The Byrds: In The Beginning

THE BYRDS: IN THE BEGINNING (1964/1988)

1) Tomorrow Is A Long Ways Away; 2) Boston; 3) The Only Girl I Adore; 4) You Won't Have To Cry; 5) I Knew I'd Want You; 6) The Airport Song; 7) The Reason Why; 8) Mr. Tambourine Man; 9) Please Let Me Love You; 10) You Movin'; 11) It Won't Be Wrong; 12) You Showed Me; 13) She Has A Way; 14) For Me Again; 15) It's No Use; 16) Here Without You; 17) Tomorrow Is A Long Ways Away (acoustic).

«The Great Lost Byrds Album». Well, maybe not that great, and not that lost, either, considering that the majority of these tracks (albeit in slightly alternate takes) were originally released in 1969 as Preflyte, an album that actually sold better than the contemporary Dr. Byrds & Mr Hyde, what with the public ready to show McGuinn what they thought of his Clark-less, Crosby-less, Hillman-less «Byrds». Still, in its expanded form, released on CD as In The Beginning in the late Eighties, this is a pretty nice little record, well worth owning to logically round out the catalog. In fact, nothing seriously prevents us from counting it as the first, «quintessentially early» Byrds album, their equivalent of a Please Please Me or a Bob Dylan, which simply hap­pened to be left on the shelf at the time.

Consisting of early recordings that the band made as The Beefeaters, The Jet Set, and, eventually, The Byrds, In The Beginning's first and biggest surprise is in how many of these early tunes (most of them, in fact) are originals: the Byrds may have been one of the few bands in history that started out cutting nothing but their own songs, only to end up doing Dylan and Pete Seeger be­cause somebody thought they were not worthy. But, actually, they were — these originals are fun, harmless, pleasant, often catchy, and occasionally innovative folk-pop.

From that very beginning, Gene Clark was the primary songwriter: seven songs are credited sole­ly to him, whereas most of McGuinn's songs are co-credited (to McGuinn/Clark or McGuinn/ Crosby). His strong debt to The Beatles and particularly The Searchers is clear, but he does his best to come up with original melodies, and sometimes makes bold decisions: ʻBostonʼ is the most striking of these, combining moody folk harmonies with the bass line of ʻMemphis Ten­nesseeʼ — pretty much an epitome of what «folk-rock» should be all about — but it's hardly the best song of the lot, just an example of what strange direction the mind of this promising young fellow could choose in the age of ʻHouse Of The Rising Sunʼ.

On the whole, the Byrds were working very strictly in the «pop» idiom, despite their fascination with Greenwich Village: all the songs are short, all the songs follow the verse/chorus/bridge structure, all the songs strive to have hooks, and the lyrical and emotional sides do not show much depth, let alone «vision». Little love songs, ranging from the way-too-cute (ʻThe Only Girl I Adoreʼ — hey, David Crosby co-wrote it! Hey, how come he never sings it live? It's so much better than ʻAlmost Cut My Hairʼ!) to the gallant serenade (ʻTomorrow Is A Long Ways Awayʼ, whose medievalistic romanticism borders on the laughable, but the harmonies are too gorgeous and elegant to laugh away). There's an early version of ʻMr. Tambourine Manʼ, all right, but no 12-string jangle yet — no chance for this particular version to change the face of the musical business. But the seeds are all there.

Some of the tunes would later end up on the band's first two albums or the accompanying B-sides, but really, with the exception of one or two really trite songs (ʻThe Only Girl I Adoreʼ even has the gall to end up with a «seductive» Beatlesque ʻoh-ohʼ flourish — ridiculous!), most of them could be tightened up to the status of semi-classics. ʻThe Airport Songʼ is actually giving us an almost mature David Crosby (at least, his starry-eyed singing style is already in place); ʻThe Reason Whyʼ and ʻFor Me Againʼ are as introspective as Clark would ever get, and so on. Per­haps the thing that we subconsciously miss the most on these songs is the Wrecking Crew — apparently, the band members are playing all their instruments here, and so the recordings lack the necessary polish. On the other hand, at least this shows that they could play their instruments as early as 1964 — not to mention write their own songs, which was not a typical ability for beginning pop bands circa 1964. And at most, this is a record that one can actually keep for en­joyment, rather than pure historical interest, so "it won't be wrong" to issue it a proper thumbs up and state that it is a definite must-own for any half-serious Byrds lover.

The Byrds: Live At The Royal Albert Hall

THE BYRDS: LIVE AT THE ROYAL ALBERT HALL (1971/2008)

1) Lover Of The Bayou; 2) You Ain't Going Nowhere; 3) Truck Stop Girl; 4) My Back Pages; 5) Baby, What You Want Me To Do; 6) Jamaica Say You Will; 7) Black Mountain Rag/Soldier's Joy; 8) Mr. Tambourine Man; 9) Pretty Boy Floyd; 10) Take A Whiff; 11) Chestnut Mare; 12) Jesus Is Just Alright; 13) Eight Miles High; 14) So You Want To Be A Rock'n'Roll Star; 15) Mr. Spaceman; 16) I Trust; 17) Nashville West; 18) Roll Over Beethoven; 19) Amazing Grace.

Okay, this is no live masterpiece, either, but third time around, they finally got it close to right. This archival release, coming out of the vaults more than 35 years after the original recording was made, has some obvious advantages over both Untitled and Fillmore, to emerge as arguably the single best live document of the Clarence White era — if you still needed convincing that they were a fun live band, and the Albert Hall show still does not convince you, there's probably no hope left for the future.

First, it is much longer than both of these, which is a good thing because it allows them to con­centrate on pretty much every side of their legacy — folk, country, psychedelia, rock, «Ameri­cana» in general, whatever. It is well-structured, with a «breather» all-acoustic section in the middle and a couple proper encores. It does not rely too heavily on new material, with only a couple (good) songs from Byrdmaniax and only three (decent) songs from Untitled. And, most importantly, it reflects a three-year gestation period, meaning that the band had gained quite a bit of muscle since the somewhat insecure beginnings of the Fillmore days.

In particular, this 18-minute version of ʻEight Miles Highʼ (more accurately, ʻImprovisational Variations Around The Theme Of ʻEight Miles Highʼʼ, since the song itself is played for about two minutes only) is much tighter and, I would say, comprehensible than the jam captured on Untitled. If the early McGuinn/White interplay seemed to lack self-assurance and was more like "okay, everybody's doing it, let's try this too and see where it gets us", by 1971, having done it many times over, they sound like they already know the main directions and use the jam as a polygon for testing and expanding the individual players' skills — in particular, the bit where the guitarists go take a smoke and the Battin/Parsons rhythm section stays behind and experiments with key and tempo changes is really quite exciting, as Battin seems to go through every basic rhythm pattern in existence (jazz, blues, boogie, pop, you name it).

The originals still suffer from being too ragged and «earthy» compared to the ethereal studio versions, and McGuinn does not even begin to strive for the same fluidity, precision of phrasing, and tonal beauty that he seemed to so effortlessly achieve in the studio. But this is at least par­tially compensated for by the increased tightness and energy of the rhythm section and the ever more fluent guitar interplay, and besides, individual weaknesses and elements of sloppiness are not so painful when you look at the whole thing as one complex — there's so much collective goodness here that an occasional vocal flub in ʻMy Back Pagesʼ is negligible. And the decision to revert ʻMr. Tambourine Manʼ to its acoustic roots, playing it close to the way Dylan did in 1964, actually works well in concert, where the heavenly effect of the studio 12-string jangle multiplied by immaculate harmonies would have been irreproduceable anyway.

In this context, I do not find the strength to protest even again the inclusion of ʻRoll Over Beet­hovenʼ — a song that was clearly not made with The Byrds in mind, but is still forgivable given the mighty eclectic nature of the show. I mean, they stick it in between a hot-pants rendition of ʻNashville Westʼ and a devoted accappella walk through ʻAmazing Graceʼ, so it's goddamn symbolic — «we're gonna finish off this show for you as hillbillies, rockers, and soulmen». With a little more sense of humor, a little more polish, and a little more energy in the right places they could have turned the show into an unforgettable celebration of both the Byrds' individual legacy and American popular music in general. And, well, it doesn't get quite that high, but they were on the right track.

