The Byrds... Your favorite songs

Subject: RE: The Byrds... Your favorite song...
From: GUEST,gillymor
Date: 10 Jan 14 - 04:40 PM

Clark also wrote and sang lead on the Beatlesque "Feel a Whole Lot Better When You're Gone" one of my favorites from their early stuff.

Subject: RE: The Byrds... Your favorite song...
From: GUEST,BrendanB
Date: 10 Jan 14 - 04:33 PM

So you wanna be a rock and roll star. But that's today. It will probably be something else tomorrow.

Subject: RE: The Byrds... Your favorite song...
From: Eldergirl
Date: 10 Jan 14 - 01:29 PM

How easily (almost) everyone forgets Gene Clark's contribution.
'Here without you' - lovely plaintive tune with hope at the end, yes I will see you again won't I?
'Set you free this time'. Was this the one where the rest of the band pushed off home?
'She don't care about time' . original b-side version please.
And quite a few others.
I'll leave it at that, for now. :)

Subject: RE: The Byrds... Your favorite song...
From: fat B****rd
Date: 03 Jan 13 - 02:46 PM

I forgot "Get To You" on The Notorious Byrd Brothers album. The 5/4 rhythm is, to me at any rate,quite unusual.

Subject: RE: The Byrds... Your favorite song...
From: GUEST,Stim
Date: 03 Jan 13 - 02:23 PM

Thanks for reminding me, Eric the Viking. That is a truly amazing recording--I love the way the bass meanders and weaves through the maze, and McGuinn's guitar soloing--is it folk, is it rock, or is it
Coltrane? Owing to my peripatetic musical tastes, I have listened to oceans of different things over these last 40+, and I keep coming back to the same as you--Pet Sounds, yes...

Subject: RE: The Byrds... Your favorite song...
From: GUEST,Seayaker
Date: 03 Jan 13 - 05:17 AM

Wasn't Born to Follow.

I find their version of Mr. Tambourine Man lethargic and much prefer the Dylan version.

Subject: RE: The Byrds... Your favorite song...
From: GUEST,Eric the viking
Date: 02 Jan 13 - 02:43 PM

Always, from the first time I ever heard them, I have been a Byrds fan. I have all their albums and re-mastered cd's but for me it has to be, "Everybody's been burned". I think there is a teenage truth in the lyrics that stretches into adulthood. Anyway that's my favourite apart from most of the rest of them.(I could give a list.....) The Byrds/ Beach boys,, Pet sounds get played more often than anything else over the last 40+ years.

Subject: RE: The Byrds... Your favorite song...
From: GUEST,Tunesmith
Date: 01 Jan 13 - 04:32 PM

Strange, but the Byrds never moved me.
I saw them once at a folk rock fest in Lincoln ( 1971?).
I also them - sort of - back in the 1970s in Manchester, when Mcguinn, Gene Clarke and Chris Hillman appeared on the same bill each fronting their own band.

Subject: RE: The Byrds... Your favorite song...
From: Ron Davies
Date: 01 Jan 13 - 04:29 PM

Yes, I understand it was compression. So the idea is that he could take this box to any live gig and produce the same sound as in the studio?

Subject: RE: The Byrds... Your favorite song...
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 01 Jan 13 - 03:53 PM

Again, McGuinn claims that he cobbled together a series of sound compression circuits in a box...he called it the "jangle box"... into which he would plug the Rick. From there, he fed to the Roland JC-120 amp with treble cranked up.
Someone is now commercially producing a facsimile which McGuinn endorses, it sells for about 300, and you can get one here.

Subject: RE: The Byrds... Your favorite song...
From: Ron Davies
Date: 01 Jan 13 - 12:44 PM

So, since McGuinn's signature sound was based partly on an engineer's trick, how were they able to duplicate that in concert?   I'd still be curious about answers on that.   Is there a "desk" they could take which would achieve that?

Subject: RE: The Byrds... Your favorite song...
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 31 Dec 12 - 05:44 PM

No, but it's supposed to be the essential document, FB.

Subject: RE: The Byrds... Your favorite song...
From: fat B****rd
Date: 31 Dec 12 - 02:41 PM

I forgot "King Apathy III" from Dr Byrds And Mr Hyde. Has anybody read the massive Volume 1 Requiem For The Timeless which I saw in Waterstones recently.

