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Two Trips with Jesse Colin Young

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Jesse Colin Young

15 SONGS • 41 MINUTES • AUG 03 1965

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Jesse Colin Young Talks Youngbloods

The Youngbloods in 1967 (l. to r.): Jesse Colin Young, Jerry Corbitt, Joe Bauer, Banana

As far as choruses go, few are as instantly identifiable as this one: “Come on, people now, smile on your brother, everybody get together, try to love one another right now.”

The song, “Get Together” (sometimes called “Let’s Get Together”), has a fascinating, convoluted history that you can read about here . For most people, it will always be associated with the Youngbloods, whose primary lead singer, Jesse Colin Young —born Perry Miller on Nov. 22, 1941 in Queens, N.Y.—got his start in the early ’60s as a solo folk-blues singer on the Boston-Cambridge club circuit. He released two acoustic albums, The Soul of a City Boy (Capitol Records, 1964) and Young Blood (Mercury, 1965), before the rock and roll bug bit him.

Along with guitarist-singer Jerry Corbitt, keyboardist-guitarist Lowell “Banana” Levinger and drummer Joe Bauer, Young (who switched to bass in the band) formed the Youngbloods in Boston in 1966 and, after signing with RCA Records, they recorded their self-titled debut album the following year. Produced by Felix Pappalardi, who would also produce Cream around the same time and later join Mountain, the folk-rock album, which bore a resemblance to the sound of the Lovin’ Spoonful, only rose to #131 on the national charts. A single taken from the album, “Get Together,” credited to Chet Powers (who was actually future Quicksilver Messenger Service singer Dino Valenti), stalled at #62. The Youngbloods’ sophomore LP, Earth Music , in the same vein musically, didn’t make the charts at all.

Clearly, they needed a change if they were to survive, so in mid-’67, the band yanked up its roots and relocated from its then-current home of New York City  to the San Francisco Bay Area. There they found greater acceptance among the local rock aficionados, and set out to make their third album for RCA, which would be titled Elephant Mountain (named after an actual peak near Pt. Reyes Station in Marin County, north of San Francisco, where the band, now reduced to a trio with the departure of Corbitt, resided). With Charlie Daniels producing, the album, despite its underwhelming chart performance, gave the Youngbloods a large credibility boost—today it is considered not only the band’s finest but a sleeper classic of the era, with jazz-informed songs like “Ride the Wind,” “Sunlight,” “Darkness, Darkness,” “Quicksand” and “Beautiful” receiving massive amounts of airplay on the FM rock stations of the day.

Even while they were moving forward, the Youngbloods experienced a surprise hit when “Get Together,” from the debut, was re-released in the summer of ’69. This time it resonated with the larger audience, finding its way to #5 on the Billboard Hot 100.

With that success in hand, the Youngbloods were able to launch their own Warner Bros.-distributed label, Raccoon Records. They released their next album, a live set called Rock Festival , in 1970, followed by a second live set, Ride the Wind (1971), Good and Dusty (1971) and High on a Ridge Top (1972). By that time, the band members (including bassist Michael Kane during the last couple of years) were ready to go off on their own.

In the first half of this two-part interview with Jesse Colin Young, the singer-songwriter-musician discusses his early years and his time with the Youngbloods. In part two, soon to follow, he talks about his post-Youngbloods solo output, including his brand new album Dreamers , his first set of new studio-recorded material in more than a dozen years.

This ad appeared in the Nov. 19, 1966 issue of Record World

Best Classic Bands: You’re usually categorized as a West Coast artist so a lot of your fans probably don’t realize you were originally from the borough of Queens in New York City. Did you do any singing when you lived there? Jesse Colin Young: I did a lot of singing in Queens until I was 10, but it was around the piano with my sister and my mother and my dad playing. Then we moved to Garden City on Long Island. I was playing the piano and they were teaching me all these stupid songs, so I quit when I was 11, as soon as I got into doo-wop. If I’d had a teacher who taught me how to play the four amazing chords that made up most of the songs in those days, I would have stayed with it. But instead I just became a record collector and my own disc jockey. That went on until I went to Andover [Phillips Academy in Andover, Mass.] and they offered guitar as an elective. I took it and learned to play and my roommate took it, and pretty soon we were we were harmonizing like the Everly Brothers but not quite as good. We were both learning and we both had these terrible Stella guitars. But I fell in love [with music] and I started to write. I made my first record there. I recorded Elvis’ “Trying to Get to You” on this machine they had that would actually cut a single record. I brought my guitar and my amp. It all went into one mic and came out on a record. I wish I still had [the record].

