Listening to The Byrds...................

[Bonhomme Richard]

Turn, Turn, Turn on now. What great stuff. The harmonies, 12 strings, just good stuff.

[luaneryder]

1. Eight Miles High.

[quispquake]

2. Wasn't Born to Follow...

I will always see the bikers in Easy Rider when I hear that song...

[luaneryder]

4. Now I'm going to have to dig out my Byrds

greatest CD. Oh, and Chestnut Mare; I can listen to that over and over.

[teach1st]

3. Good stuff!

My morning playlist is a mix of Byrds, Buffalo Springfield, CSNY and its various permuations and solos. Sweet!

[luaneryder]

5. Some of the greatest years of my life

are represented by that music. Outdoor concerts, smokin and jokin....

[teach1st]

7. I know the feeling....

...the music and memories make getting older easy to bear!

[Jack from Charlotte]

6. I saw Roger McGuin, who was then Jim McGuin at a free concert

in Miami Beach when he played guitar for The Mitchel Trio, which used to be The Chad Mitchell Trio. Probably in about '66 or '67. A year later he shows up in "Granny Glasses" in The Byrds.

Their 1st album was all Dylan songs. Heard an interview with McGuin a few years ago and he said his contribution to the music world was the Jangly guitar. (Think of the sound of lead guitar in Tamborine man.)

Now and then you'll hear a group and someone breaks into a little Jangly guitar........ always reminds of The Byrds.

Who else was in the Byrds? David Crosby, I know......

[teach1st]

9. I was in Miami then..

..I kept getting the Byrdwatchers confused with the Byrds. McGuinn lives in my neck of the woods now.

Chris Hillman, Gene Clark

[Jack from Charlotte]

15. Where does McGuin now live?

And I remember something else about that free concert in Miami Beach. It was on the grass in front of The Miami Beach auditorium and the new lead singer for The Mitchell Trio was a guy named John Deutchendorf (spl?) When did the Byrds form up? '67 or '66?

I'm guessing the concert I saw, with McGuin, pre-Byrds, was Summer of '67.... could have been '66, however.

[teach1st]

16. Man, a lot of old Miami people here...

Last I heard, Roger McGuinn was living in the Tampa Bay area.

[Fenris]

10. Chris Hillman, Gene Clark, and Mike Clarke

For the first two records at least. Then Gene left. Then they fired Mike Clarke after "Younger Than Yesterday" and Crosby quit. After that, they stopped being the Byrds and went off into a different, more country direction (although "Sweetheart of the Rodeo" is a phenomenal proto-country rock record).

[DancingBear]

11. The original line-up

McGuinn (then known as Jim McGuinn)
Crosby
Chris Hillman
Gene Clark
Mike Clarke

It changed zillions of times after that - one notable member was Clarence White.

[teach1st]

13. And Gene Parsons.. N/T

[DancingBear]

8. Ah yes

Spoken from someone with a complete Byrds collection on the shelf.

BTW, anyone ever see The Byrds live? They were AWFUL - almost always. I could never figure out how musicians like them could sound so wonderful on vinyl and so terrible in person.

[teach1st]

12. I saw them a few times...

...I remember liking them live, but I was young and possibley chemically impaired, so the memories might be skewed.

CSN&Y had some not-so-stellar concerts. The harmonies are complex.

I saw Stills and Nash (neither in the Byrds) in Hawai'i in the eighties and they were wonderful.

[DancingBear]

14. That was part of the problem

The fact that they hated each other may have had something to do with it as well. :)

I remember seeing CS&N at Woodstock - I was thinking "OK - Stills from Buffalo Springfield, Crosby from The Byrds - this should be good." I was shocked when stuff like "Suite:Judy Blue Eyes" came forth. NOT what this almost 16 year old was expecting. I hated it.

But then I grew up - well, kind of... :)

[Jack from Charlotte]

17. !st time I heard that C,S& N album, I hated it too.

I, too, was hoping for some Byrd-like stuff. I came around but I still like 60's style to early 70's hard rock.

Most underrated groups of that era were James Gang and Jetro Tull, IMO.

[Bridget Burke]

19. I believe the Byrds used a bunch of studio musicians when recording.

Especially for the first couple of albums. Michael Clarke, for example--cute guy with blond surfer hair--so what if he wasn't a very good drummer? No matter. That sound was great, whoever actually played the instruments.

There was lots of interesting stuff going on at the cusp of folk & rock. For every folkie who was offended when Dylan went electric, two dozen decided to start a band.

I recently finished Shaky, a huge biography of Neil Young. Apparently Buffalo Springfield were really great live in a way that never came across on record. Their first album, especially, could have been produced much better. But I loved them, anyway.

Saw the Rolling Thunder Review at Houston's Astrodome. McGuin's "Chestnut Mare" was the only number that conquered the Dome's less-than-optimum sound system.

See what Roger's up to nowadays:
http://www.ibiblio.org/jimmy/mcguinn/index.html

[Bonhomme Richard]

18. Our band decided to play some............

Byrds since we have three guitarist now and two of us own 12 string Ricks. The harmonies are cool.
We are playing Turn, Turn, Turn, Mr. Tamborine Man, My Back Pages, Eight Miles High, and for fun Mr. Spaceman.