Subject: RE: The Byrds... Your favorite song...
From: Ron Davies
Date: 31 Dec 12 - 01:56 PM

Amazing how controversial the" Love Me Do drumming" is.   Per Wiki, which though chancy on politics seems to be pretty good on pop music, Andy White was indeed used on most pressings of the song, but supposedly it's hard to tell the difference. Main way is that on the White takes, Ringo plays another percussion--maracas? And Wiki says the problem appears to be that in those days the drum was expected to be exactly with the bass--but the looser R & B approach was coming in.

So in general the Beatles still rate pretty high--higher than most-- in playing their instruments starting with the first recordings.

Subject: RE: The Byrds... Your favorite song...
From: Continuity Jones
Date: 31 Dec 12 - 04:44 AM

Drug Store Truck Drivin' Man

Subject: RE: The Byrds... Your favorite song...
From: Ron Davies
Date: 30 Dec 12 - 09:30 PM

British narrator is Nigel Williamson of Uncut magazine.

Subject: RE: The Byrds... Your favorite song...
From: Ron Davies
Date: 30 Dec 12 - 06:48 AM

British narrator in the documentary is not Peter Asher.    It's an editor, columnist or something similar for a British music magazine.    Can't remember the name right now but his captioned name does come up several times in the documentary.   If nobody else finds the name soon, I'll do it later today.

Subject: RE: The Byrds... Your favorite song...
From: Bobert
Date: 29 Dec 12 - 08:27 PM

Thanks, Ed T, for the link... Very interesting reading...

B~

Subject: RE: The Byrds... Your favorite song...
From: GUEST,Ebor_Fiddler
Date: 29 Dec 12 - 07:55 PM

Any one with Clarence White playing.

Subject: RE: The Byrds... Your favorite song...
From: Ed T
Date: 29 Dec 12 - 07:19 PM

One of my favourite Gene Clark songs (soory about the drift):

Where my love lies asleep

Subject: RE: The Byrds... Your favorite song...
From: Ed T
Date: 29 Dec 12 - 06:19 PM

I often wondered if Jesse Ed Davis was associated in any way with the Byrds (since he was associated, in sessions, with so many groups of the period). All I could come up with (under D below) was a loose association, one with Gene Clarks solo albums?




MUSICIANS ASSOCIATED WITH THE BYRDS

Subject: RE: The Byrds... Your favorite song...
From: Ed T
Date: 29 Dec 12 - 06:06 PM

Can't vouch for the accuracy - but many facts listed here:


Interesting Byrds site

Subject: RE: The Byrds... Your favorite song...
From: voyager
Date: 29 Dec 12 - 05:41 PM

Who is the British narrator/interviewee in the Byrds documentary? My first guess is Peter Asher.

BTW - in 1966 Henry Fonda threw a Malibu beach party featuring the Byrds as the house band. A bunch of us beach kids peered in from under the tent to listen in. I went home with Gene Clark's drumstick or pocket comb (I forget which).

voyager

Subject: RE: The Byrds... Your favorite song...
From: pdq
Date: 29 Dec 12 - 05:18 PM

correction: instrument playing the song "Turn, Turn, Turn" is now credited to the Byrds and not the studio pros who helped on "Mr. Tambourine Man"...amazing how "truth" mutates

Subject: RE: The Byrds... Your favorite song...
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 29 Dec 12 - 03:18 PM

According to the Byrds website and Mcguinn himself, the Rickenbacker 12 string was used prior to recording Mr Tambourine Man, but the ringing fat sustain that became the trademark sound was initially cooked up for that recording. The guitar was plugged directly into the mixing board and a series of tube compressors, the brainchild of a Columbia sound man. Later, Mcguinn wanted to achieve the same sound live, and created it by using a combination of the Rick, a JC-120 amp, and a device he tinkered together later commercially produced a "the jangle box", and now available for purchase by you and me, of course.

Subject: RE: The Byrds... Your favorite song...
From: GUEST
Date: 29 Dec 12 - 02:45 PM

Rob Naylor I seem to be the only one with you. I dislike the soft-focus sound they give to some really hard hitting songs. As for Mr Tambourine Man, well they just removed all the heartbreaking, plaintive poignancy from Dylan's original and turned it into a mushy MOR pop song.

Subject: RE: The Byrds... Your favorite song...
From: Beer
Date: 29 Dec 12 - 01:35 PM

I'm with Janie in that they're are so many. Here is one though that I always liked,"MY BACK PAGES".
Adrien

Subject: RE: The Byrds... Your favorite song...
From: GUEST,sturgeon
Date: 29 Dec 12 - 01:30 PM

'Lover of the Bayou' on the 'Untitled' album.