You were very influenced by the blues. JCY: Yes. I got kicked out of Andover before I graduated for playing the guitar during study hours, and I went to Ohio State [University] and moved into an apartment behind a record store. There I discovered [blues guitarist-singer] T-Bone Walker and that changed my life. The owner of the store allowed me to tape the records. This was before shrink-wrap. My dad had bought me a tape recorder and I taped T-Bone and then we brought the record back and put it back in the racks for somebody else to buy. So, he didn’t get any royalties for me—sorry, T-Bone! Arif Mardin produced the most interesting cuts and then there were a few filler ones that were produced by somebody else. It was a great record. It had “Stormy Monday.” I still do [Walker’s song] “T-Bone Shuffle” in the show, but “Stormy Monday” was the one that, when I quit school, I quoted to the dean of men. I said, “They call it Stormy Monday, but Tuesday’s just as bad.” I said, “There’s more wisdom in those two lines than I’ve had in my six courses in my year and a half here. I think I have to go to the school of the blues.”

Listen to “Four in the Morning” from Jesse Colin Young’s debut solo album

Your first two albums were acoustic recordings. Then you put the Youngbloods together with Jerry Corbitt. Where did you meet Jerry? JCY: I met him in in Cambridge [Mass.]. I was staying with someone there and I was having a soundcheck at Club 47. I got this message from Corbitt that said, “Don’t go home to Ed Freeman’s house,” where I was staying. Ed had bought some pot from a Coast Guard undercover guy and got busted. So I went to Corbitt’s house instead. Then I always stayed with Corbitt and we started playing together on his back porch and he started showing up at my gigs—Boston and Cambridge had more venues than all of New York, so I played there a lot. Then one day after the Beatles came out we said, “Could we just transition into a band?” Banana lived down the street from Corbitt, and Joe Bauer had just come up from Memphis and moved in upstairs from Banana. There weren’t a lot of drummers around, because the folk thing was pretty strong. Pretty soon I was playing duo and then we were Jesse Colin Young and the Lonely Nights or the Jerry Corbitt Three. We had a bunch of names before we got around to Youngbloods.

After a while the Youngbloods moved down to New York. Why? JCY: We were one of two opening acts, the Blues Project and the Youngbloods, at the Cafe Au Go Go for nine months. I got to open for Muddy Waters. That was a big event in my life. James Cotton was in the band; Sam Lay was playing drums. And of course Muddy, with that voice that just takes you to Mississippi—even though you don’t want to go there. What a band!

Related: What was happening in music in 1967?

You found “Get Together” through [singer-songwriter] Buzzy Linhart, right? JCY: I walked into the Go Go on a Sunday afternoon, thinking it was dark. I was going to call up the guys and say, ‘Come on, we can rehearse.” We didn’t know what we were doing; we were making a band up out of a bunch of mavericks and folk singers and a jazz drummer. We needed a lot of work. So I walked down the stairs and there’s Buzzy. I had seen him play vibes with Tim Hardin, but I’d never heard him sing and there he was singing “Get Together.” I just rushed backstage and said, “I gotta have the lyrics, please, please,” and he wrote them out for me right then. I must have memorized what Buzzy was singing for lyrics and it was pretty easy to figure out the chords. I took it into rehearsal with the Youngbloods the next day. I was in love with it and I still am. The worse things get, the more powerful “Get Together” is, and the hungrier people are to sing it.

Related: Linhart died in 2020

The Youngbloods’ second album was Earth Music and then, during the 1967 Summer of Love, you all moved to the West Coast. What was the reason for relocating there? JCY: It was June 15th, 1967. We played the Avalon [Ballroom, in San Francisco] and it was full of freaks and they all looked like Banana with the big hair. So we realized we could work there. Then we walked into this cheap motel and there’s this funny little radio built into the bed and I turn it on and there’s “Get Together.” Wow! We were past starving in New York. Discos were happening; we even played with the Buffalo Springfield at a disco. It was really kind of weird. But people loved “Get Together” in the Bay Area and we realized we could work there.