Who knows, maybe a couple more years of obsessive touring and they'd finally nail it down to perfection... then again, they still wouldn't be able to compete with The Band, who had the advantage of cutting their teeth on classic Dylan tours, fighting off Judasmongers and stuff. But in any case, these 77 minutes are impressive, except you really have to take it all in without a break and disregard the individual scars, seams, and pimples. Thumbs up without any future regrets, I hope.

The Byrds: Live At The Fillmore

THE BYRDS: LIVE AT THE FILLMORE (1969/2000)

1) Nashville West; 2) You're Still On My Mind; 3) Pretty Boy Floyd; 4) Drug Store Truck Drivin' Man; 5) Medley: Turn! Turn! Turn! / Mr. Tambourine Man / Eight Miles High; 6) Close Up The Honky Tonks; 7) Buckaroo; 8) The Christian Life; 9) Time Between; 10) King Apathy III; 11) Bad Night At The Whiskey; 12) This Wheel's On Fire; 13) Sing Me Back Home; 14) So You Want To Be A Rock'n'Roll Star; 15) He Was A Friend Of Mine; 16) Chimes Of Freedom.

In the case of The Byrds, the vault-emptying ritual has largely focused on the Clarence White era, particularly when it comes to live albums — the original Byrds were never appreciated much for their live playing, not to mention that they fell apart just prior to the era of the first quality recor­dings of live shows. However, the decision to open the vaults with this particular recording, taped at two shows from the Fillmore West on February 7-8, 1969, is still questionable. The new Byrds were just getting their stuff together: Dr. Byrds & Mr. Hyde had only been released one week before, and not only does this mean that you are going to have to sit through quite a few mediocre songs from that album, but it also means that everything else is happening in «test» stage.

For instance, ʻEight Miles Highʼ, although already a couple minutes longer than the original, has not yet been expanded to the mammoth psychedelic heights of the Untitled era — instead, it is included here as part of a frickin' medley, into which they have compressed three of their biggest hits. The trick is a well-known cop-out: "we have no interest in playing these songs any more, but out of a sense of loyalty, we're giving you a taste" — and, honestly, they'd do better to leave out ʻTurn! Turn! Turn!ʼ and ʻMr. Tambourine Manʼ of this altogether, because the harmonies on those songs just flat out suck. Admittedly, the instrumental passages on ʻEight Miles Highʼ are handled much better, with White already an accomplished sparring partner for McGuinn.

Overall, the setlist predictably concentrates on material from Dr. Byrds and from Sweetheart Of The Rodeo, with the addition of a few extra country covers (Red Simpson's ʻClose Up The Honky Tonksʼ, Merle Haggard's ʻSing Me Back Homeʼ, Buck Owens' ʻBuckarooʼ) and every­thing else basically just played «for the old fans». This is in stark contrast with the live material they'd soon record for Untitled, which included only one pure country number and observed a better balance between new and «classic» songs, so you have to be mentally prepared for the fact that these Fillmore Byrds are shining knights of the Country Rock Order through and through.

Arguably the one thing that is most typical and representative of the album is Clarence White's manner of playing country melodies — with a device called the Stringbender that he invented with Gene Parsons, enabling him to play a regular electric Telecaster similarly to a pedal steel guitar. This does bring a whole new twist to the idea of «country rock», and gives all these ins­trumentals like ʻNashville Westʼ and ʻBuckarooʼ a unique face — otherwise, we'd probably just ask "so why do we have to listen to the Byrds doing this stuff, when it would make so much more sense to just bring in the regular Nashville guard?" However, I would also insist that true pedal steel gives a much prettier sound than a regular electric guitar made to sound like a pedal steel; there's just something about this imitation that throws me off (actually, a lot of situations where instrument A is forced to sound closer to instrument B throw me off, but maybe it's just me).

Still, it is a fact that White's guitar playing is pretty much the only argument why you'd ever feel tempted to give this another spin — in no other respect do these performances even come close to matching the originals in clarity or emotional impact. Whenever he takes a seriously focused solo, even on so-so material like ʻBad Night At The Whiskeyʼ, the playing is clearly inspired (unfor­tunately, he does that on less than half of the tracks), and even if that country style of his may seem a bit monotonous, it also provides unity for all content — old classics, new originals, and cover material. Just forget about The Byrds as one of America's (formerly) greatest vocal har­mony bands, and you'll be fine for a while.

The Byrds: Byrds

THE BYRDS: BYRDS (1973)

1) Full Circle; 2) Sweet Mary; 3) Changing Heart; 4) For Free; 5) Born To Rock & Roll; 6) Things Will Be Better; 7) Cowgirl In The Sand; 8) Long Live The King; 9) Borrowing Time; 10) Laughing; 11) (See The Sky) About To Rain.

If I am not too mistaken, this was the first ever «reunion / comeback experience» in the history of rock music, at least as far as major league players are concerned. The event happened largely by accident — by late 1972, it so chanced that all five original Byrds found themselves at the cross­roads, with their solo careers (including McGuinn's disaster with Farther Along) either commer­cially flopping or reaching a certain turning point (for instance, Crosby, Stills & Nash were on a lengthy hiatus). Had they been the Beatles, their egos would probably stay too huge and mutually repellent to succumb to attraction. But they weren't the Beatles, and five years after mutual dis­agreements tore them apart, the wounds healed well enough to initiate reunion talks. Throw in a nice financial proposition from Asylum's David Geffen, and the cat was in the bag.

One thing that was not in the bag, though, was nostalgia. The reunited band did have the exact same lineup as the Great Original Byrds of Mr. Tambourine Man — McGuinn, Crosby, Hill­man, Clark, and Clarke — but they immediately came to an agreement that they would do any­thing but consciously try to recreate the «harmonies-and-jangle» atmosphere of their early albums, partly because trying to cohesively work as a single unit was the thing that ended up driving them apart in the first place, and partly because they were, after all, still too young and too full of ideas to bow down to pure nostalgia. Consequently, the reunion album, as everybody seems to agree, is not really a true «Byrds» album — it is a bunch of solo tracks, collected from four out of five members: more precisely, McGuinn contributes 2 songs, Crosby contributes 3 (one of them a Joni Mitchell cover), Hillman and Clark also 2 each, and then there are two Neil Young covers, sug­gested by Clark and defended by Crosby (saying that the band was now covering Neil Young in­stead of Dylan because Neil was for the Seventies what Bob was for the Sixties).

It is actually quite curious how the original Byrds were pigeonholed — reviews at the time were scathing, with people complaining about the disunity and the lack of jingle-jangle much the same way that in 1969, somebody could easily complain about the lack of "yeah yeah yeah"s on Abbey Road. True, the record on the whole sounds more like a James Taylor album with group harmo­nies, but even James Taylor in his prime had some good songs, and if there is no unity, at least there is diversity. Let's face it, when you have three songs on your record that totally sound like solo David Crosby, it's still better than when your record consists entirely of songs by solo David Crosby. On the other hand, the downside is also that in a situation like this, band members may be tempted to offer their weakest material for the collective pot, consciously or subconsciously saving up the best stuff for true solo albums.

The bottomline is that Byrds sounds quite nice. Only Crosby's ʻLaughingʼ, one of those lengthy stoned rants of his set to a completely unmemorable melody, sticks out unpleasantly with its 5:40 running length (and, adding insult to injury, it was already released earlier on his first solo album, so there's hardly any other reason than pure laziness behind its inclusion). Everything else ranges from cute to sympathetic — even the Neil Young covers, with ʻCowgirl In The Sandʼ remade as a bouncy, almost cheerful country-pop number and ʻSee The Sky About To Rainʼ featuring a soul­ful Clark lead vocal and even, in the form of a small bonus for the fans, some genuine 12-string jangle in the coda section.

Clark's two originals, ʻFull Circleʼ (also brought from his solo career) and ʻChanging Heartʼ, arguably have the best vocal melodies on the album — nothing too breathtaking, but the «alar­med» intonations on the chorus of the latter agree very well with the song's message (warning about the fickleness of fame and all that), and although the semantics of the line "funny how the circle is a wheel" is a bit tautological, its delivery is inspiring, and so well punctuated by the added mandolin lead line. As for Hillman, he contributes the album's poppiest tune, ʻThings Will Be Betterʼ, with colorful power pop riffs and lively choruses that would not be out of place on a contemporary Big Star or Badfinger album.

