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Home , Chestnut Mare, Chris Hillman, Clarence White, David Anderle, David Crosby, Eight Miles High

The original Byrds: Clockwise from top left, Roger (neé Jim ) McGuinn, , Chris Hill­ man, Michael Clarke, and . PERFORMERS BY BUD S C O P P A

I I WAS DYLAN MEETS .” That’s Roger McGuinn’s succinct explanation of the Byrds’ bold, brainy take on rock & roll. True enough: What the Byrds pulled off with 1965’s landmark Mr. Man Was a resonant synthesis of the Beatles’ charged pro forma precision and Dylan’s mytho- poeic incantations. It turned out to be a startlingly perfect fit, inspiring much that has followed, from their mentors’ subsequent and to the work of such disparate inheritors as , R.E.M., U2, and .

Mr. Tambourine Man was the first rock & roll with group vocals, sounded both totally fresh and strangely in­ a message, the first made up entirely of anthems, the first to evitable, as did the shimmering groove of “Don’t render sound and meaning inseparable, Byrds music was Doubt Yourself, Babe” and the eerie atmospherics of “Here such a departure that it got its own name— “folk-rock”-^ Without You.” But the linchpin of the album was its triumvi­ making the Byrds the first hybrid . The jaggedly beauti­ rate of folk-rock extravaganzas: Dylan’s “Mr. Tambourine ful sound of their 12-string electric was said to have a Man” and “Chimes Of Freedom,” and ’s “The Bells “jingle ,” after the line in the Dylan-penned title song. Of .” These monumental recordings possessed a But what it fe lt like was cathedrals doing the Watusi. near-architectural splendor, as diamond-sharp chords They sounded that way because they didn’t know any cascaded rhythmically beneath majestic vocal harmonies. On better; there was only one bona-fide rocker in . Jim these songs, using just guitars, bass, drums, tambourine, and McGuinn, a former Jolkie, had worked for the Lime- vocals (plus ’s on “Mr. Tambourine Man”), lighters, , Chad Mitchell and before the Byrds created a even more monolithic than moving to L. A. to eke out a living as a solo per­ ’s orchestral model. It was breathtaking— and it former, daringly plunking Beatles tunes on an acoustic in still is. front of skeptical folk purists. Inspired by in “Mr. Tambourine Man” hit Number One in a summer of A Hard Day’s Night, McGuinn decided to liven up his act by unparalleled Top Forty magnificence. The Beatles’ “Ticket To switching to a 12-string electric (George’s axe Ride” and its gong-like guitars set the tone; the venom of the of choice in the movie) and forming a Beades-style rock Stones’ “(I can’t get no) Satisfaction” and the goosebump snarl group. of Dylan’s “Like A ” followed in an assertively A singer/ from Missouri named Gene Clark glorious progression. “Mr. Tambourine Man” was the quirki­ signed on, fresh from a stint with the New Christy Minstrels est of the bunch; restrained and ambiguous in a way that de­ and equally hooked on the Beatles; so did David Crosby, a parted from Dylan’s prototype, it was also suggestive and tan- -bred folkie, ace harmony singer and one-time talizing, as if those who read between the lines would be let member of ’s Balladeers. San Diego-bom Chris in on some mystic countercultural secret. Hillman applied his bluegrass chops to the electric' “Turn! Turn! Turn!”—another enigmatic anthem (this bass, while Michael Clarke’s surfer looks made him the obvi­ one drawn from a Biblical passage set to music by Seeger), ous choice to play the role in this idiosyn­ became the Byrds’ second Number One single. Apart from its cratic combo. They plugged in, they played, they made it up title track, Turn! Turn! Turn! lacked the lofty peaks of its pre­ as they went along. And it was good. decessor, but the album’s stylistic misfires revealed an ambi­ Once the Byrds had their act together, co-manager/Sven- tious band restless for new worlds to conquer. They began to galijim Dickson convinced them to run a Dylan song explore those worlds in late ’66 with Fifth Dimension, an al­ through their snappy new circuitry. The song was “Mr. Tam­ bum so unusual that it inspired a new set of hyphenations: bourine Man,” and it was the final piece of the puzzle. What “raga-rock,” “-rock,” and, most accurately, perhaps, “acid- a concept: rock & roll that m eant something. And yet, for all rock.” “,” with its ominous bass line, un­ its emphasis on content, this music was ultimately about earthly vocal harmonies and a fiercely electronic 12-string sound. As'McGuinn explained, with characteristic wryness, in solo inspired by , was a shattering tour deforce. the liner notes to Mr. Tambourine M an: “{T]he sound of the As a single, it had the distinction of being one of the first airplane in the Forties was a rrmrooooaaaahhhhh sound and records widely banned because of its alleged drug references; Sinatra and other people sang like that, with those sort of nevertheless, the song reached Number Fourteen on the B ill­ overtones. Now we’ve got the krrrriiiisssshhhhh jet sound, and board Hot One Hundred. “Eight Miles High” was also the the kids are up in there now. It’s the mechanical swan song of Gene Clark, who’d become the band’s primary sounds of the era.” songwriter. Clark’s abrupt departure was partly due to his On first hearing, the dynamic density of “I’ll Feel A fear of flying; a less ironic but more significant factor was the Whole Lot Better,” with its 12-string symphony and buoyant deterioration of his relationship with band leader McGuinn.