We went home, finished Earth Music and then packed up and moved. When the time came for Elephant Mountain we had been on the West Coast for a year.

The Youngbloods’ Elephant Mountain album

Charlie Daniels produced that album. What was he like? JCY: You should have seen Charlie in a rayon suit with short hair and milk bottle-bottom glasses. He was a perfect producer. He explained it to me. He said, “Sometimes artists need you to get behind them and push them, and then other times you get in front of them and hold them back, but I think you guys just needed me to be there.”

The band became a trio at that time. What happened to Jerry Corbitt? JCY: Three tunes into the Elephant Mountain album, Corbitt left the band. He said, “I can’t fly anymore.” Here we are at the beginning an album; we were recording in L.A. at RCA Studios. So we just carried on and Charlie was the transition. He was always in a good mood, always ready, always appreciative and supportive. He got us through it.

Watch the Youngbloods perform “Get Together” and “Sunlight” on The Hollywood Palace (hosted by Milton Berle)

That same year, “Get Together,” from the first album, came back to life and became a huge hit. Did that surprise you? JCY: I became friends with Augie Bloom, who was the head of promotion at RCA. He may have told me, ‘We’re going to wait till the country catches up with San Francisco and then we’re going to release this record again.” He made it happen. He went to [RCA] and said, “Either you re-release ‘Get Together’ or you can look at my back walking out the door ’cause I’m out of here.’ He was way too good for them to let him go. Record companies usually don’t re-release the same song, the same version. But it was perfect. Augie knew it would happen.

Youngbloods poster for a gig at San Francisco’s Avalon Ballroom

Eventually, the band built up a big following in other places, particularly the East Coast, where you played venues like Fillmore East. Were you aware that this was happening after you left New York? JCY: A little bit. We made most of our money in colleges in the east. We’d fly in for the weekend and do three-day gigs, and then fly home. We brought our whole PA with us. We had these two crazy hippies who were kind of tour managers and they would drive that PA out onto the runway at United Airlines in San Francisco and throw it in the back of a 747 or 737, whatever we were flying in those days, for free. United let us do that. We’d pull it out, put it in a rented truck and then go play three colleges and then go home.

Related: 10 songs that became hits when re-released

After Elephant Mountain , the Youngbloods added a bass player (Michael Kane) and made a series of albums, both live and studio, for your own Raccoon label and RCA. Do you have any favorites among those? JCY: Not really. Some of them were interesting but I think I was beginning to get bored and I wanted to be in a band more like The Band. I was yearning. Those grooves were so funky, and if there’s one thing the Youngbloods probably weren’t, it’s funky.

Read part two of our extensive conversation with Jesse Colin Young, in which he discusses his solo career

Listen to the Youngbloods perform “Ride the Wind” in 1969

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Stories We Want You to Read

5 Comments so far

1967 at Newport folk festival. Saturday afternoon hanging out in the parking lot with a group of freaks listening to Jesse, Jerry Jeff, and David Bromberg who were sitting on the tailgate of a pickup truck giving a discussion on what they do. I heard a familar voice behind me and turned around to see Muddy Waters standing behind me. As I remember he looked like he did on Electric Mud. He was gracious and spent a couple of minutes talking to this whiteboy from Vermont. I was in heaven.

I sang with Jerry Corbett for two summers nightly at a bar in Hyannis on Cape Cod. I have no idea where Jesse got some of these stories about Jerry. We all were together on Labor Day Weekend at a club in Martha’s Vineyard and decided to take ourselves as a group to sing in New York. I opted out as I decided to go back to Cleveland and finish law school. They went to New York and became the Young Bloods. The story of how Jerry left the band was also not true, at least according to him. I, however, will not get in to the sordid details.

2 corrections. Joe Bauer never played bass. Also, Raccoon Records was distributed by Warners, not RCA. Otherwise, a good article!

Thanks for the correction on Raccoon. We’ve made the fix. Nowhere in the article does it say Joe Bauer played bass, however.

Great article.

That’s David Lindley playing the fiddle on “Darkness, Darkness”. For years, I had assumed it was Charlie Daniels.