This leaves McGuinn, and, surprisingly, he is probably the second weakest link on the album after Crosby — throwing in his filler bit ʻBorn To Rock & Rollʼ (which has very little to do with actual rock'n'roll, not to mention stealing the verse melody from Dylan's ʻI Shall Be Releasedʼ) and the Jacques Levy collaboration ʻSweet Maryʼ, where I guess Levy wrote the lyrics and Roger borrowed the melody from some traditional sea shanty. Not that it doesn't sound nice — it's al­ways nice to hear McGuinn sing traditional ballads, and the mandolin touch is again a gallant addition — but it does seem like, out of all the contributors, McGuinn contributed the smallest efforts to this reunion. It's basically like, "okay, guys, I've held up the Byrds name for four god­damn years on my own, now I'm just going to sit back and relax while you do your job". But I guess he may have thought he earned it, after all. Besides, less work — fewer reasons for arguing over artistic decisions with his former pals.

In retrospect, I think that the record does deserve a mild thumbs up, because of all the little pretty things and the essential lack of ugly bad things. Formally, it is sort of a belated Abbey Road for these guys — a «let's-come-together-and-be-friendly-for-the-last-time» type of album, except, of course, that there is not even a small attempt at the grandness of vision that charac­terizes Abbey Road; in the end, The Byrds never truly had a «grand vision», and they weren't about to try and develop one at the end of the road. It is not likely that anybody would want to revisit Byrds on a regular basis — however, it is still very comforting and satisfying to have it, witnessing the band coming «full circle» indeed. From Mr. Tambourine Man all the way to Byrds — such a long, strange, bizarre trip, beginning in one place and ending up in several com­pletely different ones. Very instructive, at the very least.

The Byrds: Farther Along

THE BYRDS: FARTHER ALONG (1971)

1) Tiffany Queen; 2) Get Down Your Line; 3) Farther Along; 4) B. B. Class Road; 5) Bugler; 6) America's Great National Pastime; 7) Antique Sandy; 8) Precious Kate; 9) So Fine; 10) Lazy Waters; 11) Bristol Steam Convention Blues.

The last album by «The Roger McGuinn Experience» tends to be the band's most despised (con­tending for this position with Byrdmaniax). It signified the band's complete fall-off from the charts, the shame being exacerbated and perpetuated by the idiotic choice of releasing ʻAmerica's Great National Pastimeʼ as the lead (and only) single — a slightly funny, but also sort of obno­xious vaudeville number from the Battin/Fowley team, not to mention that its somewhat unjustly derogatory lyrics may have detracted listeners as well (I mean, the song satirizes a certain seg­ment of American population, but why American? "One of America's great national pastimes is cutting the grass / Grabbing some ass / Living too fast" — could be said about quite a few other countries as well, if it needed to be said in the first place).

Anyway, the truth is, Farther Along is certainly not worse than anything else produced by the White-era Byrds, and although it lacks serious ambition, I actually prefer this laid-back, simple atmosphere to the unsuccessful attempt at epicness that was Untitled. There, the band over­reached, going on a sprawl without having the proper means, vision, or talent pool to back it up. Here, the band is just having itself a good time. There is no «flash» whatsoever, and none of these songs probably had what it takes to catch the public eye in 1972 (although that still does not mean that prioritizing ʻNational Pastimeʼ was a wise choice by any means); but in retrospect, Farther Along just feels like a bunch of nice musicians... well, engaging in one of America's great national pastimes, I guess.

Ironically, of all the late-era Byrds catalog this album probably comes closest to fulfilling McGuinn's original dream for Sweetheart — the «musical encyclopaedia of Americana» — featuring excursions in straight country, blues-rock, folk, vaudeville, Fifties' rock, and R&B, all of it taken in the most straightforward manner. And as they so openly steal, beg, or borrow, it happens to mostly work. ʻTiffany Queenʼ is introduced with the classic ʻSatisfactionʼ / ʻMr. Soulʼ / ʻJumpin' Jack Flashʼ riff (all roads lead to Rome), but then almost immediately becomes Chuck Berry's ʻLet It Rockʼ, done McGuinn-style, and on some level it is hilarious to hear McGuinn do the Chuck Berry schtick (more hilarious, anyway, than listening to Gene Parsons sounding all rough-and-rocky on the pub boogie number ʻB. B. Class Roadʼ). The Johnny Otis cover ʻSo Fineʼ technically destroys the Fiestas' original from 1959 — as good as that one was, here the boys do a much stronger job smoothing out and sharpening the vocal har­monies (even with these new-look Byrds, nobody beats them at harmonies). And Larry Murray's ʻBuglerʼ, yet another dog-oriented song, is done very close to the original, but improves on it in many small, subtle details (though, of course, country lovers might want to prefer the «rougher», «rawer» original — fact is, I think Roger McGuinn loves dogs as much as Larry Murray does, if not more, so it is not a set fact here that the original songwriter necessarily must sing this with more feeling).

There's not a lot of original material here at all (another reason, supposedly, for the album feeling like such a letdown in 1972), but of the two McGuinn originals, ʻAntique Sandyʼ is very nice: basically just one folksy melodic line over and over, but a warm, tender, and catchy one, quite tolerable for two minutes and sounding particularly beautiful when taken over from the singer by a cozily sustained piano. (ʻTiffany Queenʼ is the other original, although I'm not sure exactly how original it is in the first place; a joint lawsuit from Chuck and Keith would not be out of order). Most importantly, there's very little about the record that I could call openly bad — ʻB. B. Class Roadʼ does sound a little phoney (not even the beards could make the Byrds get that rough-and-tough feel), and ʻNational Pastimeʼ is good for not more than one listen, but everything else ranges from pleasant to... very pleasant.

Cutting a long story short, Farther Along is slight, but fun, which, at that time, worked better for the Byrds than serious, but boring. It was probably inevitable that the White/Battin/Parsons line-up would crackle and dissipate after they became a commercial non-entity with no particular place to go (actually, the real reason was the perspective of a possible reunion for the original Byrds), but I'm pretty sure that there is still some demand for unambitious, unpretentious, run-of-the-mill nice quality music from the early Seventies, and this record is a good candidate, so a friendly, not too excited thumbs up here.

The Byrds: Byrdmaniax

THE BYRDS: BYRDMANIAX (1971)

1) Glory, Glory; 2) Pale Blue; 3) I Trust; 4) Tunnel Of Love; 5) Citizen Kane; 6) I Wanna Grow Up To Be A Politician; 7) Absolute Happiness; 8) Green Apple Quick Step; 9) My Destiny; 10) Kathleen's Song; 11) Jamaica Say You Will.

Approximate critical consensus says thus: The Roger McGuinn Experience fell flat on its face with Dr. Byrds & Mr. Hyde, miraculously recovered with Ballad Of Easy Rider, miraculously climaxed with Untitled, then just as immediately fell flat on its face again with Byrdmaniax, in a series of rise-and-tumbles that are all too strange to understand considering that (a) the band, at this point, never went through major lineup changes, (b) pursued more or less the same sty­listic course, and (c) hardly aspired to getting back in the major league by adapting to the times (e. g. shifting over to hard rock or glam).

I cannot really subscribe to this point of view. Yes, some of the 1969-72 records may certainly be a little worse or a little better than others, depending on how many unfunny novelty numbers are included or on whether McGuinn wants to inject some symbolism in his song structures or not. But on the whole, this period is even — no major marvels or disasters, and I find myself shrug­ging my shoulders both at the loving appraisal of Untitled and at the exaggerated disgust for Byrdmaniax, the ill-fated follow-up.

Supposedly, the Achilles' heel of Byrdmaniax is an increased degree of Kim Fowley's involve­ment in the life of the Byrds — this time, the man has a whoppin' three co-credits with Skip Bat­tin, and two of them sound as far away from what we expect of the Byrds as anything: ʻTunnel Of Loveʼ is a useless five-minute recreation of Fats Domino's ʻBlueberry Hillʼ groove accompanying a rather macabre, Alice Cooper-worthy, lyrical fantasy; and ʻCitizen Kaneʼ is two minutes of vaudeville nostalgizing about pre-war Hollywood values (actually, despite being so very un-Byrd­sey, it's actually somewhat funny, and quite harmless with its 2:37 running time). ʻAbsolute Happinessʼ takes a more serious tone, but hardly registers as an actual song — it is so quiet and so lacking in melodic presence that you can never properly remember what is so absolute about it.

