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From Folk to Flyte: An Interview by Daniel Elton Harmon . The Byrds, considered by many to be "America's
first supergroup," crashed the pop charts in 1965 at the end of the
Folk Revival. Not surprisingly, their music, How did they hit? The band started with (Jim) Roger
McGuinn, who just a few years before had been accompanying The
Limeliters, The Chad Mitchell Trio and As you probably know, the Internet contains a
wealth of Byrds information. We thought it would be * * * * DH: What was your musical upbringing? Surely you
didn't just "happen" into the Old Town School of Folk Music to
check out the scene, when there ROGER: I was first turned on to music by Elvis
Presley's "Heartbreak Hotel." I asked for a guitar for my 14th
birthday and got one. After learning a few licks, I took my new
instrument to high school and discovered that the girls liked me better,
so I kept on playing it. My music teacher played some guitar herself and
invited one of her friends to play for us. His name was Bob Gibson. I
loved what he was doing and asked my teacher what kind of music that was. She told me it
was folk music and that there was a new school in Chicago that taught
it. So I enrolled in the Old Town School --- DH: Immediately after high school graduation, you
relocated to California to accompany The Limeliters. What's the story
behind that connection? ROGER: After a while at the Old Town School, I got
good enough to get a job playing folk songs at a coffeehouse on Rush
Street in Chicago for 10 dollars a night. One night there was a jam session going on at The
Gate of Horn. There were The Limeliters and Theodore Bikel. They had a
lot of guitars going and asked me to play my banjo. At 5 o'clock in the morning, Alex
Hassilev of the Limeliters asked me if I wanted a job playing for them.
"Yes!" I said, and he gave me an album and told me to learn the songs and meet them at 1
o'clock the next afternoon for an audition. So I took the album home and stayed up the rest of
the night learning the songs. The next day I met them and got through
the audition. Alex said, "Great! You got "I get out of high school in June," I said sheepishly. "High school!" Alex asked in disbelief. "Didn't we meet you in a bar last night?" I told them how the bartender let me in because I
played music and didn't make any trouble. In June they sent a plane ticket and I flew to Los
Angeles to record Tonight in Person with them for RCA Records. --- DH: Did The Gate of Horn as a pro folk venue date
to the late 1940s/early '50s with performances by people like Guthrie
and Cisco Houston and ROGER: The Gate of Horn was founded in the late
'50s. The first concert I remember there was a benefit for Big Bill, who
was ill at the time. --- DH: How long were you with The Limeliters, and what prompted you to throw in with The Chad Mitchell Trio, then with Bobby Darin? ROGER: The Limeliters and I played for two weeks at
the Ash Grove in LA and the Hollywood Bowl. I joined them in the
recording studio to finish up the album, After a tour of South America, we got a job at the
Crescendo on Sunset Strip in Hollywood, opening up for Lenny Bruce.
Bobby Darin had come to see Lenny and --- DH: I'm guessing that by the time the commercial
folk boom was at its peak in 1962-63, Jim McGuinn had seen the
handwriting on the wall and ROGER: I first saw the Beatles on television in
1963, in New York. It was the clip with all the screaming girls. I loved
the music! I got it right away and started One day as I was walking down Bleeker Street, a
concert promoter and his friends saw me and said, "What we need is
four of him." At that point I knew I was Gene and I wrote a few songs and would play them in the front room of The Troubadour. One day this chubby little guy walked in and started singing a great harmony part. He wanted to be in our band. I said, "David, we don't really have a band." He said, "Oh, please! I know this guy who has a recording studio we can use for free." So we let David Crosby join our band. He took us
over to meet his friend Jim Dickson, who was an engineer/producer at
World Pacific Studios in Hollywood. Jim --- DH: Your vocal style was and remains unique. A Dylan influence is apparent . . . who else? Did it undergo radical changes between your teen-age years and your emergence as a pre-Byrds soloist, and then as a Byrds leader? ROGER: My first vocal influence was rock-a-billy, i.e., Elvis, Gene Vincent and Carl Perkins—the whole Sun Records sound. When the late Bob Gibson came to my high school and played for us, I converted to folk. Gibson and Pete Seeger were the biggest influences on my vocal style at that point. I didn't get into Dylan until after The Byrds were formed and we were given "Mr. Tambourine Man" as an assignment to learn. Jim Dickson knew it would be a hit. We weren't so sure. --- DH: Although inspired by The Beatles and influenced
by them, in terms of physical appearance, The Byrds never seemed to make
an effort to imitate The Beatles' sound; you seemed very content
placing slow country drawls in a wild new rock context. Was that true
even during the ROGER: If you listen to the very early Byrds
recordings on, say, Preflyte, you can hear a pronounced Beatles sound.
We moved away from that gradually, after --- DH: What other groups, if any, were using 12-string
electric guitars at that time? Was that your idea? Who were your
influences in 12-string ROGER: The Seekers and The Searchers had put out records with a 12-string-like sound. I think they were actually using overdubbed 6-string guitars. "Needles and Pins" was a big influence on the 12-string sound. I used the pattern for "Feel A Whole Lot Better." Later, I developed my own style based on the banjo roll. --- DH: Has any other successful band, to your
knowledge, hired a drummer based entirely on the way he looked? (Michael
Clarke didn't even own a ROGER: Maybe the Monkees were formed for looks and
not musical ability. Otherwise, I guess there weren't any other bands
who took that approach. We just --- DH: Had you not been inspired to dramatically
overhaul Dylan's original arrangement of "Mr. Tambourine Man"
in 1964, there very possibly would ROGER: Jim Dickson had become our manager. He
realized the importance of getting us a radio hit with our first single.