I saw the trio version of The Youngbloods. They were a great live act.

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The original 4 piece Youngbloods

Discussion in ' Music Corner ' started by jgreen , Oct 16, 2013 .

jgreen Well-Known Member Thread Starter

Although known as a one hit wonder, the original Youngbloods were one of the most musicly potent bands of the mid '60s. Jerry Cobert and Banana combined their lead guitar skills in an intracate stlye that still astounds me today. Corbert's fingerpicked ragtime hot licks and Banana's melodic (Get Together) leads on guitar, electric piano and pedal steel were far ahead of their time and Jesse Colon Young's tenor vocals blended perfectly with Corbert's gritty sound. Unfortunatly Corbert left after the 2nd LP and, although the three piece group did well with "Ride The Wind" and other jazzy FM hits, they had lost an MVP player. Does anybody else appreciate the early Youngbloods?  

MikeM Senior Member

I'm a big fan of this very underrated band, and I agree that while Elephant Mountain has some good stuff on it, they were at their best on the albums that preceded it. This includes the pre-RCA material collected on Two Trips , which is talked about even less than the debut and Earth Music . "Hey Babe" and "Sometimes" will always be a part of me, and the harmonic blend of Jerry and Jesse (sometimes supplemented by Banana) is wonderful. The guitar interplay you mention is great, and the electric piano on some tracks gives Youngbloods' music an interesting texture. The Warner Bros. albums that followed Elephant Mountain are OK, but I haven't listened to them in decades. I do think it's a shame that the original four-piece band is rarely given any credit.  

rene smalldridge Hyperactive!

I have had two different comps ( one on Cd , one on vinyl ) for a long time and always really liked them A few months back somebody sold a large group of albums to my local record emporium and I got to cherry pick them. Picked up originals of the first three RCA albums by The Youngbloods in mint condition for about $20. Loved ' em all but especially the 4 piece group on The Youngbloods and Earth Music.  

thematinggame Forum Resident

I do like them but much prefer the Raccoon/Warner albums - this is where they found their own style in my opinion  

jamesmaya Senior Member

The original Youngbloods recorded some really great songs, including Foolin' Around (The Waltz), All Over the World (La-la) and Tears are Falling......  

Raunchnroll Senior Member

I think Elephant Mountain is as strong an album as their first two. In any case, all three are superb albums. Some favorites besides the obvious big hits; Four In The Morning (re-done from one of Jesse Young's earlier solo LPs), One Note Man, All My Dreams Blue.  

jamesmaya said: ↑ The original Youngbloods recorded some really great songs, including Foolin' Around (The Waltz), All Over the World (La-la) and Tears are Falling...... Click to expand...

Raunchnroll said: ↑ I think Elephant Mountain is as strong an album as their first two. In any case, all three are superb albums. Some favorites besides the obvious big hits; Four In The Morning (re-done from one of Jesse Young's earlier solo LPs), One Note Man, All My Dreams Blue. Click to expand...

"One Note Man" and "Foolin' Around" are two of my faves from the self titled (later retitled "Get Together") debut LP.  

joefont Senior Member

Loved the Youngbloods! And was fortunate ( and apparently old enough ) to have seen them perform in concert.  

on7green Senior Patron

The Sundazed mono version of the first album is a nice vinyl reissue. Some good original songs (All Over the World, Get Together) and blues classics. Another one of the many 60's bands to cover CC Rider.  

Crossfire#3 Forum Resident

I love Elephant Mountain so much I think it should be regarded as one of the great rock albums of all time...don't know how far off the mark I am with that sentiment, but "Darkness Darkness" is the gateway into a world all its own...production of this record should be high on Charlie Daniels' resume.... jgreen said: ↑ Although known as a one hit wonder, the original Youngbloods were one of the most musicly potent bands of the mid '60s. Jerry Cobert and Banana combined their lead guitar skills in an intracate stlye that still astounds me today. Corbert's fingerpicked ragtime hot licks and Banana's melodic (Get Together) leads on guitar, electric piano and pedal steel were far ahead of their time and Jesse Colon Young's tenor vocals blended perfectly with Corbert's gritty sound. Unfortunatly Corbert left after the 2nd LP and, although the three piece group did well with "Ride The Wind" and other jazzy FM hits, they had lost an MVP player. Does anybody else appreciate the early Youngbloods? Click to expand...

