) to avoid undue comparisons to pop singer Perry Como. A second Scott-produced album, Young Blood, followed a year later on Mercury . . . . [H]e met guitarist Jerry Corbitt . . . . They began hanging out and working on music together. Inspired by the Beatles, and looking to move toward a more electrified sound, they joined forces with keyboardist/guitarist Lowell “Banana” Levinger and drummer Joe Bauer with Young moving to bass. Naming themselves the Youngbloods after Young’s second album, they developed a rambling, harmony-laden sound that touched upon the blues, country, and lyrical folk-rock. Playing regularly at New York club The Night Owl, they gained valuable experience . . . . They signed to RCA and released a debut single . . . which charted in the Top 60 in November 1966. Their full-length debut, The Youngbloods, followed in 1967 and featured their cover version of Dino Valenti’s . . . . [which reached] number 62 . . . . As they were beginning work on the album[ Elephant Mountain,]  Corbitt dropped out of the band . . . . [T]he album found the Youngbloods exploring more of their jazz and Americana influences. There was also a more introspective tone to many of Young’s songs . . . addressing themes of death and depression and evoking the war in Vietnam. At the same time in 1969, RCA re-released “Get Together” as a single . . . landing at number . . . . In 1970, Young built a home and recording studio on a ridge top in Inverness, California where he recorded his third solo album, 1972’s Together. . . . The album marked the beginning of the end for the Youngbloods, who released . . . 1971’s Good and Dusty and 1972’s High on a Ridge before calling it quits. Signed to Warner Bros, Young moved forward as a solo artist, issuing 1973’s jazz-infused Song for Juli. . . . A creative and commercial breakthrough, the album hit number 51 . . . and helped solidify Young’s return to solo work. More albums arrived in quick succession with 1974’s Light Shine and 1975’s Songbird hitting number 37 and 26 . . . . He followed with 1976’s On the Road and 1977’s Love on the Wing, both of which charted . . . .

https://www.allmusic.com/artist/jesse-colin-young-mn0000331846#biography

Here he is live in ’96:

1,717) The Sunshine Company — “Four in the Mornin’”

“Man, this is groovy! Digging the fuzz!” (Leachz1, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oWVxsX9fTZk) Took the words right out of my mouth! J Rodger writes of the Company’s take on the song and its debut album Happy Is the Sunshine Company:

The Sunshine Company melds their signature harmonies with some killer fuzz guitar action showing the tune a new light. It’s further accompanied by piano, bongos and handclaps giving the listener a refreshing change of pace. The hard-time lyrics don’t particularly reflect their namesake… In fact, quite a few tunes on the record contain moments of beautiful melancholia. Aside from a few happy go lucky ‘fluffers’ the sad undertones are a far more prominent theme.

http://intorelativeobscurity.blogspot.com/2014/06/the-sunshine-company-happy-is-sunshine.html?m=1

But what was the great sunshine pop band the Sunshine Company (see #691) doing recording this song?! Richie Unterberger explains:

Much of their material may have been pure sunny SoCal pop . . . . But their real heart lay closer to rootsy singer-songwriter folk than the child-like naivete conveyed by their name and some of their songs. . . . “It was a struggle with Imperial, because they kind of wanted to carbon-copy ‘Happy’ over and over,” confesses [singer/guitarist Maury] Manseau. “We didn’t like a lot of the pop, bouncy material they brought us. . . . [We had] this ongoing fight . . . with the record company . . . . We had to give a lot to get a few things on that we liked[.]” . . . [Producer Joe] Saraceno [said] “‘Look, let’s get a hit and then invite the public into your world after you’re popular,’ and they agreed to that.[“]

liner notes to the CD comp The Best of the Sunshine Company

Jason Ankeny tells us that:

[The s]outhern California soft pop quintet . . . . [s]ign[ed] to Imperial Records in the fall of 1967 . . . [and] issued its debut LP . . . scoring their lone Top 40 hit with the single “Back on the Street Again.” The album also generated the minor hit “Happy,” although with their self-titled sophomore effort, the Sunshine Company’s commercial momentum dissipated, and in the wake of their third LP, 1968’s Sunshine and Shadows, the group disbanded . . . .

https://www.allmusic.com/artist/the-sunshine-company-mn0000918624

Richie Unterberger adds that:

[Joe Saraceno] calls them “the most talented group I’ve ever worked with or seen,” [and] puts a lot of blame on their failure to go further on the record company politics that had kiboshed the release of “Up, Up and Away” [lost to the Fifth Dimension] (“they really got screwed”). . . . Manseau recalls Bill Graham introducing the[m] at a San Francisco show at the Filmore with the words “I know that San Francisco audiences haven’t really warmed to this group. But I think it’s one of the few good things that ever came out of L.A.”

liner notes to The Best of the Sunshine Company

Here are the Youngbloods:

Here is David Wiffen (https://www.rootsmusic.ca/2021/10/28/david-wiffen-live-at-the-bunkhouse/):

Here is the Scarlet Ribbon:

Here is Ant Trip Ceremony:

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