I’ve heard various stories about why his lead vocals were taken off a bunch of the songs. How quickly did you realize that Gram Parsons was even more talented than you initially thought? I loved it so much that we decided to go to Nashville and record the album. I bought a Cadillac Eldorado and I stared driving the freeways of Los Angeles listening to country music like Porter Wagoner and Dolly Parton and Jerry Lee Lewis. I remember going out to Nudie, the rodeo tailor in San Fernando Valley, and getting some cowboy gear. We can work with him.” Then he started singing country songs to us and his love of country music was infectious and that got us fired up on it. I asked him to play some piano and he played a little Floyd Cramer–style piano. Chris Hillman had met him at a bank in Beverly Hills and brought him around. Tell me your first memory of meeting Gram Parsons. I wanted to hire him as a piano player, but it turned out he was like George Jones in a sequin suit and we just didn’t know it yet. We needed the rhythm section, and it didn’t really work. Well, it did get pretty thin when Crosby was gone and Kevin Kelley and Chris Hillman and I tried to go on the road as the Byrds. Did you ever worry the group might be over before Gram came in? You’d just parted ways with a bunch of band members. I think they just said, “It’s time to go into the studio again and see what happens.” I don’t even know if they knew what we were doing. They were very, very permissive at Columbia Records. Nobody at the label ever told us anything. It’s time to go back to country and cool down.”ĭid anyone at your label or management try to tell you it was a mistake to change sounds like that? And then I think it was a reaction to the psychedelic thing after “Eight Miles High.” Everybody was doing psychedelic music and it was like, “Enough. We always listened to Earl Scruggs and all the country guys, so it wasn’t a real stretch. To me, country music was part of folk music. Well, we dabbled in country music as early as the Turn! Turn! Turn! album with “Satisfied Mind” and Chris Hillman came from a bluegrass background and I came from folk. What inspired you to change up the Byrds sound so much in 1968? You’d just had a lot of success with “My Back Pages” and “So You Want to Be a Rock ‘n’ Roll Star.” Most bands would have just stuck with a winning formula. On the site he releases one folk song a month with a recorded version of the song, a brief history and the lyrics.Let’s go all the way back to the start. His comeback in 1991 Back From Rio produced his biggest hit, the duet with Tom Petty titled King of the Hill. Following that was a short lived reunion with Gene Clark and Chris Hillman of the Byrds which produced some minor hits in the late 70s before falling apart.īy 1981 Roger McGuinn was without a recording contract, a situation that persisted for a decade. Roger McGuinn placed his solo career on hold briefly in the 70s to join Bob Dylan’s Rolling Thunder Review after collaborating with him on the soundtrack for Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid. The Byrds continued under McGuinns’ direction until 1973, when the group dissolved and McGuinn started a solo career, Despite the critical and commercial success of the Byrds, McGuinn was the only original member remaining in the band by 1968. Together with Chris Hillman and Michael Clarke the three formed the Byrds. Some early recording and session work with other artists led to a connection with David Crosby and Gene Clark. The Chicago native first began touring with the Limelighters as a teen in the late 50s. The Beatles, Tom Petty and R.E.M all list McGuinn as an influence. His 12 string Rickenbacker guitar added a distinctive sound to folk rock and country rock. Over his long career, Roger McGuinn has influenced many artists.
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