GerryO Senior Member

One of my very BEST concert experiences was an afternoon outdoor free Youngbloods show in Berkeley at the Greek Theatre.  

GerryO said: ↑ One of my very BEST concert experiences was an afternoon outdoor free Youngbloods show in Berkeley at the Greek Theatre. Click to expand...

catman Forum Resident

Paul J Forum Resident

Thanks for the Youngbloods thread. I saw them at Johns Hopkins Univ. 1971, the 3 piece group pushing Good & Dusty. Always missed Corbitt's voice and his jugband/ragtime influence. Agree with MikeM, the Banana tracks are weak. I love the first 2 albums, Elephant Mountain is fantastic, but it is a different group. The link is for a cd which has all of Two Trips plus a couple. Hey Babe is worth the price of admission. http://www.amazon.com/Youngblood-Jesse-Colin-Young/dp/B0000011W6/ref=sr_1_17?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1382024347&sr=1-17&keywords=jesse colin young  

MikeM said: ↑ I'm a big fan of this very underrated band, and I agree that while Elephant Mountain has some good stuff on it, they were at their best on the albums that preceded it. This includes the pre-RCA material collected on Two Trips , which is talked about even less than the debut and Earth Music . "Hey Babe" and "Sometimes" will always be a part of me, and the harmonic blend of Jerry and Jesse (sometimes supplemented by Banana) is wonderful. Click to expand...

Twodawgzz But why do you ask such questions...

I saw the Jerry Corbett version of the Youngbloods probably a dozen times in San Francisco and other parts of the Bay Area between 1967 and the time Jerry left the band. They did a week long gig at a coffee house on San Pablo Ave. in Berkeley where I went every night. On breaks they sat down to have something to eat, and you could go over and talk and hang out with them. Very nice guys. Also saw them at a Sacramento concert in a high school gym which also featured the Peter Green version of Fleetwood Mac (Dust My Broom was particularly memorable). A great show. "The Youngbloods" and "Earth Music" have, to this day, been two of my favorite albums from what I call the "classic rock" period in music. Too bad the first album was recorded so poorly by RCA. The second one was at least a little better. I agree that they were never quite as good as a trio. Those awesome harmonies with Jesse singing the lead on top with Jerry's harmony below were key (best other harmony combo I've heard like that was the Judds). "Elephant Mountain" did have a few great tracks on it, but the previous magic of the quartet was missing IMO.  

Paul J said: ↑ Thanks for the Youngbloods thread. I saw them at Johns Hopkins Univ. 1971, the 3 piece group pushing Good & Dusty. Always missed Corbitt's voice and his jugband/ragtime influence. Agree with MikeM, the Banana tracks are weak. I love the first 2 albums, Elephant Mountain is fantastic, but it is a different group. The link is for a cd which has all of Two Trips plus a couple. Hey Babe is worth the price of admission. http://www.amazon.com/Youngblood-Jesse-Colin-Young/dp/B0000011W6/ref=sr_1_17?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1382024347&sr=1-17&keywords=jesse colin young Click to expand...

jgreen said: ↑ Haven't heard that but I did have "Soul Of A City Boy". "Rye Wiskey" was a great track. P.S. I appologize for misspelling Mr. Corbett's name in the OP. Click to expand...

I think the combination of Jesse's beautiful tenor and Jerry's blues is what made them so dynamic. They really belong beside the Spoonful and The Byrds as the great folk rock bands, IMO, but they weren't together long enough.  

Random Youngbloods memory, there was a circus show on network tv in 1966, didn't last long, but they would have groups on. Once I saw Mitch Ryder, after the Detroit Wheels, with a horn section doing 'Sock It To Me!'. The Youngbloods were once on & did 'Grizzly Bear'. In a review of Corbitt's album in RS, the reviewer mentioned a one point pre-anything, Corbitt, Sebastian & Taj Mahal were thinking of working together. And Sebastian worked with JCY, Jerry Yester, and Felix Pappalardi on demos with Erik Jacobsen. What I'm getting at, wouldn't a verbal history (like The Glory Of Their Times) of the Village scene and music of that time be great? Was there a "Zelig" like figure that could tie it all together? All those little bits.  

