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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. 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