However, Fowley's presence alone is hardly sufficient to make the album a complete disaster. For one thing, it's got a really strong opener — the energetic cover of the ʻGlory, Gloryʼ spiritual, with what might be one of McGuinn's strongest ever vocal performances for the band; those high notes on "I wanna thank you Jesus" and on the hallelujahs, combined with Roger's timbre, sting all the right emotional centers, and although the arrangement has been criticized for the fast-moving piano part, I think it totally belongs in the song. For another thing, ʻPale Blueʼ and ʻKathleen's Songʼ, even if they are not masterpieces, are at least as good as any ballad on Untit­led, and I also do not think that Melcher's orchestration spoils either of them as long as it does not drown out the acoustic guitar, harmonica, and vocals (and it does not).

There's also ʻI Trustʼ, Roger's experiment in crossing R&B/gospel aesthetics with country-rock arrangements that is neither too inspiring nor too disappointing, but again, his singing on the track is to be heavily commended; decent covers of Helen Carter's ʻMy Destinyʼ (not that worse than anything on Sweetheart) and Jackson Browne's ʻJamaica Say You Willʼ; and Roger's own take on the vaudeville genre, ʻI Wanna Grow Up To Be A Politicianʼ, which is even more trivial than the Fowley song but is also even shorter. Finally, ʻGreen Apple Quick Stepʼ is basically ʻNashville West Vol. 2ʼ, arguably done in a more down-to-earth, rustic style than its predecessor, but there's nothing wrong with that.

Also, now that the album has been properly reissued on CD, you can also take the liberty of replacing any of its worst numbers with a nice cover of ʻJust Like A Womanʼ that was recorded during the sessions but not used for some reason. Okay, that would be a cheap cop-out, but the general assessment stands: Byrdmaniax is a problematic record that suffers from some erroneous decisions (including, most definitely, the decision to place a set of the band members' death masks on the front cover! what were they thinking?), but it is by no means an artistic embarrass­ment compared to its immediate predecessors. Same mix of nice, boring, and throwaway pieces as usual — most likely, it is primarily its total lack of ambitiousness that earned it its negative points in 1971, when not being ambitious counted as being worse than nothing.

The Byrds: Untitled

THE BYRDS: UNTITLED (1970)

1) Lover Of The Bayou; 2) Positively 4th Street; 3) Nashville West; 4) So You Want To Be A Rock'n'Roll Star; 5) Mr. Tambourine Man; 6) Mr. Spaceman; 7) Eight Miles High; 8) Chestnut Mare; 9) Truck Stop Girl; 10) All The Things; 11) Yesterday's Train; 12) Hungry Planet; 13) Just A Season; 14) Take A Whiff On Me; 15) You All Look Alike; 16) Well Come Back Home.

This was the most ambitious project of the «McGuinn Experience» — a double album, half live, half studio, presenting a seemingly solidified line-up (now including the far older and more experienced Skip Battin on bass as a replacement for John Yorke) that would bravely take The Byrds into the Seventies as successful survivors, alongside The Stones, The Who, The Kinks... well, no dice, really.

Even though the album was very warmly received by critics, even though its sales were strong, and even though it still enjoys a rather stable general reputation, I would call it a serious step down from the level of Ballad Of Easy Rider, and the true beginning of the end. It is not parti­cularly embarrassing — it is confused, feeble, and it does not seriously stand the gruesome levels of competition that were around circa 1970. (The confusion even extends to the album title — which came about by accident, as Columbia pressed copies before they had time to think of a proper name, using a first-draft album cover that still had (Untitled) indicated on it in the spot where the real album title should have been).

For starters, people like to praise the live half, but I do not really get it. The first side, mixing a few classics with recent material, sounds way too sloppy and rough for my ears — in particular, I find Clarence White's style of weaving in his lead guitar phrasing downright irritating: ʻMr. Tam­bourine Manʼ is almost completely destroyed by that stupid lead guitar playing some sort of jiggly country dance around McGuinn's vocals on the verse melody, and that's not even mentio­ning that the vocal harmonies on the chorus sound like a cat choir next to the gorgeousness of the original. Neither are the guitars well in sync on ʻMr. Spacemanʼ or on ʻPositively 4th Streetʼ, and since the Byrds are not truly a «rock and roll» band, it is hard to bring up the argument that they are compensating for the sloppiness with kick-ass energy and overdrive (not because they should not do that, but because they do not do that). Only ʻNashville Westʼ stands competition with the studio version, but it is not clear why they must go ahead and try to make everything else sound like ʻNashville Westʼ — except for the darker and harsher ʻLover Of The Bayouʼ, where they go for a voodooistic swamp-rock attitude (a little hilarious how Roger makes his voice sound so deep and hoarse), not something they'd ever tried before and therefore feeling a little artificial, though definitely not bad.

The key point here is whether or not you will like their 16-minute improvisation around ʻEight Miles Highʼ. There's some nifty musicianship displayed, for sure, particularly a cool rhythmic bass solo from Battin, but overall I would say that these guys are no Cream and no Grateful Dead when it comes to, let's say, «visionary jamming». The guitarists seem to stick to more or less the same direction, never trying to take things into a different key and permanently falling back on the same phrasing, so unless you manage to reach the desired state of trance very quickly, after a brief while it just gets ultra-boring. And although I have heard praise for the interplay between White and McGuinn, most of the time I don't even hear the interplay — McGuinn's guitar is quietly buried well below White's, who gets most of the spotlight. And he's good, but he ain't no Clapton. And with the total amount of bands who were doing 16-minute jams in 1970, one would think that the Byrds, of all these people, would have done well to constitute an exception, no?

In short, the live part, to me, is a serious disappointment (although this does not mean that the Byrds could not put up a good show — the Fillmore tapes from 1969 show the band in a much more self-assured shape). Unfortunately, the new studio material is not significantly better. Much of it (including also ʻLover Of The Bayouʼ on the live half) comes from the abandoned Gene Trip, a country-rock musical reimagining the story of Peer Gynt (!), co-written by McGuinn with the lyricist Jacques Levy (who would later work with Dylan on Desire); this means that Roger makes a grand return here as songwriter, which is not a very good omen — and indeed, the songs are rarely among his best.

ʻChestnut Mareʼ has a pretty chorus melody, but suffers from rather boring spoken verses and also from being overlong — basically just five minutes of story-telling, occasionally interrupted by a couple of lovely vocal lines. ʻAll The Thingsʼ sounds pretty until you realize that it is really McGuinn's attempt to write his own ʻMy Back Pagesʼ — note the contrast between the main bulk of the verse and the conclusive refrain with vocal harmonies — and in contrast with that song, ʻAll The Thingsʼ is just pretty, not visionary. ʻJust A Seasonʼ is probably the catchiest and most intimately endearing piece of the lot, but it has to grow on you a bit. None of the other songs, ex­cept for the cute novelty bit of Leadbelly's ʻTake A Whiff On Meʼ, done with humor and passion (and it's always nice to hear a direct reference to cocaine, which, funny enough, must have pro­bably sounded more controversial in 1970 than it was at the time when Leadbelly sang it), any­way, none of the other songs ever made much of an impression on me. Just fluffy, inoffensive, forgettable country-rock.

It should be noted that ʻHungry Planetʼ and ʻYou All Look Alikeʼ mark the first appearance of the great rock'n'roll swindler, Kim Fowley, on a Byrds album — although for the moment, they are not particularly embarrassing, and Skip Battin, who was the one to bring Fowley along, pro­bably was responsible for the music anyway. The lyrics to ʻHungry Planetʼ are banal, but not stupid — it is far more problematic that the song tries to kick up some sort of syncopated funky groove, but the music just limps along (a few tasty acoustic licks on the solo, but nothing to hold your interest for more than three seconds in a row). Much worse: what's up with the drunk quasi-yodelling during the extended coda to ʻWell Come Back Homeʼ? Now that's just plain stupid. If they wanted a ʻHey Judeʼ vibe, they should have brought in Paul McCartney instead.

