3/6/2023 0 Comments The byrds 1968And Len’s right – the shape of rock would be very different, and poorer, if not for them. They were extraordinarily influential despite not achieving lasting mass-appeal. But I think the Byrds were a number of different bands throughout their history. Thanks to Sweetheart, I finally got country music and saw its place in rock history. This made me want to find out more about this intriguing group so I did enough listening to join the dots.Įven though it was the Eight Miles High Byrds I was initially most enthused about I loved Sweetheart of the Rodeo from first listen, especially the is-it-or-isn’t-it a pisstake The Christian Life. Mr Tambourine Man and Turn, Turn, Turn were all I knew of them and I was happy to extend that slightly by becoming the proud owner of The Byrds Greatest Hits and leave it at that.īut then in 1993 the Byrds featured in two episodes of Dancing In The Street: the ones covering Folk and the Psychedelic era. The Byrds were one of the bands I found by tracking backwards to earlier work by members of CSN&Y. It’s gonna be a brave soul who slags this one off, Brendan! “Hickory Wind” is probably my favourite country song of all time. “Pretty Boy Floyd” led me to discover Woody Guthrie, Rambling Jack Elliott and the other pioneers who fired Gram up. “You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere” was the first tune I ever learnt on guitar. One regret: that Gram’s falling-out with McGuinn and various record company legal hassles caused his lead vocals to be erased other than on three songs (for the whole story, read the Wikipedia page on this album, a fine piece of writing). Imagine a music scene without Poco, the Eagles, the Long Ryders, Green On Red, Steve Earle, the Blasters, the Jayhawks. country, no New Traditionalists, no Americana. How wrong I was! How brave were they to tackle this sort of material from their earlier base at such a time! And without this album, almost certainly no LA country rock, no cowpunk, no alt. I was convinced they’d made a wrong turn. When I first heard this record, after digging all the stuff from Tambourine Man to Notorious, I couldn’t understand the Byrds’ logic.
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