Don't know the show but I saw them doing "Statesboro Blues" live on TV. Jesse still had his hair combed back like Elvis. They sounded great! I sure envy Twodawgzz for seeing them so many times in coffee houses. They were so tight and brilliantly arranged songs.  

Paul J said: ↑ Random Youngbloods memory, there was a circus show on network tv in 1966, didn't last long, but they would have groups on. Once I saw Mitch Ryder, after the Detroit Wheels, with a horn section doing 'Sock It To Me!'. The Youngbloods were once on & did 'Grizzly Bear'. In a review of Corbitt's album in RS, the reviewer mentioned a one point pre-anything, Corbitt, Sebastian & Taj Mahal were thinking of working together. And Sebastian worked with JCY, Jerry Yester, and Felix Pappalardi on demos with Erik Jacobsen. What I'm getting at, wouldn't a verbal history (like The Glory Of Their Times) of the Village scene and music of that time be great? Was there a "Zelig" like figure that could tie it all together? All those little bits. Click to expand...

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Songfacts Podcast | Jesse Colin Young of The Youngbloods Pantheon - Home for Music Lovers

• Music History

Jesse Colin Young is a revered figure in the American folk-rock scene. In The Youngbloods, which blended folk, rock, blues, and jazz elements, widespread acclaim came from their iconic 1967 hit single, "Get Together," a song that became an anthem for peace and brotherhood during the turbulent 1960s. The song's enduring message of unity and love continues to resonate with audiences today, cementing the band's legacy in American music history. But beyond his success with The Youngbloods, Jesse Colin Young has enjoyed a prolific solo career, releasing numerous albums that showcase his versatility as an artist. One of his notable solo works is the album "The Perfect Stranger," originally released in 1982. This album, celebrated for its introspective lyrics and rich musical arrangements, was recently re-released, offering both longtime fans and new listeners the opportunity to experience its timeless appeal. "The Perfect Stranger" highlights Jesse's ability to traverse musical genres with ease, and also showcases duets with legends such as Michael McDonald and Carly Simon.  Throughout his career, Jesse Colin Young has also remained a passionate advocate for environmental and social causes, using his music as a platform for change. His contributions to the music industry and his commitment to activism have left an indelible mark, making him a true legend in the world of folk-rock. Enjoying the show? Please leave us a 5-star review on Apple Podcasts, Goodpods, or Spotify! Connect with us on Facebook and X (Twitter). For the stories behind the songs, go to Songfacts.com. Proud member of Pantheon Podcasts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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How Montclair’s Jesse Grupper Climbed His Way to the 2024 Olympics

The 27-year-old new jerseyan is heading to paris this summer to fulfill a dream he's had since childhood..

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Jesse Grupper plots his ascent, grabs onto a hold, and effortlessly scales the wall at Fairfield’s New Jersey Rock Gym. The 27-year-old climber, a Montclair native, got his start here more than two decades ago, when no one could have imagined he would one day reach the pinnacle of his sport. Grupper is headed to Paris this summer, one of four men on the U.S. Olympic climbing team.

Grupper’s path to this point has been no more a straight line than your average climbing route. In his life, Grupper, who started climbing at the age of six, has striven for excellence in academics, made time for his family and friends, and pursued meaningful volunteer work. Yet, through it all, his sights were set on competing at the highest level.

“Watching the Olympics on that TV screen when I was a kid, it became a dream of mine,” says the Montclair High School graduate. At the time, he was partial to the swimming events because his mother competed locally in synchronized swimming.

“Michael Phelps was super motivating for me as I was doing my floor crunches,” Grupper remembers of the legendary American swimmer, who remains the most decorated Olympian in history. “But, of course, climbing wasn’t in the Olympics at the time.”

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RATCHETING UP THE STAKES

Things changed with the sport’s Olympic debut in 2021 and, for Grupper, with an announcement that this year’s Games will include only the two traditional indoor climbing disciplines at which he excels: bouldering, which is performed on lower walls without using a rope, and lead, which is similar to the role of the lead climber in outdoor rock climbing, where the athlete is attached to a rope for protection and clips it into a series of hooks, called carabiners, anchored at progressively higher points on the nearly 50-foot wall.