Consequently, I seem to belong to the minority that does not think much at all of this record, be it live or studio. Of course, formally, it is the band's bulkiest project — so bulky, in fact, that in the program of remastering and reissuing the original albums Untitled became the only one to get a 2-CD release, «renamed» to (Untitled)/(Unreleased). Predictably, the second disc is not better than the first one — some alternate takes, some unmemorable outtakes, a studio version of ʻLo­ver Of The Bayouʼ that hardly bests the live variant, and more live performances that are just as sloppy as the old ones: okay at best, inferior at worst (ʻThis Wheel's On Fireʼ meanders aimlessly without recapturing the heavy apocalyptic vibe of the Dr. Byrds version). On the whole, both the original and the new version fall in the «not too good, not too bad» category, and clearly demon­strate that The Byrds had turned into thoroughly second-rate players.

The Byrds: Ballad Of Easy Rider

THE BYRDS: BALLAD OF EASY RIDER (1969)

1) Ballad Of Easy Rider; 2) Fido; 3) Oil In My Lamp; 4) Tulsa County; 5) Jack Tarr The Sailor; 6) Jesus Is Just Alright; 7) It's All Over Now, Baby Blue; 8) There Must Be Someone; 9) Gunga Din; 10) Deportee (Plane Wreck At Los Gatos); 11) Armstrong, Aldrin And Collins.

Almost everybody will tell you that Ballad Of Easy Rider was a huge advance over Dr. Byrds, even if, paradoxically, it is far less ambitious and creative. For starters, the heavy-rocking com­ponent has pretty much been chucked out the window — a few distorted guitar solos crop up every now and then, but nothing even remotely approaching the thunder of ʻWheel's On Fireʼ; here, the Byrds settle for a far calmer, softer roots-rock sound, somewhat of an amalgamation of the early folk-based sound and the Sweetheart country-soaked approach.

Second and more important, there is only one song here written by Roger McGuinn; everything else is either contributed by other members of the band or comes completely from outside. This is not meant to sound as an insult to his general songwriting skills, but the material written for Dr. Byrds, although experimental, was clearly weak, and getting rid of that whole «space cowboy» baggage was probably necessary to avoid further embarrassment. Actually, there is one track here that is more space-cowboyish than ever — ʻArmstrong, Aldrin And Collinsʼ merges NASA voiceovers with a little acoustic ditty about the latest American heroes, written by country guy Zeke Manners; but it is just a short amusing epilogue that does not aspire or amount to much.

At the heart of the record are tracks like the title one or ʻGunga Dinʼ — haste-less, regal, slightly transcendental in their unnerving acoustic bliss, well comparable to the Byrds' classic legacy and, for that matter, completely absent on Dr. Byrds. Dylan, who originally began work on the title track as the theme of Easy Rider, pretty much stopped after writing "the river flows, it flows to the sea" and telling the contractors to pass it on to McGuinn — and sure enough, McGuinn put it to a melody that would probably evoke visions of a river flowing to the sea without a single word. The idea to orchestrate the song belonged to producer Terry Melcher, who seeked to emulate the effect of Nilsson's ʻEverybody's Talkingʼ, and they do emulate that effect, except that ʻBallad Of Easy Riderʼ has no tragic overtones and is essentially a static, beautiful soundscape — perfect as the movie theme (it is, after all, about /the impossibility of/ finding paradise on Earth), perfect as a Byrds song, one of McGuinn's tenderest and sincerest vocal performances.

Interestingly, new drummer Gene Parsons almost has Roger beat, or at least, matched, by contri­buting ʻGunga Dinʼ, a song about personal tribulations and discriminations set to an equally becalming arpeggiated melody — no orchestration this time, and the multi-tracked vocals are not as moving as Roger's solo parts, but chorus harmonies are cute (it's quite endearing how in the final "I know that it's a sin... Gunga Din" the title is delivered almost with a «sigh» of some sorts, in the «life is tough, but we'll get over it» kind of sense). His is clearly the best contribution of all the new band members — John Yorke's ʻFidoʼ is amusing, but first, it is another song about a dog (as if ʻOld Blueʼ was not enough; and they would return yet again with ʻBuglerʼ), which is discriminating towards cat lovers, and second, its melody is pretty much a complete rip-off of Manfred Mann's cover of Dylan's ʻQuinn The Eskimoʼ, differing only by the inclusion of a rather gratuitous drum solo. Probably they should have just gone ahead and covered the song instead. With some certified Inuit drumming for an interlude.

The covers are largely selected from the traditional folk/blues/country pool, although Bob gets his share — finally, they come out with an official release of ʻIt's All Over Now Baby Blueʼ, recor­ded at an ultra-slow tempo with triple repetition of "it's all over now", which may not be such a good idea (does the message really need rubbing in?). There's an alternately funny and disturbing reinvention of ʻJesus Is Just Alrightʼ as a semi-progressive rocker with «alarmed» vocal harmo­nies, sounding as if the band were performing an exorcism or a general ward-off-evil ritual with the song; an empathetic cover of Woody Guthrie's ʻDeporteeʼ, which would have made a good in­clusion on Sweetheart at the expense of, say, ʻChristian Lifeʼ; and some gorgeous vocal harmo­nies on the old anthem ʻOil In My Lampʼ. None of these songs are masterpieces of the human spirit, but they're nice, listenable, and reliable, and the new Byrds do them full justice.

In all, the goodness of Ballad lies precisely in its new-found humility — it's short, quiet, friendly, and almost completely free of ambitions and presumptions. It's as if the Byrds are no longer in­terested at all in the big race, but just want to share with us their love for the weather-worn American spirit, and not even in a «defying» way, as it was with Sweetheart, without locking themselves into one single narrow formula to which some of us furthermore might be alergic. If Dr. Byrds showed the world that the band could no longer be «relevant» even if it tried, Easy Rider shows that they no longer care about being relevant — and, in the process, are rewarded by the good fairy with a record that, almost haf a century later, sounds timeless, rather than time-bound. Naturally, this deserves a thumbs up.

The Byrds: Dr. Byrds & Mr. Hyde

THE BYRDS: DR. BYRDS & MR. HYDE (1969)

1) This Wheel's On Fire; 2) Old Blue; 3) Your Gentle Way Of Loving Me; 4) Child Of The Universe; 5) Nashville West; 6) Drug Store Truck Drivin' Man; 7) King Apathy III; 8) Candy; 9) Bad Night At The Whiskey; 10) Medley: My Back Pages / B. J. Blues / Baby What You Want Me To Do.

Finally, we move on to the very last chapter of the transformational history of The Byrds. With Chris Hillman and Gram Parsons departing to form The Flying Burrito Brothers, the only sur­viving member is Roger McGuinn, and his new team includes Gene Parsons (no relation to Gram) on drums, John Yorke on bass, and Clarence White on guitar (Clarence had previously sat in with the band on some of the 1968 sessions, and had already joined the band as a replacement for Gram Parsons in the brief interim when Hillman still remained an active member). But even though the new musicians are all quite decent, it took some time before the whole thing clicked, and Dr. Byrds & Mr. Hyde shows a certain lack of direction.

Actually, my biggest problem with this record is that there are way too many McGuinn originals, and most of them — nay, all of them — are deeply problematic. ʽChild Of The Universeʼ? Lots of lyrical pretentiousness, a touch of grand pathos provided by the booming percussion fills and Spanish guitar lead fills, but the melodic drone is just too monotonous and the transitions between verse and chorus too un-dynamic to make you go wow — and let's face it, if a song called ʽChild Of The Universeʼ does not make you go wow, too bad for the song, not the universe.

ʽKing Apathy IIIʼ is an even stranger and clumsier experiment that sews together a fast blues-rock verse with a slow country-western bridge — the song has a very clear lyrical message, in which Mc­Guinn renounces the "middle class suburban children" who "blindly follow recent pipers" and states that "I'm leavin' for the country, to try and rest my head", and it's his choice and all, but illustrating it with a poorly joined-at-the-hip mix of generic bluesy psychedelia with generic country waltz is at best boring symbolism, and at worst an embarrassment in both genres (let alone all the condescending remarks about "liberal reactionaries" who are busy "slowing down their B. B. King" — not quite on the level of Lennon's "fuckin' peasants" yet, but slowly getting there, although at least Lennon could sound real passionate about the issue).

