Britain may have had the Beatles, but Southern California of the mid-'60s had The Byrds—diligent musical innovators who were perhaps one of the first to manifest what would eventually be dubbed the "psychedelic sound."
Although their roots were dug firmly into the fertile sound of folk music, the ragged anthems of the Dust Bowl and deep Appalachia, The Byrds were persistently evolving. They were unabashed in their homage, but always happy to expand and cross over. Boundaries continuously fell away as the band stubbornly explored all and any genres—from the richly layered jazz of the 1950s to the heartache seeping out of the country heart of Nashville.
A soon-to-be-released boxed set, There Is A Season, brings back the magic with an astounding collection of classics and unreleased gems left lingering in the vaults for far too long. The Byrds' musical variety and immense talent are spreading their peacock feathers here, and it's hard to imagine that any other band could keep up the rock and the roll with such fearless sincerity.
Singer, songwriter, and guitarist Roger McGuinn gave Rhino.com the inside track on what it means to be a Byrd.
What do you think keeps this music so relevant?
Thank you. I think the underlying factor is that it's all folk based, which is an art form that is hundreds of years old. And I think it's honest music in that it's coming from a sincere place. Everything we did was honest in that we weren't really trying to make hits—except maybe for 'Mr. Tambourine Man.' That was a definite attempt to make a hit. But aside from that we really kind of did what we wanted to. We explored different territories. Country music and rock music, it didn't matter. We went around from genre to genre with a youthful kind of enthusiasm. And that comes across in the whole package. I think you hear that when you hear the music.
Do you know about this new folk scene? Devendra Banhart and his crew? It's beautiful music, and it's definitely inspired by what you guys were doing at that time.
I think in general folk music is still going strong. There is Springsteen's last album. Over the last few years a few movies have featured that sound. So it's really kind of coming around again. It's sort of a cyclical thing. And I've seen it happen over the years. Forty years ago it got to be popular, and then it was far from being popular, and now it's coming back. I'm happy to see it. I wasn't aware of Devendra Banhart, but I'd love to hear him.
Bright Eyes is also a good one. He has his own label, Saddle Creek.
I think that's very cool. I think your own label is the way to go. We decided this a couple of years ago and it feels great.
Is this a way that you feel like you can get around the corporate monoliths?
Yeah, in a way. I mean, it's basically freedom. It gives you freedom to do anything you want. You have the freedom of having total creative control into the artwork and into the mixing and mastering and promotion and everything. And you know, it's just really fun. We were missing all that when other people were doing those things.
How much control did you have? Did it grow when you became more successful?
I still have some control with Sony Music; I mean we're working with them on the artwork of the box set and the liner notes. I didn't feel the need to mess with the mixing and mastering, because they've done a wonderful job. And over the years in The Byrds, I did have a lot of control. Creative control at least. I didn't have much to do with the marketing part of it. That was always done by other people. But I'm really enjoying doing it now.
Speaking of which, you must have gone into archives for this one. Were there a lot of tracks that you rediscovered during the process of putting together the boxed set?
Some of the unreleased tracks I hadn't heard before. It was great. Especially since a lot of these unreleased tracks have Clarence White playing on them and he was such an amazing guitar player, gone to early.
Did you realize that you were in a sense defining the sound of a time? Did you feel the responsibility of that on you?
I think that kind of big picture only comes through in time—from looking back on it. Because when you're in it you're just having fun with what you're doing and what feels good and it's what's interesting to you. And a lot of the motivation was trying not to get typecast, to avoiding getting put in one box or another. Like folk-rock and country rock. Any time we did, the next time we'd say 'let's try something else.' Like incorporate a little sitar or John Coltrane music and then, finally, they labeled that psychedelic music. We had no intention of making psychedelic music. So we went to something else, we went into country. So a lot of it was just moving around and having fun with it. And we just didn't really see the big picture. We were just responding to what we liked at the time.
Were you trying to evade the pigeonhole?
Yeah, we were. That was the motivation in going from one genre to another.
Does that remain the way you tend to work?
I do still like to do the unexpected and what I'm obsessed with at the time. I love folk music, of course, and it all seems to go back to that. So I'm working on a release right now that's called the Folk Den Project, which is a collection of a hundred traditional folk songs. But I put my spin on them. A lot of them have the Rickenbacker lead, which I did with The Byrds. But I've also been working on a rock album and some blues compositions. Those are out on our own label, April First. So I've been doing a variety of things. I keep busy.
How do you think you'd approach things if you were starting out today? How has the industry moved forward or changed?
There are still bands who are interested in making this kind of music, and that's encouraging. Guitar music with harmonies and lots of melodies. Story songs. There have been quite a few bands that have been influenced by us over the years. I don't need to name them for you. So what we did has a place in the music scene. It's not, you know, the pinnacle of contemporary music. But it still has its place. And I think this boxed set will expose the music to people who might have not have heard it. We loved the music and we just had a good time making it. I think that comes across.
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