Young was born in Atlanta, Georgia. He is the youngest of seven children. Unnamed at birth, an unknown person wrote "Young Mr. Hines" on the patient info sheet and it stuck. He was raised in Griffin, Georgia, a small town 37 miles south of the Atlanta airport. Young eventually moved to Chicago and while there began recording demos in a home studio and selling them at shows and online. Out of the blue he got an email from Brendan Benson containing a cover of Young's song "Only in a dream".

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