P. A G E 9 It foreshadowed things to come for the battling Byrds. originality as a pop songwriter. Each band member found The band’s repertoire was short on love songs, and there himself servicing McGuinn’s own ideas; not surprisingly, each was a remote quality, a fascination with sheer technique, that in time came to resent McGuinn’s control. Younger Than Yes­ suggested the cool precision of hard-core formalists. In this terday gave the work of both Crosby and Hillman a new sense, “So You Want To Be A Rock ’n’ Roll Star,” the opening prominence, but tensions persisted within the ranks. By the cut on , the Byrds’ fourth LP, was end of 1967, Crosby was gone. delectably ironic. What fleeting stardom the band attained Undaunted, McGuinn set his stripped-down Byrds to was the result of the sheer brilliance of their early singles. But work on an ambitious new recording project. To construct their identity had become more elusive as their musical con­ his magnum opus, he gathered together the most advanced ception took on ever-greater subtlety and sophistication. electronic gear of the day, tossed in a string quartet for bal­ The architect of this iconoclasm was McGuinn. Compul­ ance, and brought in session players to flesh out the surviv­ sively curious, obsessed with electronic gadgetry, he tinkered ing trio of original Byrds. The resulting album, The Notorious with rock & roll as if it were a space-age toy. He also tinkered Byrd Brothers, sounded airtight; for the first time, McGuinn with the other Byrds, appraising their strengths and weak­ had fully developed the implications of his krrrriiiisssshhhhh nesses with a frequently shocking frankness, as if they were concept. While the songs were a mixed lot— topics included merely cogs in a machine he’d built. And yet McGuinn also amphetamines, the draft, space exploration, and the language had the canniness to harness and integrate the special talents of dolphins— the relentless jet-age drone of the album man­ of his colleagues: Crosby’s flair for vocal harmonies, Hill­ aged to unify the material into a coherent whole. man’s unorthodox approach to electric bass, Gene Clark’s The McGuinn/Hillman Byrds made one more album— and yet another milestone: the rustic Sweetheart Of studio second to none even in those hmit-smashing times. The R odeo, which initiated the country-rock movement. But Roger McGuinn has mellowed in recent years and returned that effort was sky-jacked from under the original members to the rock arena with his first solo album since the mid-’70s, by brilliant newcomer . Michael Clarke faded but he remains one of the great eccentrics of rock & roll. away; Hillman, according to McGuinn, threw his bass on the David Crosby, who fought and is finally winning a long battle floor and walked out for good, going on to form the Flying with drugs, while starring in Crosby, Stills & Nash, remains Burrito Brothers with Parsons. one of rock’s most extreme personalities. is McGuinn, the one remaining original Byrd, hired various now a star as leader of . musicians to carry on the concept. These latter-day Byrds, He has never stopped making music and has kept an impres­ whose focal point was the gorgeously understated playing of sively level head throughout his entire 25-year run. And gifted , recorded five , the though the two most talented latter-day band members— best of them U ntitled (1970), which introduced the McGuinn Gram Parsons and Clarence White-—met untimely deaths, staple “.” They were also a stronger stage band the five original Byrds share a distinction rare among pan­ than the original group, thanks to the bracing interaction of theon rock groups: they’re all still alive. McGuinn’s Rickenbacker and White’s Telecaster. But the neo- The music of the Byrds endures because of a synchro­ Byrds lost altitude on their last two studio efforts, and by nism of taste, technique, intelligence, and inspiration that, 1973 the flight was over. now as then, seems to resonate with the jingle-jangle of des­ From 1965 through 1968, though, the Byrds were gen­ tiny itself. Perhaps, as McGuinn once postulated, it was all on uine space cowboys, their inventiveness and audacity in the tracks. 1 ö yit i i tu Memories of , 1963-1966

