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Columbia/Legacy does a great job with its reissue series, and i
always look forward to see what it'll do next. Now it has released
simultaneously four Byrds albums: the three last albums the band
released before the short-lived reunion of the original members in
1973) -(Untitled)/(Unissued), Byrdmaniax and The Byrds, Farther
Along, plus a previously unreleased live album recorded in San
Francisco—Live at the Fillmore-February 1969. During this era, the
Byrds were a quartet consisting of founder and visionary Roger
McGuinn, guitarist Clarence White (a veteran bluegrass musician),
drummer Gene Parsons and bassist Skip Battin.
I saw this crew at an outdoor festival in 1972 and, apart from
the exuberance and familiar voice of McGuinn, what I remember
most was the guitar virtuosity of the amazing Clarence White. This
was the only line-up of the band that ever included a better gui
tarist than McGuinn himself, and he didn't mind giving Clarence
the spotlight. Not long after the Byrds finally packed it in, White
was tragically killed in Washington, D.C., struck by a car as he was
packing his guitars into a van parked outside a Georgetown club.
The other thing I can't ignore about this group of musicians is
that they were the hairiest Byrds line-up. The band best known
for all the Bob Dylan covers must have been emulating the line
from "I Shall Be Free, No. 10," one of the more obscure items in
the Dylan repertoire: "Tm gonna grow my hair down to my feet so
strange/ 'til I look like a walking mountain range." I remember
when the original group sang their hit cover version of "Mr.
Tambourine Mar." on the "Ed Sullivan Show" in 1965. McGuinn
was the hairiest thing I'd ever seen on television at that point. As
he swayed languidly, cradling his Rickenbacker 12-string, crooning
nasally, and peering over tinted granny glasses, framed by an
enormous nimbus of disheveled hair, suburban middle-class par
ents all over America cringed and recoiled in honor, at least
judging from my own dad's reaction.
If I may be permitted a digression, one of the things wrong
with MTV is its routine character. When rock groups are on the
ORNITHOLOGICAL ODDITIES:
LAST RECORDINGS OF THE BYRDS
screen constantly, no shock effect is possible. Rock music still
seemed dangerous when, very occasionally, these people who
looked like pirates or outlaws careened like bulls through the
china shop of bourgeois bow-tie respectability in the guise of the
Sullivan show. He wasn't as square as Lawrence We'k, but no
great distance separated them.
The first two Byrds albums were wonderful, especially the
second one (Turn! Turn! Turn!) when they were playing their
own instruments; and the best songs were those contributed
by the late Gene Clark. Then, after the departure of Clark
and eventually of David Crosby, 1967-68 was the brilliant
period that saw the appearance of The Notorious Byrd
Brothers and the groundbreaking Sweetheart Of The Rodeo.
The latter of course was graced by Gram Parsons before he
went off to found The Flying Burrito Brothers with Chris
Hillman, The Byrds' original bass player. By the early
1970s, The Byrds—in their new lineup—were busy imi
tating the cowboy rock sound they'd partially had a hand
in inaugurating, but that would be forever associated with
Parsons.
As I was saying at the outset, the Columbia/Legacy
people have done everything right with this ByTds reissue
series. In the case of the most recent batch, they have
supplied the bonus tracks CD buyers have a right to
expect. They've unt arthed a fine recorded concert from
1969, and have added a bonus live disc to the already
lengthy (Untitled)/(Unissued) album (essentially the same num
bers in alternate versions). They've accomplished everything but
one crucial task: They have not demonstrated that this final phase
of the legendary band merits much of our attention.
It is not that the musicians lacked talent, quite the opposite.
All were fine players and singers, and all shared songwriting
duties. And there was at least one brilliant song from this era:
"Chestnut Mare," from (Untitled)/(Unissued). But something
never quite clicked. And especially on Byrdmaniax, they appeared
iust to be going through the motions. The liner notes (a nice fea
ture in all these discs) even address the negative reputation of
that album, but the digitally perfected version cannot overcome
its mediocrity. The Byrds, Farther Along, the farewell album of
1972, was a stronger statement from the band, but even so, the
impression I'm left with is of, how shall I put it, a lazy band. And
it would have been even more pathetic if McGuinn had tried to
milk "The Byrds" for a few more years of commercial success.
Mercifully, he retired the project. If the reunion album of 1973
was ever meant to be more than a one-shot nostalgia trip, it did
not succeed. A far better record of that period was McGuinn's first
solo effort.
That may be a way of hinting that McGuinn's was always the
significant talent and that The Byrds were best when he imposed
himself more. Then what do you say about Gene Clark or Gram
Parsons? Personnel changes were
sometimes for the
best, sometimes not. McGuinn did have a knack for finding
talented musicians to join him. Whatever the case. The Byrds
seem to have been one of those bands that could not preserve the
original spark that made them exciting and essential. The newly
available recordings serve to underscore this uncomfortable fact. ©
Jim Winders is living temporarily in Angers, France.
POSTMODERN BLUES
bv JIM WINDERS
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