Byrds would be the group’s first long-player for a label other than Columbia Records – and the final Byrds album to date. But the original line-up of Gene Clark, David Crosby, Roger McGuinn, Chris Hillman and Michael Clarke hadn’t recorded a complete album together since 1965. People come to hear those things.When the album simply entitled Byrds arrived on David Geffen’s Asylum label in 1973, it had been only about a year-and-a-half since the last record from the California folk-rock heroes. I’m not one of those artists who refuses to do things from the past. “I’ve written a couple of new songs but I’m not really concentrating on making new albums. But he’s made very little original music for the last twenty years, preferring to tour the world as a solo musician, playing the greats from yesteryear. For the next twenty years, McGuinn released a number of solo albums, and returned with Byrds members Chris Hillman and Gene Clark for a couple of albums in the late ‘70s. The Byrds split up in 1973, with an unmatched repertoire of psychedelic rock, folk and country-rock. When I got off stage, Scotty Moore (the original Elvis guitarist) said, “are you sure you heard that right, son?”…” McGuinn laughs at the memory. I played it in a club owned by Les Paul – Les Paul was there himself – and I played ‘Heartbreak Hotel’. And I used to ride it around on my bicycle, and Elvis came on with ‘Heartbreak Hotel’. “They gave me a transistor radio when I was 13, it had just been invented. It was also when he was growing up that this love of music was kindled.
#ROGER MCGUINN UK TOUR 2014 PROFESSIONAL#
So, when I decided to become a professional musician, they were both for it.”
My mother was active in all sorts of book organisations, and they had lots of friends in the theatre world too. And they did a book tour and we travelled all over the country by car. She and my father wrote a best-selling book in 1948 called Parents Can’t Win, a satire on child psychology. Roger’s mother was obviously a big part of his life (he himself is now 71). I listened to it and thought it was good enough to put out, and we added a bonus DVD with some of my friends: Judy Collins, Joan Baez, Bruce Springsteen and Tom Petty, talking about their impressions of The Byrds.” “She died when she was 102 and three days (in 2012), and that was the last concert she got to hear. “It was a recording made for my mother’s 102nd birthday,” says Roger. Often on the road, around the globe, with just a couple of guitars and bag of stories, McGuinn recently released Stories, Songs and Friends, a two-CD and DVD set that is an autobiographical release of sorts featuring many a good tale in amongst its repertoire. Not only did he front up the highly influential The Byrds, he practically patented the chiming Rickenbacker 12-string guitar sound that has been intrinic to rock ‘n roll ever since. Legendary is a word often bandied about willy-nilly, but in the case of Jim Roger McGuinn, it’s totally justified. Music: Roger McGuinn Formerly of The Byrds, Roger McGuinn talks candidly to Latest’s Jeff Hemmings …
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