On A La Monte Young Birthplace Historical Site

Cabin, October 14, 1979, photographed by Marian Zazeela, via Mela Foundation First, La Monte Young is not related to Brigham Young. Not a grandson, not a great great nephew, not a third cousin, none of that. It was such a standard part of the composer’s Mormon roots origins that I assumed it had been checked, or that it had come from him. Brigham Young University musicologist Jeremy Grimshaw obliquely dismissed any connection in the foreword to his 2011 biography of Young, Draw A Straight Line And Follow It, only to somehow embrace it as confirmation of Young’s prophetic narrative. And it still persists, probably for reasons. I mention Young’s genealogy because he cites childhood experiences in towns in rural Idaho founded by his Mormon pioneer ancestors as foundational to his most important musical innovations. The earliest sustained tone sounds Young recalls, he often recalls, included the droning hum of power lines and the electricity substation next to his grandfather’s gas…