Hilariously, McGuinn manages to offend both the progressive liberals and the hillbilly conserva­tives on the album: ʽKing Apathy IIIʼ is the immediate follow-up to ʽDrug Store Truck Drivin' Manʼ, a remainder of the McGuinn/Parsons collaboration that rhymed the song title with "the head of the Ku Klux Klan", was inspired by a clash with the obnoxious Nashville DJ Ralph Emery, and must have probably been a sweet, sweet joy to perform during the band's tour of the Bible Belt (just joking — actually, they preferred California, but whether they dared perform ʽKing Apathy IIIʼ there, I have no idea; then again, most of the hippies would probably be way too stoned to notice the words). Not that it's a particularly good song, either, but at least it sort of evens the odds for representatives of both parties. See, Roger McGuinn doesn't really like anyone, so what's the big surprise about the album selling more poorly than ever before?

In the light of these and other, not much better, failures at decent songwriting, the best thing about Dr. Byrds are its covers — starting with the hard rock of ʽThis Wheel's On Fireʼ, for which Clarence recorded a heavily distorted, brutally angry guitar part that suits the song's lightly apo­calyptic mood very well (the CD reissue adds an alternate take with a much lighter guitar arran­gement if you insist that hard rock and Byrds should never mix, but I don't think we need be so strictly prejudiced). Contextually, that track is pretty deceptive — the sequencing contrast be­tween its angry roar and the following sentimental country tweeting of ʽOld Blueʼ may be the single sharpest contrast in Byrds history — but I suppose it made some sense, to try and demolish the perception that from now on, the Byrds are a «country band», period. However, most of the other covers are country, with songs like ʽYour Gentle Way Of Loving Meʼ and the speedy in­strumental ʽNashville Westʼ totally belonging on Sweetheart and, in fact, being better than most of the stuff on Sweetheart (ʽNashville Westʼ has some pretty pleasing guitar interplay).

Still, by the time they get to the odd closing medley that puts Bob Dylan and Jimmy Reed on the same stage (how do ʽMy Back Pagesʼ, a song that the real Byrds already had recorded, belong together with ʽBaby What Do You Want Me To Doʼ? Nohow is the answer), by the time they do this, the overall impression of Dr. Byrds is that of a total mess. There are enough talented people here to guarantee that it works in bits and pieces, but they don't know where to go. They know where they don't want to go, all right — they don't want to engage in drugged-out hippie psyche­delia, and they don't want to fit in with the Nashville crowds, but they are unable to work out a true new musical genre that would take the best from both worlds, filter out the excesses, and still manage to sound intelligent and emotionally exciting. And although they'd have some time to sort it out later on, this is a problem that would haunt the McGuinn/White era of The Byrds for their entire three-year period of trying to fit in in a thoroughly changed musical world post-Woodstock and post-Abbey Road.

The Byrds: Sweetheart Of The Rodeo

THE BYRDS: SWEETHEART OF THE RODEO (1968)

1) You Ain't Going Nowhere; 2) I Am A Pilgrim; 3) The Christian Life; 4) You Don't Miss Your Water; 5) You're Still On My Mind; 6) Pretty Boy Floyd; 7) Hickory Wind; 8) One Hundred Years From Now; 9) Blue Canadian Rockies; 10) Life In Prison; 11) Nothing Was Delivered.

The sweetheart in question turned out to be male: Mr. Ingram Cecil Connor The Third of Winter Haven, Florida, better known as Gram Parsons, the father of country-rock and a respectable mem­ber of Club 27 (26, to be more precise). Although he was originally recruited by The Byrds as a keyboard player (to play jazz piano, no less!), he soon moved to guitar, then to songwriting, then to musical ideology, and, according to some sources, ended up nearly wrestling control over the band from McGuinn; when that failed, he quit in protest over the band's touring engagements in apartheid-rule South Africa — though some suspected it was largely just a pretext. You never know for sure with these things, anyway.

We all know the drill: McGuinn wanted the next Byrds album to be a sprawling overview of all the genres of American pop music, from the early days and well into the future, but abandoned the project — due partly to the lack of a proper budget and support from the rest of the band, and partly due to Parsons' insistence to turn specifically to country. Spilling tears over Roger's unrea­lized project is useless, since we do not even know whether he was properly qualified for this; but neither would I agree to succumb to waves of critical respect for this album. Released in August 1968, it marked a sharp commercial decline in the band's fortune. Rock audiences of the time were not prepared for any radical «country twists», and although The Byrds weren't really doing any­thing that their major idol, Mr. Zimmerman, hadn't already done with John Wesley Harding and those parts of the Basement Tapes that were already circulating among devotees, their whole­sale conversion to the Nashville spirit was not greeted with too much pleasure by record buyers, even if critical reviews seemed to be relatively benevolent.

The historical status of Sweetheart Of The Rodeo — the first LP release by a major established «pop/rock» artist to consistently, rather than sporadically, embrace the country idiom, and without any traces of irony at that — is indisputable, as is its social importance: a sincere attempt to bridge the gap between the rural and the urban, the conservative and the progressive, the hillbilly and the hippie. The Byrds may have gotten their fair share of flack for this gesture, from both the hillbilly and the hippie side, but this is the predictable fate of all fence-sitters, sacrificing them­selves while gambling on humanity's future. What matters far more is how well the record holds up after all these years — and this is where I continue to have my doubts.

Curiously, it does continue to have its fanbase among the rockers, usually along the lines of "well, I'm not much of a country fan, but I have nothing against country if it's done right, and this is one such case". Well, the thing is, I'm not sure how this here version of ʽLife In Prisonʼ is done more right than Merle Haggard's; or how this particular performance of ʽYou're Still On My Mindʼ carries more energy and excitement than George Jones' rendition of it. The Byrds pick a solid set of tunes — as far as country goes, these songs mostly have interesting vocal hooks, though the base melodies are predictably generic waltzes and shuffles. McGuinn, Hillman, and Parsons sing the tunes with enough conviction, guest guitarist Clarence White does the Nashville shtick with gusto, it's all fine and dandy, but... ultimately, it's just a cover album of country tunes.

Sure there are a few originals, mostly courtesy of Parsons, but I have never understood and still do not understand the adoration for ʽHickory Windʼ, a song whose compositional virtues amount to precisely zero (it is just a regular country waltz), lyrical virtues consist of clichés ("hickory wind keeps callin' me home" is not exactly a breakthrough in country lyricism), and musical ar­rangement is not fundamentally different from similar arrangements for hundreds of country songs (fiddles, slide guitars, honky tonk piano, you know the drill). The only thing standing for it is Parsons' presence, I guess — if you are enchanted by the man's lonesome-hero charisma — but it's not as if he had a totally unique singing voice or presence, either. For my money, his other original, ʽOne Hundred Years From Nowʼ, beats ʽHickory Windʼ on all counts — less obvious vocal melody (the verse melody actually pinches a bit from ʽGod Only Knowsʼ, don't you think?), psycho-folk harmonic singing from McGuinn and Hillman, and overall, a clever mixture of folk, country, pop, and psychedelic elements.

Ironically, the Byrds are still at their best when they rely on the tried and true — covering Dylan, that is. ʽYou Ain't Going Nowhereʼ, a perfect opener for the album, does the usual wonder of converting Bob's natural ugly beauty into smooth-glamorous pop perfection, with there being enough free space in the world to allow for both visions. Here, we have the most heartfelt and sensitive McGuinn vocal performance on the album, and a vivacious, elegantly woven steel guitar lead melody as his lovin' partner throughout the song, and those "ooh-wee, ride my high, tomor­row's the day my bride's gonna come" harmonies are a downright epitome of tenderness itself. Basically, they took a Dylan song that began life as an absurdist ode to nihilism and turned it into an optimistic love anthem, while still retaining some of that absurdism. And then, in a sudden fit of symmetry, they close out the album with a bitter reversal of these feelings — having started out with "get your mind on wintertime, you ain't going nowhere", they end the record on "the sooner you come up with it, the sooner you can leave" (ʽNothing Was Deliveredʼ) and a sort of disillusioned atmosphere (which, incidentally, is also how I feel about this record).

The problem is, they know how to reinvent Dylan, but they never had a good idea about how to reinvent Woody Guthrie, Merle Haggard, or Cindy Walker — they just cover them, retaining the original spirits of these songs. The whole point of Sweetheart Of The Rodeo is to shock the audiences along the lines of "see, we're rockers, but we're doing country, how unusual is that?": this attitude was even incorporated into the promotional campaign, as you can see from the ori­ginal radio promotion bit, hidden at the end of the last bonus track on the CD reissue — as bits and pieces of songs flow out of the speaker, a girl and a guy argue with each other: "It is the Byrds! — That's not the Byrds... — Okay, listen to this one! See, it is the Byrds! They're playing Dylan! — It can't be the Byrds! Play another one... — It's the Byrds all right! — Nah, that ain't the Byrds..." I regret to say that sometimes it seems to me this radio bit carries more fun with it than the majority of the record itself.

