![]() ![]() Which is not to say the Byrd’s are now a country or bluegrass band, although that is (and always has been) part of what the Byrds were like. “Graham’s bag is country and we’re going to let him do his thing, and support, him and work together on things.” “Graham added a whole hunk of country,” he said. Roger said Graham had helped the group to shape itself musically. Next to join the Byrds – about six weeks ago – was Graham Parsons, formerly the composer-arranger of the International Submarine Band. I think we have that spiritually fine quality groups need.” So what happens is, we can make better music. ![]() We get along personally as well as professionally. Kevin said last week: “One of the reasons I didn’t get involved with another group was that I was looking for communication – communication within the group itself. Then Kevin Kelly replaced Mike Clark on drums, Kevin had played with Taj Mahal and the Rising Sons some years earlier, but had stayed away from groups, studying music at Los Angeles City College. We got a standing ovation at MIT! That never really happened before.”Ībout David Crosby, who was once the major irritant in the group and left the Byrds several months ago at Roger’s insistence, Roger now says, almost sadly, “It’s too bad we had to lose his musical abilities.”Ĭrosby’s leaving the Byrds came after Gene Clark left and although a new album, The Notorious Byrd Brothers, was on the stands picturing the group as a trio, suddenly the Byrds were two. And we started getting encores and standing ovations. “We just finished a tour of Eastern schools. Nobody’s doing the watch-me-catch-this-one bit. The new group is better in person than the old one. Before, we had some stars to contend with. ![]() He referred to a situation that often caused the Byrds to provide sets noted for excessive tuning, instrumental braggadocio, barely adequate voicing, and plenty of backstabbing, intentional musical fluffs.Ĭhris Hillman on the Flying Burrito Brothers, Gram Parsons and the End of the SixtiesĪ few days before the party at Giro’s, Roger put it this way: “There are fewer hang-ups now. How often have the Byrds cut their wrists in front of us in the Whisky-a-Go Go and in the Trip…?” He referred, of course, to the chaos of the early Byrds – Roger (then Jim) McGuinn, Mike Clark, Chris Hillman, Gene Clarke and David Crosby. Long after Taylor had ceased being the Byrds’ publicist, he said about Los Angeles, “It’s a marvelously public place for suicide. It is also interesting that the occasion for the appearance was a going-away party for Derek Taylor, the man who has worked for them hardest and stuck by them longest. It is close to ironic that the “new Byrds” – a phrase Roger McGuinn uses these days – should make their first West Coast appearance at the same club, Giro’s. That was eight hit songs, six albums, countless conflicts and changes in personnel and personality, and a little over three years ago. David Crosby always felt he was unfairly treated, that he didn’t get enough songs on the albums.It was in a smallish night club on the Sunset Strip that the Byrds broke in their act and suddenly became the best-loved and most exciting group in Los Angeles. It was always a little difficult politically because we could never do it quite evenly, and it was usually the producer who decided which songs ended up on the record. We decided to do more of our own material. We got a hit with ‘Mr Tambourine Man’ and we thought, ‘Why mess with success?’, but by the third album it was getting tired and we wanted to stretch out and see what else we could do. I still like to listen to it, and it caught on! Many other people have used it in their work. It was a different sound than you could get with an acoustic, so I had to get one of those! In the studio we put compression on it and it stretched out the sound, it made it sustain a good long time. I was already a 12-string player, I’d been playing it since the late ’50s, and then we saw The Beatles with a Rickenbacker in A Hard Day’s Night. “Having said that, that early folk-rock sound is very pleasant, with the harmonies and jangling guitars. Like, ‘Let’s get out of folk-rock and do something else’, which is why we got into John Coltrane. The only conscious effort was to get away from the labels the press kept putting on us. “It was always organic, it wasn’t a conscious effort at any point. ![]()
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