Remembering the legendary Malcolm Young on his birthday
He was described as the driving force and leader of AC/DC
Remembering the legendary Malcolm Young on his birthday
Malcolm Young was described as the driving force and leader of AC/DC. Malcolm Young was 20 when he and younger brother Angus formed AC/DC in 1973. Angus was on lead guitar, Malcolm on rhythm guitar; he was born Malcolm Mitchell Young on January 6th, 1953 in Glasgow, Scotland. In 1963 with his family he emigrated to Australia where he got involved in music and formed AC/DC.Influenced by 1950’s rock and roll and blues-based rock guitarists of the 1960’s and 1970s, Young was regarded as a leading rock exponent of rhythm guitar. AC/DC released their first album “High Voltage” in 1975, with fellow Scotish emigrant Bon Scott on vocals. The band was almost an instant success, when they released their second album “T.N.T” in 1976 became worldwide famous with the Hard Rock anthems “It’s a Long Way to the Top (If You Wanna Rock ‘n’ Roll)”, “T.N.T” and “High Voltage”. By 1977 AC/DC were opening for Black Sabbath and also released their 4th and one of most successful albums “Let There Be Rock” that included the songs “Let There Be Rock” and also “Whole Lotta Rosie”. The enormous band’s success was followed by another studio album and a live album, and in 1979 they released one of the best Heavy Metal/Hard Rock albums of all time “Highway To Hell” that included the songs “Highway To Hell” and “Night Prowler” among others. With the premature death of Bon Scott, AC/DC reformed with Brian Johnson on vocals and in 1980 released another successful album, “Back In Black” which honored their former lead singer and included classics such as “Hells Bells”, “Back In Black” or “You Shook Me All Night Long”, During the 1980’s the band continued to lead the front of the Heavy Metal and Hard Rock music although with the expansion of the genre they had more bands to compete than on the previous decade, but the charisma of the Young brothers and lead singer Brian Johnson always kept them in the front line. In 1990 their album “Razor’s Edge” was described as one of the best comeback albums of all time and included the smash hit “Thunderstruck”. Malcolm Young wrote and co-wrote most of AC/DC songs, according to Guitar player magazine, the secret to Young’s guitar technique was playing open chords through a series of Marshall amplifiers, set to low volume with little or no gain. This is contrary to a common belief of many rock guitarists that rhythm guitar should involve loud and overdriven power chords through large amplifiers. Malcolm Young became seriously ill in April 2014 and was unable to continue performing, the family confirmed he was suffering from dementia, but he did his best until the very end. Sadly on November 18th, 2017 Young passed away at the age of 64. He left a gigantic legacy to Rock music and will always be remembered by his powerful guitar chords on AC/DC songs.
Watch AC/DC performing “Let There Be Rock” live in 1978 with Bon Scott on vocals
Watch AC/DC performing “Thunderstruck” live in 2009 with Brian Johnson on vocals
Listen to some of AC/DC’s best songs on Spotifyy
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