The Byrds Live @ Daniels Den 1966

 

 

The Byrds

1966

Live @ Daniels Den

 

 I was anticipating a great show by a band hyped as the American Beatles. The Byrds  consisted of seasoned ex-folkies who cut their teeth on college campuses and small clubs.  Jim McGuinn (singer, lead guitar) performed with The Limeliters and the Chad Mitchell Trio and was briefly a Brill Building songwriter writer under the guidance of the incredibly gifted Bobby Darin. Gene Clark (singer, tambourine) was a natural singer and songsmith who sang leads and harmony with The New Christy Minstrels.  A chance meeting at the Troubadour led McGuinn and Clark to form a duo playing Beatles covers and Beatlesque versions of traditional folk songs. They were on fire. Soon after David Crosby (vocals, guitar), a former crooner for Les Baxter’s Balladeers, joined McGuinn and Clark and called themselves the Jet Set. This became the nucleus of the Byrds. The year was 1964 and the music scene was evolving rapidly. Michael Clarke (drums) came on board not so much for his musical skills but for his uncanny resemblance to Brian Jones of the Rolling Stones. He had good hair. Chris Hillman (bass guitar) was a country gentlemen and a multi-instrumentalist who mastered the bass guitar almost effortlessly.

In 1964 Jim Dickson, the manager of the Byrds, got his mitts on an acetate of an unreleased Dylan song entitled Mr. Tambourine Man. The band did not like it at first; it was a bit meandering and went on and on like Dylan songs do but they toyed with it in rehearsals, giving it a rock band arrangement and changing the time signature from 2/4 to 4/4. It became a different song. The Byrds were like sculptors bringing an object out of a slab of marble. The results were simply breathtaking.  Mr. Tambourine Man was released on April 12^th, 1965 and by June it was #1 in the charts with a bullet. A new genre was created by that song. It was called Folk Rock and it was characterized by McGuinn’s jangly 12-string Rickenbacker and clear harmony singing. McGuinn and Clark would sing in unison with Crosby singing the high harmony. It was an entirely new sound, majestic and hauntingly beautiful. The band was also creating fashion trends; McGuinn’s granny glasses, Crosby’s striking suede green cape, Beatle haircuts and a studied aloofness onstage suggesting California cool and a non-conformist attitude. They were all the rage. You could see them on Ed Sullivan, Shindig and Hullaballoo and hear them all over the radio from east coast to west coast and all points in between.

 The Byrds were my new musical heroes displacing the Bossmen, The Dave Clark Five and the Beatles – in that order. So when the Den’s mammoth red velvet curtain opened and revealed the cool detached visages of my heroes I was right at the lip of the stage hanging on every word and every sound. They looked just like they did on Sullivan; Crosby with his cape, McGuinn with the granny glasses and the Beatle-ish looking Gene Clark looking bored and smackin’ the tambourine on his hip.  The rest of the band seemed transparent like they weren’t onstage. McGuinn intoned something like “umm…ahh …it’s nice to be here…we’re not used to getting up this early.”  Then they launched into their big hit Mr. Tambourine Man. The famous intro sounded spectacular with that melodic tonal brilliance that helped define folk rock forever after. But after a few bars, McGuinn began singing the verse, it was barely audible. The sound was dreadful. The harmony singing on the chorus was washed out and I could only hear McGuinn’s lower register. Even worse the band seemed listless even bored. California cool needed a wake up call, snap the rubber band and wake up for chrisssakes. They were like an engine with a manual transmission that couldn’t get out of first gear. The clutch ain’t working, brother. They followed with a Gene Clark chestnut Feel a Whole Lot Better. It’s a great song and Clark sang his ass off but once again the harmonies were muffled or nonexistent. They went on to perform Bells of Rhymney (Pete Seeger’s adaptation of an Idris Davies poem), Chimes of Freedom but the performance were lacked energy and conviction. Twenty minutes later they ended the show with the exquisiteTURN! TURN!TURN! (To Everything There is a Season) and walked off stage. McGuinn remained at the microphone as the big red velvet Curtain closed McGuinn mumbled “that’s it, sorry.”  I thought it was odd yet incredible that my hero would apologize for a lackluster performance. I thought that maybe this matinee performance was ill-timed for a group that is not used to playing in the late afternoon. Some said they were smoking marijuana and were too high. Donny Hartman was a member of the Chevelles at the time and he opened the show for the Byrds. Donny is one of the nice guys in rock & roll and made a name for himself as a singer and guitarist in the Frost, one of Michigan’s greatest bands. His assessment – “they were dicks.”

The Byrds were the Worst Great Band I’ve Ever Seen

Peace

Bo

Addendum:  In 1974 I was enjoying my final year at Michigan State University. I was enjoying myself, on top of my game, academically speaking but also listening to a lot of great music, seeing the Woolies @ Lizards and attending concerts @ Jenison Fieldhouse (the Guess Who, Steve Miller Band, The Beach Boys,  Peter Frampton etc. ). But one of my fondest musical memories came from a rare performance by Roger McGuinn at the Stable, a cozy East Lansing Concert venue. I took a date and we shared a bottle of wine and enjoyed an incredible show by McGuinn. He used a 12-string acoustic guitar and sang solo. His voice was in great shape and the acoustics were perfect. He played all his Byrds hits from Mr. Tambourine Man to Chestnut Mare and everything in between.  He sang some obscurities like Tiffany Lamp, Just a Season, Lover of the Bayou and near hits like Ballad of Easy Rider and Jesus is Just Alright. It was a brilliant stripped down to the basics performance.  It was one of the most intimate musical statements I’ve ever experienced.