C oM ea D ream s by Jean Rosenbluth

TS 1990 MASQUERADING AS 1966. THE , one of the few remaining vestiges of the Sunset Strip’s halcyon days, has been painted burnt orange and decorated with day-glo signs announcing shows by the Byrds and Love, makeup for the role the club will play in The D oors, director Oliver Stone’s upcoming bio-pic of & Co. At least one denizen of the ’60s Strip isn’t fooled, however, I“It looks okay,”.sáys RQger McGuinn, then and now thing’ was secondary to the event. It became a national the voice of the Byrds. “But all the billboards around issue " there now áre for sports and films— there’s not much After thajÈJ!there got to be more and more police music— and everyone’s got a BMW ora Mercedes-Benz. harassment,” remembers — with Ry Cpoder, a And there’s so much sm og... .It’s kind of like B la d e member of Strip regulars the . “People R u n n er, you know? It’s really sad.’p§ would come from the Valley in their cars just to gape V “Sad” is the last word anyone who was there would and giggle at the people with long hair. But the parents use to describe the spirit that pervaded “the Freak Out were in for a surprise when some of their kids would Hot Spots”— as called them in a map of crime to join us. There got to be a lot of the weekend- the area he published in 1966— that lined the Strip and syndrome.^ its saÉilfie streets from late 1963 through ’67. The city’s youth, disillusioned by the assassination of John E ITH THE SUCCESS OF THE BYRDS, Kennedy but hot yet stripped entirely of innocence by Love, and other rock & roll drugs or the , descended upon West Hol­ bands across the country and the ocean, lywood ih search of good times and good music. From record company executives arrived en the Troubadour to Giro’s to Pandora’s Box to the Ash m a s se on the Strip, hungry for a piece of Grove they roamed, creating a commotion as surely as . “The record companies were they sought to escape one. great because they gave everyone a shot ■: *It was brand-new and we were young,” says the at their Andy Warhol 15 minutes of fame by making a Byrds’ Christ Hillman. “David [Crosby} and I would record,” says . “But at the same time, scream down the Sunset Strip on our Triumph motor­ when the money started happening was when the cycles, looking for girls. It’s (® erent now ’cause every- whole innocent atmosphere really started to change.” iishe rides Harleys, and those were b a a a a d . It was aliso Billy James, then West Coast head of information innocent' then.” services for and a “fanatic” for the Not for long. Memories differ on the circumstances label’s Byrds, watched the shifting scene from the per­ leading up to it, but in November 1966, the cops and spective of one about ten years older than its h a b itu és. the kids clashed nt#r Pandora’s Box, it the comer of " “I didn’t think we were going to change the world, Sunset and Crescent Heights, in what came to be im­ but the kids did,” says Jam es, now a personal manager mortalized in a B-movie as “the riot on Sunset Strip.” and public relations consultant for the “There was violence, people were beaten up,” says chapter of the National Academy of Recording Arts & David Anderle, now i lift president at A&rM Records Sciences. “As much âs I mourn the loss of that period in and one of the organizers of the protest that night. “It which music became a universal medium to express the was youth arising against something, but the ‘some­ hopes and fears of a generation, I knew that, politics Tambourine Men: , folk-rocking the Whisky. and philosophy aside, you had to have hit records.” ~ be a rock & roll star: “The Very first band that made an impression on us was called the Gauchos. They were a e f o r e t h e s c e n e b e straight-ahead rock & roll show band with long hair, co-opted by the record companies or cor­ which was rare in ’64. The Byrds all came from a folk rupted by the police, however, there had to background, and s q rock was really new to u s | | | be a scene. First and foremost came the mu­ Aside from recording a single co-writteh by one M. sic. During the early part of the decade, the Downey, Jr., the Gauchos also had the distinction of be­ RHubs on the Strip catered to jazz aficiona-. ing Hispanic— an early symbol of the integration that dos. But beginning in late 1963, sensing the set the Strip apart from similar scenes elsewhere tot > changes blowin’ in the wind, several venues switched to America and England. “There are no true firsts, but we folkB music. Those that didn’t were soon replaced by were one of the first Hispanic groups to break into the new nightspots geared toward a young audience! it whole thing,” says Gauchos leader Jim Doval, now the you walked down the street with long hair,” recalls one director of entertainment for a Reno casino. “In that re­ regular Strip denizen, “the club owners would try t| - gard, we were true innovators/V-.' hire you on the spot to play rock & roll.” Early incarna­ Taj Mahal is black, and remembers well the growing tions of the Byrds gigged at the Troubadour and Ciro’s pains the Strip experienced as it shook off old stereo­ for $150 or $200 a week, while down the street Jimi types. “Elmer Valentine [an owner of the Trip and the Hendrix accompanied Little Richard on guitar at the Whisky] was out to integrate the Strip, so the Rising Whisky a Go. Go. Sons represented that because we were multi-racial. But Some all-but-forgotten names were integral to the it took a'while to introduce us to audiences. It would early scene, before the mid-65 success of the Byrds’ start out in the clubs with people being uptight, saying “Mr. Tambourine Man” and the Turtles’ “It Ain’t Me, ‘what, we have to be in here with all th ese people?’ But Babe” put the labels’ star-making machinery into mo­ once the music hit, it was like, ‘we’re all in this together.’” tion. Hillman recalls learning an early lesson in how to Beyond the easing of racial barriers, there was a