Anyway, these are mostly decent tunes (though lyrically, ʽThe Christian Lifeʼ is atrocious, and McGuinn must have lost plenty of credibility with his friends for that one), and only people with a very strong anti-Nashville bias could hate Sweetheart Of The Rodeo. But shuffle these tunes around a bunch of top (or even middle) quality country albums, and if there's some way in which they will notably stand out, let me know. As far as I'm concerned, Sweetheart is an ideological gesture first, and a collection of musical pieces second — which doesn't do much for a record in the long run. Interesting and curious, yes, not without its few moments of Dylanesque glory, yes, but essentially the band just shot itself in the foot with this one, and ended up hobbling for the next three years of its existence.

The Byrds: The Notorious Byrd Brothers

THE BYRDS: THE NOTORIOUS BYRD BROTHERS (1968)

1) Artificial Energy; 2) Goin' Back; 3) Natural Harmony; 4) Draft Morning; 5) Wasn't Born To Follow; 6) Get To You; 7) Change Is Now; 8) Old John Robertson; 9) Tribal Gathering; 10) Dolphin's Smile; 11) Space Odyssey.

Although technically marked 1968, since it was released on January 15, the Byrds' fifth album still fully belongs in 1967 — on the whole, it is still far more «psychedelic», «baroque-poppy», and «experimental» than anything from the new back-to-roots era of Sweetheart Of The Rodeo and beyond. It is also messy to the extreme, since the complete and irredeemable disintegration of the original Byrds took place right through the sessions — during which Crosby walked out, Michael Clarke walked in, Gene Clark came back, Michael Clarke walked out again, and Gene Clark walked out again, too. Not to mention dozens of sessions musicians walking in and out on a pay-per-hour basis. Or on just a good word.

Despite, or maybe thanks to all the turbulence, The Notorious Byrd Brothers has always fasci­nated the critical mind, and eventually turned into a «cult favorite» — people who think it too ob­vious to list Mr. Tambourine Man or Younger Than Yesterday as their favorite Byrds album often turn to this as an honorably elitist competitor. I am in no rush to join that chorus, though. It is true that this is really the last Byrds album where the band members are still trying to push their imagination to the limits, the last one where three different talents (McGuinn, Crosby, and Hillman) compete with each other and feed on each other at the same time, the last one that expli­citly rejects formula in favor of freedom. But it is not true that freedom is always preferable to formula — and The Notorious Byrd Brothers, in my opinion, could certainly benefit from a little more martial discipline than is on display.

It is somewhat telling that when it came to singles, the only track that was deemed qualifiable was a cover, and not even a Dylan cover, but their take on Goffin and King's ʽGoin' Backʼ, pre­viously known mostly in Dusty Springfield's arrangement. It is a classic number, to be sure, but other than replacing the «adult pop» version with keyboards and strings with a janglier and more percussion-heavy pop-rock arrangement, the band does not truly unlock anything here that Dusty had not already unlocked — the nostalgic pull towards the past coupled with gentle optimism for the future, as reflected in the elegant key changes of the melody. Even if we call this the «defini­tive version» of the song (to me, though, that would rather be Carole King's own take on her cre­ation on the Writer album), it is still a cover, and not a magically transformed one.

The band actually does much more with their second Goffin/King cover, ʽWasn't Born To Fol­lowʼ, which they saw as a fast-paced country-rock number (unlike Carole herself, who recorded it in a slow, gospel-tinged version in 1969, while still a member of «The City») — and it still did not prevent them from throwing in a few backward solos and put a heavy phasing effect on the instrumental passage, because, you know, playing straightforward country is kinda dull (an idea that had all but evaporated by the following year). However, even that song never truly goes be­yond «cute» — maybe it's all because of the vocals, so cuddly and fragile and monotonous.

The rest of the album is all left to original material, but next to the songs on Younger Than Yes­terday, these never seem to truly compete in terms of sharp, interesting ideas. Crosby, in parti­cular, is beginning to value social importance over musical integrity. His ʽDraft Morningʼ, an anti-Vietnam rumination on the fate of a nameless soldier, has no discernible musical theme, and although the vocals were completed by McGuinn and Hillman already after he'd been fired, the vocal melody is more enjoyable due to the pure beauty of their silky tones than to the actual lines they're singing — not to mention the totally pro forma, unconvincing and disruptive «war sound effects» in the instrumental part; as far as anti-war songs like these go, give me The Doors' ʽUn­known Soldierʼ over this one any day. ʽTribal Gatheringʼ, inspired by yet another hippie caucasus, is too short and simplistic to justify the «aura of deep mystery» intention of the author, sounding more like hippie lounge muzak than something to actively attune your brain to. And although I distinctly remember that ʽDolphin's Smileʼ sounded fresh and sparkly, a nice tune to wake up to on a bright summer morning when you want to start your life anew, the whole thing was just too hazy and hookless to ever find a proper place in my memory.

Ironically, Crosby's best song at the time was not only considered too risky to put on the album, but, in fact, seriously contributed to his decision to leave the band — and donate the song to Jefferson Airplane. As sung by Grace Slick, the version of ʽTriadʼ is still the definitive one, but the one that The Byrds did, eventually released on CD as a bonus track, holds up fairly well, too. And it isn't merely its controversial subject matter — "going on as three" is a fairly uncomfor­table notion even for 2015, although it is probably the next logical stage after gay rights — that makes it stand out, no; it has an excellent verse structure, with a double resolution of the vocal melody that, well, doubles the intrigue. There's a certain je ne sais quoi in that "...I don't really see why can't we go on as three" conclusion that almost makes you... you know... see the point and all. It's fairly disturbing and provocative on all fronts — no wonder that the nice country lads McGuinn and Hillman felt way too uncomfortable about something like that.

But what did they offer instead? Well, Hillman does write one of the album's best songs, ʽNatural Harmonyʼ, which goes against his country-rock reputation by actually sounding more like some­thing Crosby would write — jazzy, trippy, and featuring heavy use of the Moog synth, still very much a rarity in late 1967; however, his collaboration with McGuinn on ʽChange Is Nowʼ I can appreciate only a formal level. It does this novel trick of putting together folk, drone, psychedelia, and even a fast country-western part, but none of the parts are interesting on their own, and put­ting them together just feels like an empty experiment.

McGuinn does shine on his own on the opener, ʽArtificial Energyʼ, largely due to the powerful, anthemic brass section (famed session musician Richard Hyde on trombone); but his ʽSpace Ody­sseyʼ, concluding the album, is definitely an acquired taste. If the idea of a slow four-minute folk ballad from the highlands, overdubbed with all sorts of «deep space effects», instantaneously appeals to your cosmic cowboy psychology, you'll find it a masterpiece. Personally, I find it boring and tedious, a fairly dubious tribute to a fairly dubious piece of literature — and, for that matter, I also hold the opinion that of all Kubrick's movies, A Space Odyssey is also the one that has dated far more seriously than any other, let alone Arthur Clarke's prose.

All in all, maybe this entire album is very much an acquired taste, and one that I have lost all hope of acquiring. Nothing here is truly bad, with the exception of the last track, but the highs are lower than any previous highs, and other than the Goffin/King covers, there really isn't anything here that would unquestionably make it into my personal «best-of» collection. I still give the record a thumbs up out of respect — with the band in a state of near-collapse, it is amazing that they even had their minds set on experimentation and progress so much of the time — but let it also go on the official record that I continue not to share the hype, and generally like my Byrds when they are more polished and focused than when they are in a state of disarray.

Byrds: Younger Than Yesterday

THE BYRDS: YOUNGER THAN YESTERDAY (1967)

1) So You Want To Be A Rock'n'Roll Star; 2) Have You Seen Her Face; 3) C.T.A.-102; 4) Renaissance Fair; 5) Time Between; 6) Everybody's Been Burned; 7) Thoughts And Words; 8) Mind Gardens; 9) My Back Pages; 10) The Girl With No Name; 11) Why.