Grupper has been climbing since he was six years old. Photo: Michael Paras

Of course, in Paris, both disciplines will involve holds spaced in unfathomably difficult patterns that test the skill of each world-class climber who attempts them.

Grupper was faced with a challenge nearly as great last fall at the Pan American Games in Santiago, Chile, where he topped the podium in combined bouldering/lead by a sizable margin, clinching his berth on the U.S. Olympic delegation. Though a two-time World Cup champion in 2022, Grupper was trailing stiff competition from some of the 11 countries represented, making his come-from-behind victory all the more stunning—to the crowd as well as to Grupper’s parents, who were watching their son compete on television from New Jersey.

“We were crying. It was like a feature film,” says Grupper’s father, Jonathan, who deems the Pan Am gold medal “Willy Wonka’s ticket” to the biggest stage of all. “We were sitting in our home in Montclair with our hearts and brains totally across the universe in Chile.”

Grupper shows off his strength while bouldering. Photo: Michael Paras

One key person who experienced the emotional moment firsthand was Grupper’s longtime coach, Randi Goldberg. Watching her most famous student capture his biggest prize reminded her of her first interaction with a young Jesse, then about nine years old and part of the New Jersey Rock Gym’s (NJRG) junior development team.

At the time, Goldberg coached only the gym’s advanced climbers.

“I was walking around at a competition we were hosting, and here’s this kid I’d never seen, who doesn’t compete,” Goldberg recalls of Grupper. “He asked me if he should try this one particular climb he had never done before. It wasn’t pretty, but he refused to let go, and he nailed it. That was exactly the kind of attitude I wanted on my team.”

From there, Grupper’s rise to the top of the sport was steep. He qualified for USA Youth Nationals the very next year, notching a third-place finish in sport climbing, the rope-assisted event in which athletes compete before they begin lead at age 12.

Grupper makes his way to the top of a lead wall. Photo: Michael Paras

A DELICATE BALANCE

By then, Grupper’s life was heavily focused on a range of indoor walls in New Jersey and elsewhere. But beyond those walls were home and school, where he had friends outside the climbing community who admired his achievements, even if they did not fully appreciate the logistics of a sport that was still, in the late aughts, somewhat niche.

As Grupper progressed through middle school, he practiced four or five times a week, balancing training and competitions with classes and homework. Eventually, he followed Goldberg when she left NJRG for Philadelphia Rock Gym, preserving their winning coach-climber combination with trips to Philly once or twice a month. Goldberg supplemented those in-person sessions with customized workouts she sent him to follow, and he continued to train at NJRG.

Along with competition, Grupper used his passion to pay it forward, becoming heavily involved with Peak Potential, a New Jersey-based nonprofit that holds adaptive climbing clinics for children with disabilities. He volunteered regularly at NJRG, one of the group’s host locations, where he and other climbers belayed, or secured the ropes, while harnessed participants moved from hold to hold as their bodies allowed. Grupper also helped organize fundraisers at the gym throughout his teen years for a range of other causes, and ultimately chose a college major he could parlay into helping others.

[ RELATED : Hoboken Climbing Gym Teams With Nonprofit to Help Kids Reach New Heights ]

After graduating from Montclair High School in 2015, Grupper matriculated at Tufts University, where he studied mechanical engineering and founded the school’s Biomechanics Club, which created assistive devices to help people with disabilities.

He balanced these activities with bouldering and lead, competing on the collegiate circuit as a member of the Tufts climbing team. Someday, college varsity climbing may become a reality, just as Olympic climbing did in 2020. A primary objective of USA Climbing, the sport’s governing body, according to CEO Marc Norman, is to be officially sanctioned by the NCAA.

For the past four years, Grupper has been a research fellow at Harvard’s John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, designing exosuits and similar robotic devices for post-stroke and other paralysis patients.

This work, like climbing, requires a keen understanding of human musculature and its interplay with limbs. But Grupper sees a greater analogy. “In climbing, you’re given a problem,” he says, using the technical term for a bouldering challenge. “Engineering is the same. There are many ways of doing both, but the point is making it to the finish successfully. If you’ve used your creativity to get there, the satisfaction is huge.”