The Columbia deal was for one single Jim had overheard some record producers talking
about a Dylan song that Dylan wasn't able to use because someone was
singing out of tune on the track. So David had a valid point. Folk music had been out of
favor in the Top 40 for awhile. Only British music was making the
charts, and the songs were short—about 2 I had an idea of how to save "Mr. Tambourine Man." I'd been playing around with some Bach licks on the 12-string and thought, "What if I put an intro like this . . . and we change it to a Beatle beat?!" It worked! We got a Number One hit and were allowed to record the rest of the album! --- DH: What were your classical music influences? Do you enjoy baroque? ROGER: Bach, Bethoven, Mozart, Dvorak were my main classical influences. Yes, I love baroque, and especially the harpsichord! --- DH: For The Byrds in 1965, was it essentially a
matter of having "the right sound at the right time?" If so,
why did the band's Elektra single of just ROGER: Our sound wasn't quite formed by the time we
recorded the single for Elektra. It was close, but it took Terry Melcher
and his knowledge of the studio --- DH: Would The Byrds' rendition of "Mr. Tambourine Man" have been a hit if released a year earlier or, say, two years later? ROGER: That's always hard to guess. I'd say no, based on the songs that were popular both before and after the release of "MTM." --- DH: It seems many of the key folkies of the early
`60s who later were to play prominent roles in the evolution of
folk-rock/country-rock ran in the ROGER: That's three questions, but yes, it was a
ripe musical environment in Los Angeles at The Troubadour, in New York
at all the coffeehouses in the Village, in San Francisco up and down North Beach, and at Old
Town in Chicago. We'd all fly around from club to club and play
folksongs. Then The Beatles hit and --- DH: In 1968—just four years after the original five Byrds had united and only three years after "Mr. Tambourine Man" had stormed the charts—it was down to you and a revolving corps of replacements. How could there have been such instability in such a hot band? ROGER: The very fact that we had such a great degree of success, so soon, was our downfall. The pressure was enormous! It made us fight with each other. --- DH: The move into The Byrds' country-rock era seemed natural enough for your own style of music. Was Gram Parsons the primary catalyst for that shift? Was it the result of an overall quest by the band for fresh territory? ROGER: We had begun to experiment with country
music as early as the second album with "Satisfied Mind." When
Gram came along, we merely expanded our --- DH: What has been your primary objective as a solo performer during the post-Byrds years? ROGER: I just love to get up there and make people happy with my music. --- DH: Many—probably most—fans know Roger McGuinn
as cofounder of The Byrds. The band lasted nine years; you've since
worked solo roughly ROGER: It's all just a matter of hits. If I had
made hit records under my own name, you wouldn't be asking that
question. Of course, I would like to have had such a --- DH: Tell us briefly about your home life and how you manage to keep it stable as a professional musician, often on the road? ROGER: I spend a lot of time on the Internet, which I can do from anywhere. So my life at home is much as it is on the road. --- DH: At the time you changed your name to Roger, were you practicing an Eastern religion? ROGER: I was searching for God. He found me later
when I accepted Jesus. --- DH: When and how did the conversion to Christianity
take place? How has that impacted your later music? Any words of advice
for a Christian ROGER: After the Rolling Thunder Review, I bottomed
out. I'd been doing a lot of drugs and alcohol and was not feeling very
well. I had a crushing feeling on my chest. One night I prayed with a jazz musician to
accept Jesus. It didn't happen right away, but later that month I asked
Him into my heart. The heavy feeling left To young Christian musicians, I would say to listen
to the Lord and do what He wants you to do with your gift. In my case, I
received that I should stay where I was --- DH: When you guys recorded songs like "I Am a
Pilgrim," "Jesus Is Just Alright" and "The Christian
Life," did those come before your actual ROGER: We just recorded those songs for their
musical value at the time. Chris was responsible for the early ones.
Gene Parsons found "Jesus Is Just Alright" on --- DH: It's obvious, after all these years, that you
never really abandoned your love and respect for traditional folk music,
although you've refused to ROGER: I love all kinds of music: rock, folk, classical, jazz, Cajun, gospel, country. There are really no delineations in music anymore for me. If it's good, I like it! --- DH: If Roger McGuinn were told by the Lord he could sing one more song and then he must die, what song would it be? What instrument? ROGER: "Turn, Turn, Turn" on the Rickenbacker 12-string (LOUD). --- DH: You've worked closely with so many great
musicians who died young: Gene Clark, Gram Parsons, Clarence White,
Michael Clarke. Here you ROGER: I feel blessed to have been able to work with such great musicians! As for purpose, I give that to the Lord. --- DH: What's the status of your autobiography? ROGER: It's still a work in progress. --- DH: Is promoting the new instructional videotape [The 12-String Guitar of Roger McGuinn] your priority project at the moment? ROGER: No, I'm now involved in producing my next
CD, Live From Mars, for Hollywood Records, to be released in November
1996. --- DH: Can you tell us about the new CD? Is Hollywood your own new record label? ROGER: Hollywood Records is a division of the Walt
Disney Company. Live From Mars is a compilation of DAT recordings
from various venues over the last two years. The tapes were digitally
edited into what sounds like a live gig. This is more than a live album. It's kind of a
one-man play, like The Life of Will Rogers, or something. It covers a
lot of historical ground. Someone said, "Thanks --- DH: How frequently do you perform nowadays? Always acoustic? Does your wife accompany you? ROGER: It varies from year to year. Last year my
wife and I were on the road 150 days. This year, because of recording,
it's been fewer. * * * * POSTSCRIPT: Roger was a featured performer in the Winter 2002-3 Public Television fund-raiser project, This Land Is Your Land, a reunion of some of the most famous folk and folk-rock musicians of the 1960s. |
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