Subject: RE: The Byrds... Your favorite song...
From: GUEST,Dave Illingworth
Date: 29 Dec 12 - 12:52 PM

Apologies for my ignorance regarding "Chestnut Mare" (see 28th December). I have now discovered that McGuinn and Jacques Levy intended the song for a country-rock stage production of "Peer Gynt",
entitled "Gene Tryp". The project was abandoned.
No doubt everybody knew that, except me...........

Subject: RE: The Byrds... Your favorite song...
From: GUEST,gillymor
Date: 29 Dec 12 - 12:18 PM

Ballad of Easy Rider

Subject: RE: The Byrds... Your favorite song...
From: GUEST,Stim
Date: 29 Dec 12 - 11:57 AM

I've got to join in here--the Byrds being a lifetime obsession, like everyone, it's hard to pick one, because it's often whichever one I just heard. Based on that, right now it's "John Riley", but every time I hear "Hickory Wind" I decide that it's the best song ever.

Though I agree with Bobert on the idea of avoiding those crack-headed lists, how can you pick one song from a band that featured some of the best work of Roger McGuinn, David Crosby, Chris Hillman, Gram Parsons, Clarence White, etc?

"Sweet Heart of the Rodeo" changed country/pop/rock music forever, and that wasn't even their most popular work. Give us a break, Bobert!

Subject: RE: The Byrds... Your favorite song...
From: Rob Naylor
Date: 29 Dec 12 - 10:19 AM

Ron: I believe session drummer Andy White played on some of the Beatles' early releases. I think that "Love Me Do" was initially recorded with Best, regarded as sub-standard and re-recorded with Starr, regarded as sub-standard again then recorded for a 3rd time with Andy White. There's been controversy over whether the Starr or White version was the one generally released, but a couple of people I know who are really into their drumming are convinced that the drumming on LMD is "obviously" in White's style and "sounds nothing like" Starr. And Andy White was on a TV prog a couple of weeks ago saying that *he* recognised that the drumming on the released version of LMD was his.

Subject: RE: The Byrds... Your favorite song...
From: Ron Davies
Date: 29 Dec 12 - 08:17 AM

Also, per Wiki, Roger's signature sound is due to a studio engineer's trick. But if that's so, how could he duplicate it outside the studio?

Subject: RE: The Byrds... Your favorite song...
From: Ron Davies
Date: 29 Dec 12 - 08:04 AM

But is it a session man?

Subject: RE: The Byrds... Your favorite song...
From: Allan Conn
Date: 29 Dec 12 - 07:48 AM

"Beatles were perhaps one of the few exceptions--another reason to rate them above the rest."

And even at that Ringo Starr isn't playing drums on the Beatles' first single!

Subject: RE: The Byrds... Your favorite song...
From: Ron Davies
Date: 29 Dec 12 - 07:18 AM

McGuinn's guitar the only instrument played by a member of the group on the first 2 big hits.   Aside from his guitar, only vocals provided by group.

Fine with me.    His guitar and the vocals were what made the group.

And the company's decision is perhaps why the group sounds fullblown --crisp and masterful-- from the first chord on Tambourine Man.    Company may have well made the right decision.




Also, the documentary goes into this in detail.   Gist of it, as I recall, is that the company did not want to take a chance on the instrumental talents of the other young men.

This was in fact quite common at the time:   vocalists were hired but instrumentalists were provided by the company for recording sessions.    Beatles were perhaps one of the few exceptions--another reason to rate them above the rest.

The Wrecking Crew member who provided much of the commentary for the documentary (which I recommend, especially the early parts--later part deteriorates as it plods through the numbingly similar series of musical and personal disappointments---unless you enjoy such things) says he was on sessions for 147 gold or platinum records.

But it appears the Byrds, in their changing configurations, did all learn to play their instruments.

Subject: RE: The Byrds... Your favorite song...
From: Bobert
Date: 28 Dec 12 - 09:05 PM

Thanks, pdq... I ever knew that...

B~

Subject: RE: The Byrds... Your favorite song...
From: pdq
Date: 28 Dec 12 - 08:42 PM

On their first recording sessions that produced "Turn, Turn, Turn" and "Mr.Tambourine Man", only three members were invited.

McGuinn and Clarks did lead vocals, Crosby did harmory.

McGuinn's 12-string electric is the only instrument played by any of the band members. The rest of the parts are done by the usual LA studio suspects, probably Spector's Wrecking Crew. Hillman and Clarke were not invited.

