“He was looking for somebody else to go with him in direction, and I just happened to be going that way, ” McGuinn recounted in Rolling Stone. He had spent two years with the very commercial folk group the New Christy Minstrels and in 1964 was frequenting folk clubs, writing Beatleseque songs, and looking for a partner. ” Clark and Crosby Joined McGuinnĬlark, like McGuinn, was a midwestern folkie who had relocated to Los Angeles. Then David Crosby came in and started singing harmony. He asked if I wanted to write some songs with him. He was one of the few people who understood it. … Later on I ran into Gene Clark at the Troubador. I used to get mad at ‘em because I thought it was good. As he told Rolling Stone in 1990, “I came out and started blending Beatles stuff with the folk stuff, and the audience hated it. He began playing Beatles songs during his sets at the Los Angeles folk club the Troubador, but -though still using an acoustic 12-string guitar -he added a rock-like beat to the folk material. ” The Beatles showed McGuinn the way back to rock and roll. “I started with Elvis, and I was heavily into Carl Perkins, Gene Vincent, the Everly Brothers, and Johnny Cash -that whole rockabilly, Memphis sound. “I started with rock, ” he told Guitar Player. ”Īctually, McGuinn had never been a folk purist. He recalled of those days in Mike Jahn ’s book Rock, “I knew folk music was on its last legs. In 1964 McGuinn was playing coffeehouses in Los Angeles. He had also played with Bobby Darin, the Chad Mitchell Trio, and the Limeliters. Byrds founder Roger McGuinn was a moderately successful folksinger who had backed up his then-more-famous colleague Judy Collins, playing 12-string guitar and banjo on her recordings of the classic Pete Seeger compositions “Turn! Turn! Turn! ” and “The Bells of Rhymney, ” among others. The Byrds were formed in 1964 -when the British Invasion was at its height and the early 1960s folk scene that had built an intellectual wing onto American popular music was fading. The Byrds reclaimed rock and roll as an American music form in the wake of the Beatles-led British Invasion of English bands and brought a previously unimagined level of lyricism and artistic experimentation to pop music. They left their mark on the sounds of the Eagles, Tom Petty, R.E.M., and hundreds of less well-known artists. Originators of folk-rock and pioneers of acid- and country-rock, the Byrds were one of the most influential bands in rock history.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |