The byrds

The group was created in 1964 in Los Angeles by novice Californian musicians - Roger McGinn, David Crosby and Gene Clark. At first they called themselves The Beefeaters. Young musicians were inspired by the poetic lyrics of Bob Dylan and the energetic merci-beat The Beatles . Their dream was to cross Dylan with Lennon , folk music with rock. After some reflection, the trio settled on the name The Byrds - the distorted spelling of the English word "birds." This reflected the interest of the founders of the group to aviation : aviation themes formed the basis of a number of their songs. Soon, the bassist / mandolinist Chris Hillman and drummer Michael Clark joined the team, who, due to lack of funds, had to rehearse on cardboard boxes instead of drums. In January 1965, the band recorded their first single: for Dylan’s latest song, “ Mr. Tambourine Man ”was imposed obscure strumming of a twelve-stringed guitar and vocal harmonies in the style of Beach Boys . The intricate words of the song, coupled with the unusual sound of electric instruments (“ jingle pop ”) made it the first hit of folk rock. Soon the song took the first line of the sales charts on both sides of the Atlantic, and began to write about The Byrds as the “American response of The Beatles”. By the way, the members of the Liverpool Four themselves highly appreciated the work of their overseas colleagues, called them "a terrific, fantastic, cool, plaguey group" and experienced a certain influence of The Byrds on their work.

In June 1965, the group’s debut album, “ Mr. Tambourine Man ”, which included both original works and re-singing of folk songs. Inspired by the success of this record, the record company demanded that the musicians release a new album by the end of the year. This disc was recorded hastily and appeared on the shelves of music stores in December. Pete Seeger 's single released single “Turn! Turn! Turn! ”, Being filled with Old Testament quotes, returned The Byrds to first place on the Billboard Hot 100 .

In early 1966, The Byrds - as the most successful rock band in America - decided to go on tour to the stronghold of new-fashioned rock music - London . Flying across the ocean inspired Clark with the mysterious, impressionistic lyrics of Eight Miles High , which went down in history as the first masterpiece of psychedelic rock. The sound of this song seemed strange, but only a few recognized the influence of Indian music here - most observers attributed the mysteriousness of the words and music to the narcotic dope. For this reason, Eight Miles High was banned on many radio stations in America and Europe, and the accompanying album Fifth Dimension (July 1966) showed more modest sales figures than its predecessors.

A strong blow to the group turned the departure from her of Jean Clark, who wrote most of her repertoire. A few years later, he returned to the band, but only lasted three weeks in his line-up: the panic fear of air travel ruled out his participation in concert tours. In February 1967, the remaining members recorded their fourth album “Younger Than Yesterday”, which included several frankly mediocre tracks. During this period, the group aggravated the struggle for supremacy, which claimed David Crosby. His behavior caused rejection of other band members: for example, at the Monterey festival, he demanded that LSD be distributed to all women and children, and then began performing with the main competitors of The Byrds in the folk-rock field - Buffalo Springfield .

Internal controversy led to the exclusion of Crosby from the team. His departure, however, had no effect on the quality of the conceptual album The Notorious Byrd Brothers (January 1968), which is considered to be perhaps the most consistent and harmonious disc of The Byrds. Instead of Crosby, guitarist / keyboard player Graham Parsons , Keith Richards' closest friend from The Rolling Stones, was recruited to join the band. Under his influence, the musicians plunged into a new element of country rock. They were the first rock band to perform in Nashville , the capital of country music . The release of the “Sweetheart at the Rodeo” album recorded with Parsons caused the alienation of a part of the fans. Under pressure from the label, Parsons' vocals were erased from the tracks of this record, and Graham himself hastily left the band.

After the departure of the main participants of the classical composition of the mid-1960s, The Byrds actually turned into a sign, under which McGinn's solo works appeared. In 1969, McGuinn, teamed up with Gene Clark, recorded two songs under his own name for the soundtrack to the cult film " Easy Rider ". One of them, "Ballad Of Easy Rider", was later overwritten by the new lineup of The Byrds and gave the name to the next album. In terms of commercial and creative success, the team led by McGinn was inferior not only to The Flying Burrito Brothers (a joint project of Hillman and Parsons), but also to the supergroup Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young (whose origins were David Crosby and Stephen Stills). In 1973, members of the classic composition made an unsuccessful attempt at reunification, after which the Byrds group was disbanded, this time completely.

By gentlemanly verbal agreement, the Byrds brand could later be used by the musicians only with the consent of all five participants of the original composition. 4/5 (McGuinn, Hilmann, Crosby and Michael Clark) participants of the classic composition in the recording of the track My New Woman for the debut solo album of McGuin in 1973 became a farewell curtsey.

In early 1977, McGuinn, Hillmann, and Gene Clark periodically joined forces for joint concert performances. Performing each solo program during the same department, during the last one, all three joined together to perform the hits of the Byrds together. On December 6, 1977, David Crosby took part in a joint concert of McGuinn and Gene Clark, and in April 1979, Mark Clark played with a trio on several performances. At the end of 1978, a contract was signed with the record company Capitol, and the following year, the debut album of the trio McGuinn Clark & ​​Hillman appeared in the Top 40 of the United States, as well as the lead single Don't You Write Her Off. The style of the project, however, was fundamentally different from that performed Byrds. In this case, it was a high-end soft rock, causing analogies more with Crosby Stills & Nash and Eagles, than the former team of participants. During the recording of the second album, Clark again began to experience mental health problems and the group began to fall apart. Capitol lost faith in the project and the second album City (1980) practically did not receive the necessary support for promotion and went unnoticed.

McGuinn and Hillman once again tried their luck by releasing the McGuinn-Hillman joint disc in 1981, but the record turned out to be so much more atypical than the previous works of the musicians that it didn’t even hit the charts.

In 1984, Gene Clark tried to reinstate The Byrds, but McGuinn and Hillmann refused to take part, and Crosby, at that time, was more concerned with solving problems with the law. However, he managed to bring in former members of Byrds Mike Clarke and John York, guitarist Rick Roberts, who previously played Flying Burrito Brothers with Hillman and Firefall, Blondie Chaplin from Beach Boys and bass guitarist The Band Rick Danko. The band’s show, originally announced as A 20th Anniversary Tribute to the Byrds, was presented by many promoters as a Byrds concert. The remaining trio with condescension perceived the group's touring activities, and Gene Clark increasingly began to personally use the name Byrds to advertise concerts. In November 1985, the line-up left Michael Clark and was replaced by Greg Thomas, previously recorded with McGuinn and McGuinn Clark & ​​Hillman. Instead of Rick Danko, who left to take part in the reunion of The Band, and Blondi Chaplin came Carlos Bernal, who was in the 60s. Roady Byrds and then considered as a likely replacement for Graham Parsons who left the band, Billy Darnell, who played with McGuinn in the 70s, and renowned keyboard player Nicky Hopkins. A month later, Byrds left Roberts, Hopkins did not stay much longer, and in the fall of 1987, Bernal was replaced by Michael Curtis. In April 1988, Gene Clark was hospitalized due to an ulcer and the team gave several performances without the last member of the initial composition. After recovering, having spent several more concerts to pay off hospital bills, Gene Clark decides to give up the name The Byrds and the band continued to perform under the name Gene Clark And The Firebyrds, or, when Clark was absent, Maps.

In December 1988, McGuinn, Hillman and Crosby announced that they would give three concerts under the guise of The Byrds, fearing in the future to lose the rights to such a promoted trademark. The reason for this was the upcoming tour of Mike Clark’s original drummer called The Byrds featuring Michael Clarke. The lineup included John Jorgenson and Steve Duncan from The Desert Rose Band of Hillman. In his own version of the band, Mark Clark drew Skip Battin, Carlos Bernal, as well as previously unrelated to the history of the group of guitarists Terry Jones Rodgers and Jerry Sorna. At the same time, during the tour, Clark unpretentiously lost the last letter on the billboard in the spelling of his last name, deceiving the presence of Gene Clark in the line-up for the picky viewer (Clarke accordingly became Clark). Jean Clark himself, trying to maintain good relations with both sides, was currently out of the game. Not surprisingly, on April 14, 1989, McGuinn, Hillman, and Crosby sued Mike Clark in court, accusing them of dishonest advertising, and tried to get the group name to be used in priority. They designated their position, in the words of David Crosby, as follows: “Initially, Gene gathered a very bad team and called The Byrds. Let it go. Gene was one of the frontmen and wrote the lion’s share of the material and, although his group was terrible, he could call himself an integral part of The Byrds like any of us. But when it comes to drummer Michael Clark, who did not write and did not sing a note, but gathered an even worse ensemble and constantly advertising it as “true The Byrds”, then he should think that it will not work for him with impunity ... Now it’s a bunch of alcoholics trying to earn a bus ticket to the house. They mix the name of the group with dirt. ” Mark Clarke’s defense of McGuinn, Hillman and Crosby’s moral and ethical arguments argued that Clark “was the sex symbol of The Byrds and his face helped sell records no worse than the author’s material and the vocal harmonies of the other participants.” The court’s decision was based on more prosaic arguments - since 1984, Michael Clark has spent over 300 concerts as a member of Byrds, without causing displeasure and lawsuits from the rest of the group. So the version of Byrds from Mark Clark got the right to exist, especially since in the middle of the tour, Bernal was replaced by John York. True, in October 1989 he left and the composition was reduced to a quartet.

At the same time, a more successive version of The Byrds McGuinn, Hillman and Crosby took part in a memorial concert in memory of Roy Orbison, and in August 1990 she recorded 4 new songs that were included in The Byrds Boxed Set. In January 1991, thanks in part to Jean’s efforts, it was possible to temporarily smooth out the conflict between the participants and The Byrds in their original form at the ceremony of introducing the group to the Rock-N-Roll Hall of Fame. But Michael Clark, being drunk, questioned plans for reunification in its original form for a full-scale tour. The death of Jean on May 24, 1991 put an end to this question.

McGuinn, Hillman and Crosby continued to work on their side and solo projects, while The Byrds continued to tour Michael Clark, despite the promise made earlier to remove the name of the band from circulation. In mid-1992, Butin left the team, but at the end of the year the ensemble even managed to release the album Eight Miles High . The musicians themselves almost did not dry out, which ended more than tragically: Michael Clark died of cirrhosis of the liver on December 19, 1993.

But as it turned out, the story of the Therds ersatz didn't end there. In the summer of 1994, Butin and Terry Rogers revived the line-up under the guise of Byrds Celebration, adding guitarist Scott Nienhaus to the line-up and, for greater legitimacy, Gene Parsons. True, at the end of the first tour, Parsons resigned and was replaced by Winnie Barranco, later replaced by Tim Politt. Buttin, the last person who had anything to do with the first period of The Byrds, left in 1997 due to health problems and was replaced by Michael Curtis, who was already playing in the version of Gene Clark. In 2002, Crosby bought The Byrds brand, nevertheless, the latter continue to perform until today under the name Younger Than Yesterday - A Tribute To The Byrds.

Original composition

• Gene Clark - vocals, percussion, tambourine, harmonica, guitar (1964-1966, 1967, 1972-1973, 1991)
• Roger McGuinn - guitar, banjo, vocals (1964–1973, 1989–1991, 2000)
• Chris Hillman - bass guitar, mandolin, vocals (1964-1968, 1972-1973, 1991)
• David Crosby - vocals, guitar (1964–1967, 1972–1973, 1989–1991, 2000)
• Michael Clark - drums (1964–1967, 1972–1973, 1991)

Other members

• Kevin Kelly - Percussion (1968)
• Graham Parsons - vocals, guitar, electric organ (1968)
• Clarence White - guitar, mandolin, vocals (1968–1973)
• Gene Parsons - drums, harmonica, banjo, guitar, vocals (1968-1972)
• John York - bass guitar, vocals (1968-1969)
• Skip Butin - bass guitar, vocals (1969–1973)

Timeline