Although this album (actually recorded at the end of 1966 — still in the «Revolver era» rather than the much-mutated «Sgt. Pepper era») is very frequently listed as the pinnacle of the Byrds' career, I have always belonged to the small minority that regards it as a tiny step down from the heights of Fifth Dimension — at least in terms of innovation and diversity, if not overall song quality. Where Fifth Dimension, with all its minor faults, broke The Byrds out of the eggshell of their early formula and opened them to the many ways of the world, on Younger Than Yester­day you can sort of see the beginnings (only the beginnings) of their retreading back to a slightly different, but still monolithic eggshell. At the very same time, you also see signs of serious ten­sion between band members that ultimately led to the band's enclosing itself in a rigid niche, and then simply disintegrating because nobody cared any more.

If these sound like undeservedly harsh words for an introduction to a great album, let me stress that the idea is not so much to defame Younger Than Yesterday as it is to restore justice for Fifth Dimension. My only concrete problem (as opposed to the abstract construction of an idea­listic «progress curve») with this record is one song and one song only, and yes, you guessed right: David Crosby strikes again! Last time around, it was the clumsy arrangement and the exag­gerated vocal antics on ʽHey Joeʼ — this time, it is ʽMind Gardensʼ, unquestionably the worst track ever that classic-era Byrds put on tape. In fact, it was one of those ʽRevolution #9ʼ-type moments, where everybody except the contributing artist hated the track, but did not have enough willpower to veto its inclusion.

Crosby himself later argued that the hatred was simply due to backwardness — that his band­mates were appalled about including something that did not have either rhyme or rhythm — but, of course, this is just a bunch of crapola; in fact, Crosby himself would later come up with plenty of far, far better compositions that had neither rhyme nor rhythm, but compensated for this with beautiful atmospherics. ʽMind Gardensʼ, however, sounds like something where the overriding itch was to compose, record, and release a track without rhyme or rhythm, period. (Actually, the underlying guitar melody does have plenty of rhythm, to be precise — it's just not a very interes­ting guitar melody, and David largely referred to the vocals, of course). The lyrics, which sound like they were largely influenced by Oscar Wilde's Selfish Giant (yet still find a clichéd oppor­tunity to throw in a reference to "the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune", just for kicks), are almost intentionally primitive in their psychedelic-moralistic imagery; the singing is annoyingly shamanistic and shows that Cros never properly finished his crash course in tribal incantations; and worst of all, very soon you find yourself surrounded by a swarm of discordant backward gui­tar solos that make the whole experience physically painful (there is an alternate version among the bonus tracks of the CD reissue that seriously tones down this hideous buzz, but still does not completely resolve the problem). Basically, the only kind words I have to say about this monstro­sity is that it makes the following ʽMy Back Pagesʼ sound twice as angelic by contrast.

All the more curious is the fact that, outside of ʽMind Gardensʼ, the remainder of Crosby's con­tributions for this record are fairly nice — ʽEverybody's Been Burnedʼ is a beautiful three-minute long introspection on the matter of broken relationships, with two somber minor key guitar parts weaving around each other and a perfectly melancholic vocal serenade from David himself. (The song is said to have been written as early as 1962, but I guess its «torch song» genre characteris­tics and the lack of a proper chorus could not help but delay its release); and ʽRenaissance Fairʼ, inspired by an actual trip to the original South Californian Renaissance Fair, is one of Crosby's catchiest compositions — based on a real riff, for once, if not a particularly inventive one; its starry-eyed refrain of "I think that maybe I'm dreaming..." should count as one of the most trend-defining, uh, starry-eyed magical moments of 1967, especially in its retro-futuristic perception of Elizabethan decor as suitable garb for the new psychedelic era.

At the same time with Crosby reaching his songwriting peak (even if it does result in a few exces­ses), we also have Chris Hillman emerging as a distinct songwriter in his own right — and pul­ling the band in a completely different direction: the country-rock style. ʽTime Betweenʼ and ʽThe Girl With No Nameʼ, with their steel guitars, banjo-imitating guitars, and perky tempos, are two prime examples of the Byrds' early venturing into hillbilly territory, and, honestly, sound like fairly generic country to me (I do actually prefer the Beatles doing ʽWhat Goes Onʼ — they have Ringo singing on it, and it's kinda funny). However, Hillman is able to do better than that: ʽHave You Seen Her Faceʼ is a fine slice of jangly pop (the intro alone sounds like a blueprint to a good half of Big Star's career), and the sleeping masterpiece here is ʽThoughts And Wordsʼ, which somehow manages to combine both the country-rock and the art-pop idioms, throwing in a moody psychedelic hum effect — it's like the Byrds' ʽThings We Said Todayʼ multiplied by the trippy production values of Revolver. On this song, the backward guitars actually work. See how they kick in as the second chorus starts up its "I knew what you wanted to do"... yep, you wanted to drive me nuts by jamming jagged shards of backward guitars in my ears. You don't spoil lovely melancholic music with brute ugliness unless you have a good reason, and Hillman at least pre­tends to have one — it's all about a lovely beginning and a rather brutal ending.

And we have not yet mentioned the McGuinn/Hillman lead-off ʽSo You Want To Be A Rock­'n'Roll Starʼ, one of the first and bitterest sarcastic takes on rock stardom by rock stars themselves; or the sci-fi noises on ʽC.T.A.-102ʼ, a more than respectable successor to ʽThe Lear Jet Songʼ; or the new re-recording of Crosby's ʽWhyʼ, released earlier as a single and now sounding very much like Martha & The Vandellas' ʽHeatwaveʼ because we can; or ʽMy Back Pagesʼ, which tends to get my vote as the band's second best Dylan cover (and this time, they actually have enough space to cover four out of six original verses) — McGuinn's vocals are not always capable of capturing, let alone expanding upon, the magic of the original, particularly when they cover hu­morous or battle-oriented songs, but «Dylan the transcendental visionary» always comes off fine, and rarely, if ever, finer than on these "crimson flames tied through my years"...

And it all happens within an almost embarrassing twenty-nine minutes — in 29 minutes here, these guys say more than most modern bands say in 10 years. Amazing how fast things were really moving back in 1967, isn't it? (The bonus tracks aren't particularly phenomenal this time, but they do include ʽLady Friendʼ, the last substantial Crosby-penned single they released, and a couple more early excursions into country-rock with Hillman). Although, supposedly, this still has something to do with the conservative peculiarities of the American LP market, which rarely thought its customers worth more than 30 minutes of music per vinyl chunk. (Unless your artist was Dylan, who just couldn't shut up — ironically, though also predictably, Bob would begin releasing his own under-30-minute albums exactly at a time when this restriction was finally and completely lifted).

So where, if you might ask, are those «retreading» signs that I mentioned earlier? Well, essential­ly you see two main trends sometimes peacefully co-existing, sometimes battling here — Cros­by's psychedelic vision and Hillman's «earthy» style, with McGuinn clearly more seduced about the latter than the former. Crosby would eventually lose, and for good reason — all these songs are really much more about solo Crosby than the Byrds as a band, far more so, in fact, than even John Lennon's latter-day Beatles material (more like as if Lennon were to offer songs like ʽMo­therʼ or ʽGodʼ for Beatles albums). Hillman would win — and complete the Byrds' transfor­mation into The Country Turf Preservation Society, which would still be a fairly pleasant society, to be sure, but quite far from the all-powerful eclectic deities of American rock that they were for a very brief period in 1966.

On a song-by-song basis, Younger Than Yesterday is as strong as anything else they did in their peak period — however, it does not have either a ʽMr. Tambourine Manʼ or an ʽEight Miles Highʼ to symbolize a particular major breakthrough (ʽSo You Want To Be...ʼ comes somewhat close, with its send-up of the pop star image and Hugh Masekela on the trumpet, but does not exactly have the majesty of those two other singles), because there are no major breakthroughs here. Which, on a personal level, should not prevent anybody from simply enjoying the excellent music. Alternately, it may just be an intense hatred for ʽMind Gardensʼ that spoils and distorts my perception: honestly, I'd rather have Crosby re-recording ʽHey Joeʼ in a duet with Iggy Pop rather than having to listen to this atrocity, which I count among the same «1967 excesses» as the Ani­mals' Winds Of Change, even one more time. Regardless, thumbs up are still guaranteed all the way — on the already overloaded shelf of classic records from that wonder year, Younger Than Yesterday will always have a secure place of honor.