Page ■ p w i Power Booth: Mama , , and . camaraderie among Strip bands and their fans quite un­ Byrds play at the Troubadour was watching them create like anything around today, according to several ob­ a sociological situation around themselves,” says An­ servers. “The musicians all intermingled in making derle, who quit his job to hang out full-time on the their music,” says Mahal. “If my little bluesy thing fit Strip. “They were ‘our’ first band. It wasn’t Frank with your Appalachian mountain thing, hey, that was Zappa, he was too weird. And it wasn’t , all right. I even wound up playing on one of because they weren’t part of the scene. The Byrds were the Seeds’ records,5*' homegrown. ¡¡¡fit seemed so much like a community,” adds An- “Everyone else was very English-oriented in terms derle, who claims to have spent almost every night on of fashion, the whole Carnaby Street costume thing. But the Strip during its heyday “Everyone was involved in with their Levis and buckskins, the Byrds were the only one way or another with the bands, whether you were ones not trying to do the British thing.” schlepping their equipment or sleeping with them. The Byrds’ sartorial statement might have been Whatever band you latched on to, it was like those more a matter of chance than any conscious effort to be were your colors.” different. They, too, wore matching outfits mimicking “The band was a part o f the audience and vice the Beatles’ suits until fate intervened. “We left the suits versa,” recalls McGuinn. “We consciously felt that we at Ciro’s one night when we weren’t playing, and Little shouldn’t be aloof, and so there was a lot more interac­ Richard’s band ilille them,” remembers Hillman. “We tion then.|i| were so happy, because we absolutely hated them.” Freed of their uniforms, the Byrds did all their clothes e t n o o n e b e l i e v ^ t h a t t h e shopping at a Sunset Plaza boutique called De Voss, Strip was completely egalitarian, however. specialists in suede, polka dots, mosaic-print shirts, David Anderle recalls, for example, the social and Pierre Cardin flared whipcord pants. “It was our stratification at the Whisky. “The booths were Carnaby Street,” says Hillman. the real power places, where people like Phil The Strip was “our” a lot of things, but maybe Spector, Jim Morrison, and the major memories of just what it all meant are clouded by a groupies gathered. Nest came the tables and quarter-century of growing qp. Maybe it’s best to let the chairs, and finally there was the dance floor for just the times speak for themselves via these mid-’66 liner notes regularL fans.*-. penned by veteran record executive Andy Wickham for Often, however, the fans were celebrities unto the debut album by Strip regulars : themselves; “The Byrds were quite the darlings of the ¡¡S“And there they ¡sprawl.. .talking about the sun­ whole art scene, the creative community,” says Chris shine at the ocean today, the bike ride to , the Hillman. “There were a lot ofjtctbrs coming to see us. new group playing at It’s Boss and the apartment they’re I’ll never forget when Lloyd Bridges came to one of our going to.take when they leave home and the sooner the shows, and afterward he put his arm around me and better. What they’re really saying is this: There has said, ‘Son, you were really g o o d .’ This was the man I had never been a groovier time to be young. And they’re watched on TV in S e a H u n tl” right... .As Murray the K so delicately put it, ‘It’s what’s If any one band served as the focal point for the happening, baby.’ And nobody can argue with that.” Sunset Strip scene— and many stress that such a center- And nobody ca n argue with that. There never h as piece didn’t exist— it was the Byrds. “Watching the been a groovier time— or place— to be young.