Subject: RE: The Byrds... Your favorite song...
From: Bobert
Date: 28 Dec 12 - 08:30 PM

Yeah, I heard Roger Mcgwinn a couple months ago on NPR and he played "Eight Miles High" on the show live... He's a pretty cool guy... Not my favorite but cool guy... But his 12 string was always the best...

B~

Subject: RE: The Byrds... Your favorite song...
From: voyager
Date: 28 Dec 12 - 08:05 PM

All of the above.....for today I''ll go with 8 Miles High

I heard Roger McG play this on his 2010 solo tour in Denver and he described the solo as part Coltrane, part Raga, part Hendrix and the music soared.

Voyager

Subject: RE: The Byrds... Your favorite song...
From: Don Firth
Date: 28 Dec 12 - 06:43 PM

Oh, GREAT!   I'm still trying to recover from Chrispness festivities, I guess.

That should be "Categories of songs in the column on the RIGHT."

Sorry about that. . . .

Don Firth

Subject: RE: The Byrds... Your favorite song...
From: Don Firth
Date: 28 Dec 12 - 06:34 PM

A few years ago I picked up a DVD by Roger McGuinn on home recording with a computer. Good stuff. He shows you how he records a song on relatively inexpensive equipment, including such things as multiple dubs.

He says he produces recordings that, soundwise, are as good as anything he did in a professional studio.

He adds a second guitar part and sings harmony with himself—all things I would not particularly want to do, but at least now I know how!

His comments about recording studios are pretty interesting. He tells how he was never really happy with recordings that he (they) did in professional recording studios because there were times when he felt they didn't do something all that well and should really try it again, but that would run into another hour and another $150 bucks, so they let it go at "good enough." Recording on his own gear and on his own time (and dime), he came kick it, massage it, and polish it until HE's satisfied with it.

That's where I found out about "The Folk Den" website. A whole potful of good stuff there, and although I feel that he "overproduces" a bit (multiple dubs and all), I can pick up the songs I want and sing them my own way.

Somebody else posted the link above, but here it is again:    Drop in and browse. Categories of songs in the column on the left.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: The Byrds... Your favorite song...
From: PoppaGator
Date: 28 Dec 12 - 05:54 PM

After reviewing all of y'all contributions, I gotta vote for...

Eight Miles High

Subject: RE: The Byrds... Your favorite song...
From: catspaw49
Date: 28 Dec 12 - 05:08 PM

Roger McGuinn---Pervert


Spaw

Subject: RE: The Byrds... Your favorite song...
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 28 Dec 12 - 04:41 PM

The Bells of Rhymney, followed by Mr Tambourine Man. But they both make me cry, they wrench the heart somehow. By the way, they mispronounce Rhymney. It should be 'Rumney' not 'Rimmney'. I was going through a very bad time when these songs first came out, and even now they evoke the sadness I felt then. Songs do that don't they?

Subject: RE: The Byrds... Your favorite song...
From: Rapparee
Date: 28 Dec 12 - 03:38 PM

Roger McGuinn folk den.

Subject: RE: The Byrds... Your favorite song...
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 28 Dec 12 - 03:25 PM

for Byrds fans who have an hour or two to spare, there is a great documentary history of the band here...
The Byrds: Under Review

Subject: RE: The Byrds... Your favorite song...
From: Ron Davies
Date: 28 Dec 12 - 02:04 PM

Yeah, My Back Pages was great--love to hear them sing:    "I was so much older then, I'm younger than that now."

Bells of Rhymney perfectly fit the jangling guitars.

So many of their hits were fun to sing along with:    Mr. Tambourine Man, Turn, Turn Turn, So You Want to Be A Rock n Roll Star, etc.

All those songs about telling you how to become a rock n roll star were real fun-- like Bobby Bare's All American Boy, also.    Sure was easy to become a rock star--you could do it in 2 1/2 minutes.   Course Bobby Bare had to give up his guitar for a rifle.    The Byrds didn't make you do that.

Subject: RE: The Byrds... Your favorite song...
From: GUEST,Spidercake
Date: 28 Dec 12 - 09:22 AM

I learned to fingerpick after hearing My Back Pages, so I'll go with that.

Subject: RE: The Byrds... Your favorite song...
From: GUEST,gillymor
Date: 28 Dec 12 - 09:15 AM

McGuinn runs a great website called The Folk Den which puts up lyrics, chords and Mp3's for alot of trad tunes.

Current favorite: "Lover of the Bayou" which is from a live Fillmore concert in 1970, I think, with Clarence ripping on the guitar. That edition of the Byrds was a great live band but good stuff came from all the lineups.

"Roger the Bobber"?