Currently, Grupper is working remotely for the biodesign lab, on a part-time basis, from his temporary home near the USA Climbing facility in Salt Lake City. He relocated there in March 2023 to devote himself to trying to make the Olympic team. Olympic climbing hopefuls—and even those who have qualified—are compensated only for their cost of travel to the Games and certain competitions. Unlike other prominent countries that compete in the Olympics, like Russia, whose athletes’ training is federally funded, U.S. athletes rely on their respective sports’ governing bodies, although better-established sports tend to have more robust coffers. Grupper and his elite climbing peers also receive some limited sponsorship from gear manufacturers.

Grupper’s move to Utah followed several years of honing his technique, punctuated by news of the revised Olympic format. Climbing in the 2021 Games, the sport’s initial appearance, had included a third discipline, speed, in a single combined event for men and women. Although bouldering and lead are timed events, speed climbing is done at a breakneck pace and requires a very different skill set. The best at the discipline do not tend to be the best at bouldering or lead. Each country’s delegation at the 2024 Games includes two men or women in the combined event, and two more in speed.

Armed with the knowledge that his dreams converged on Paris, Grupper further harnessed his energy and threw himself into competition. In his breakout season, 2022, he exceeded his goal of one World Cup medal by earning four. He had reached a crossroads. “I was really surprised by that phenomenal season after a lot of smaller wins,” Grupper says. “I had had some setbacks, too, and then to hone in on my weaknesses and conquer them, it showed me there was a lot more I could do in the sport.”

Grupper says he dreamed of competing in the Olympics long before climbing was added to the competition.  Photo: Michael Paras

EYE ON THE SUMMIT

Grupper has faced other obstacles along the way. Diagnosed with ulcerative colitis during his first year at Tufts, he began a regimen of oral medication until that eventually stopped working. He began receiving infusions every eight weeks for his condition, requiring a short hospital stay each time, and now avoids dairy and gluten, which can trigger a flare.

He is also navigating a long-distance relationship with his girlfriend of seven years, Hannah Smith, a doctoral student in biology at Harvard. The couple met through Smith’s college roommate, with whom Grupper had climbed growing up. A casual climber herself, Smith says she “loves it when he teaches me a little bit.” She and Grupper are planning a late-summer trip to Norway, after she completes her PhD, that will include some destination spots for outdoor, or “trad” (short for traditional), climbing. But first, Smith will be cheering Grupper on in Le Bourget, a Paris suburb whose brand-new climbing venue is the only facility built expressly for the Olympics in any sport. “It’s been so much work for Jesse to get there,” she says, “so I hope he can give it his all and have an amazing experience, whatever happens.”

Joining Smith in the stands will be Grupper’s immediate family: his father, Jonathan, his mother, Cathlin, and his sister, Maddy. A nationally ranked climber in her own right, Maddy also got her start at NJRG in Fairfield, where Jesse, who is four years younger, would tag along for the car ride to her team practices. Just six years old at the time, he was immediately hooked. “It’s probably hard to watch someone do something and love it and not want to do it, too,” Maddy says with a laugh.

Their differences in age and gender allowed them to avoid direct rivalry, she adds, and they have several close friends in common from climbing, as well as a shared bond with their supportive parents. Maddy will join Grupper and Smith in their Scandinavian travels.

For now, Team Grupper’s attention is trained squarely on the Olympics. The other men’s combined sport climbing athlete, Colin Duffy of Colorado, competed in 2021 in Tokyo at just 17 years old—the youngest climber from any country at those Olympics. Grupper is particularly strong in lead, but the pair will face formidable competition from each other as well as a host of standouts, including Austria’s Jakob Schubert, the bronze medalist in Covid-delayed Games.

Until then, Grupper has been attacking the walls in Salt Lake City, with an occasional swing back east to see loved ones. This spring, during a climb at NJRG, he paused after topping the hardest lead route the gym had ever set up, in anticipation of the returning hero.

On the facility’s wide-screen TV, the Pan Am Games played on an endless loop, Grupper’s win highlighted. He grinned, never tiring of his sport. “I definitely have these external goals, and of course Paris is at the center of that,” he said. “But I also have an internal drive to be better than I was yesterday—in climbing, but other things, too. I don’t see that ever changing.”

Pamela Weber-Leaf, a writer for more than 25 years, has been following climbing since 2016, when her daughter fell in love with the sport.

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