Español

If your question isn’t answered here, feel free to send it to mail@cstephenyoung.com.

What’s the C. stand for?
Chester, after my father, grandfather and great-grandfather.

C. Stephen Young seems rather formal, and I see elsewhere that you go by Steve.  So why not go by the name Steve Young?
I do among my friends, but there are at least 2 or 3 established musicians named Steve Young, one of whom is reasonably well-known in Nashville. There’s also a famous football player named Steve Young. I don’t want to create any confusion.  As C. Stephen Young, I can stand out and have my own cstephenyoung.com Web site that’s easy to remember.  Still, I can say I’m a famous-name singer -- I’m just not the first person to make my name famous!

Why didn’t you give credit to the other musicians on your CD (orchestral instrument players, the chorale that sang on some of the later songs, etc.)?
I’ll do that here where I have more space.
1. I sang all the lead and backup vocal parts and played all the non-orchestral instruments.
2. Orchestral backup on some songs was provided by the Cushing Philharmonic, based in Cushing, Maine.
3. Backup chorale parts on many of the later songs were provided by the Hyler Cove Chorale, also based in Cushing, Maine.
4. I am the only person who has ever been a member of the Cushing Philharmonic or the Hyler Cove Chorale.

Did Alvin and the Chipmunks make an uncredited cameo on “It’s God’s Will for You to be Healed?”
No, that’s me, but I did the same thing “Alvin” does; I recorded the part (which was already very high to begin with, the second D above middle C) singing at half speed and then doubled the speed to raise the voice by another octave.  It’s deliberately in the background enough so that you wonder, “Am I really hearing that?” (This part appears only on the words “It’s God’s will for you to be healed” during the funky parts.)

What does it say on your cap on the back cover?
“Established 1888/Kebo Valley G. C./Maine’s Oldest.” It’s a cap I got when I played the Kebo Valley golf course in Bar Harbor, Maine.  It has pretty views and some tough holes. I’ve only played it once.  This cap just happened to be what I was wearing at the time the picture was taken in Orlando.

Do you plan to do a sequel to Be Healed?
My next CD’s will probably cover other topics, but I may do a sequel at some point.

Where did you record and mix Be Healed?
Be Healed was recorded and mixed at Hyler Cove Studio in Cushing, Maine. (This sounds much fancier than saying that it was recorded in a 8’ by 10’ corner of a spare bedroom in my house at the end of a dirt road in a fishing town of about 1,300 people on the coast of Maine, which is also the case.)

What instruments/equipment did you use on Be Healed?
My Yamaha electric bass and Fender Stratocaster electric guitar are the only actual instruments that appear on Be Healed.  Everything else was done on a Yamaha Motif ES-8 synthesizer, and a few of the bass parts and almost all of the electric guitar parts were actually done on it too!  I enjoy playing the bass, and sometimes I’d get a sound I could only get on the real thing.  (It gets its only brief solo moments of glory in “By the Stripes of Jesus.”)  The piano parts, percussion parts and most other parts were done on a Yamaha Motif ES-8, sequenced using Cakewalk’s Sonar package.  The studio is rounded out with a Mackie mixer used mostly as a pre-amp and patch bay, a generic Dell PC with an M-Audio sound card, and a single Shure SM-58 microphone.  (This is the kind of microphone the backup singers at your church probably use – it’s a “multipurpose” mic; you could probably pound nails with it if you lost your hammer and still sing into it afterward, but don’t try it and hold me to that). None of this is Nashville stuff, but Hyler Cove Studio isn’t in Nashville.

Did you take music lessons?
Yes, 12 years of piano lessons, all focused on classical music.  You can probably see a little of that classical influence in the piano playing on some of the songs.  I’ve never had lessons for voice, drums, electric guitar or bass, I just taught myself. I have an unusual style; I actually play the electric guitar across my lap like a zither and press down on the fretboard. And believe it or not, I play the electric bass the same way. It’s weird but it works for me.  You don’t get style points on audio recordings; you can’t tell how I was sitting when I played the live parts when you listen to them.

Did you use any “choir” patches on the synthesizer?
Nope!  I sang every single part. There can be as many as three dozen of me singing at once. You don’t hear any of my choir members breathe because I edited out all the breaths! (Actually, I don’t “breathe” on my lead vocals on my CD either.  I’m not fond of the compressed-breath sounds that stick out on a lot of modern recordings.)

Who runs Hyler Cove Music and how did it get its name?
Hyler Cove Music is my record label and I run it.  I enjoy recording for HCM because it doesn’t force me to travel to do a certain number of concerts per year, never asks me to water down the content of my songs to be more “marketable”, doesn’t tell me what to sing and not sing, is willing to take risks doing things that no one else is doing, isn’t afraid to take the heat from people who think that preaching faith is “of the devil,” and gives me 100% of the profits from the publishing of its CD’s. That’s a deal it only offers to me, though, so its catalog currently consists of one album (Be Healed). Hyler Cove is the body of water on one side of my house and Hyler Cove Studio (see above) overlooks it. There is a picture of Hyler Cove on the inside cover in very light grayscale. (It’s light on purpose because I don’t like to try to read words on CD’s that are obscured by the pictures in the background.)

Why is Hyler Cove Music the copyright holder and not you yourself?
It’s a legal technicality that entitles me to more royalties in certain situations.  It enables me to get the “publisher” royalties as well as the “artist” royalties instead of just the “artist” royalties.

Is Rosie Young, who took the pictures, your wife?
She sure is, and we are VERY happily married.

Did the healings in Jesus Is Alive really happen to you?
Yes. Jesus really healed me of bad allergies, an eye that was losing its sight and a kidney stone.

Have you actually witnessed all the miracles in the song Too Late?
Yes. These are all actual things that have happened in meetings I’ve been in. (I was usually the one preaching, actually.)

Where were the photos taken?
Rosie took the picture on the front cover from a boat in the vicinity of Bar Harbor, Maine (a couple hours from where we are on the coast) when we were on a sightseeing sail. The background on the inside of the front cover is Hyler Cove, which is a cove off the St. George River, a 15-mile inlet off the Atlantic Ocean. Rosie took it from the beach below our house.  The photo behind the CD tray was taken from our back deck; it shows part of the St. George River on a cold winter day when it was mostly frozen over (not a common event, believe it or not, since it’s salt water). Rosie took the back photo of me at Disney World.

Do you have something against CCLI?
Not at all, my church uses CCLI. However, not everyone wants to have to pay to join an organization to be able to project song words, and I don’t want to turn you into a crook just because you like one of my songs and want to post the words so that you can sing it at church or have your choir do it.  Besides, if people at your church like the song(s) and want to know where to get a recorded copy, that’s good for my business anyway.