On Byrds, I have a Japanese CD that’s at least 25 years old. The Rhino reissue sounds much better to me.
Sorry - didn't mean to be judgemental. I just think Byrds is a much better album. Totally agree with you on everything else.
I still have my copy of Byrds that I bought at Midland records in Auburn, Massachusetts, on the day it was released. (I can often tell you exactly where and when I bought an album but not be able to tell you my name! LOL) I've always had good feeling for the album, but do wish it had more of a classic Byrds sound. Perhaps a remix could capture a bit more of that.
I don't think a remix of the Byrds album will make the good songs much better, or the medicore songs into good songs. In fact, it might make "Long Live the King' even worse!
there's a guy who put the blackburn&snow vocals with the byrds backing track and it's excellent.it's on a blog called something like 'albums that never were'.i'll post the address when i find it
i was close..ish,' it's called albums that should exist'........Albums That Should Exist Merry Christmas everyone, and keep listening to the good stuff !
Here's a brain twister: Imagine Crosby just taking a vacation on his boat for a year while Chris and Roge made Sweetheart... Gram leaves and Crosby rejoins for Dr Byrds, with a few new songs. Hearing him harminize "Your Gentle ways..." and "Wheels on Fire" makes me think a Dr Byrds tour would have been justified. Or Gene rejoining with a few of his 2,000 songs. We would have been spared the concluding unnecesary medley, replaced by 3 Gene Clark songs! It could have been so different...
Minutiae time again, folks - I just listened all the way through to "Mind Gardens" off the Legacy CD (probably for the first time) and I do believe it is slightly longer - Crosby gets to sing the phrase "the garden" an extra time before the fade.
True, the remastered version is a remix that runs a few seconds longer than any previously released version.
I think this is Byrds related enough to warrant a post here I often wondered "What would happen if Parsons and Hillman stayed in the band after Sweetheart of the Rodeo?", so I tried to imagine a scenario where that would be possible. First of all, for that to happen, we would need Parsons to be content, as to not leave the band. One way we could do that is by them getting Sneaky Pete Kleinow as their pedal steel player, in a permanent basis, which he asked McGuinn for sometime before leaving. That would both approximate their sound to what eventually became the Burritos' sound, and help them have more accurate live performances of their material. Second of all, the South Africa gigs don't happen. They were a bad idea then, and didn't do them any good (but did plenty of harm!), so that's out of the picture. Now that he stays, Hillman has no reason to follow suit, and we keep the Sweetheart band + Kleinow. What would their next album look like? Let's take a look at the output of the two bands that emerged from the breakup: The Clarence White era Byrds released "Dr. Byrds and Mr. Hyde", with more of a rock n' roll sound, but still with some straight country tunes. And being honest, most of the original material in it isn't really stellar, as McGuinn couldn't sustain a band by himself yet. He also delivers the lead vocals on all songs, even those mostly written by new band members. So, in a post-Rodeo album, we'd need to take all the good country material on the album. That would be: Your Gentle Way of Loving Me - a cover of a Gib Gilbeau tune Stanley's Song - co-written with Robert Hippard, his old Byrds co-writter Drug Store Truck Drivin' Man - this one is even co-written by Gram! That would mean the bulk of the album would need to be Hillman/Parsons tunes from the Burritos. Not really unexpected, as that was already the case with Rodeo (before the re-recorded vocals by McGuinn). So we would need to take all the songs that don't feature songwriting contributions from Chris Ethridge, who only contributed with Gram due to the breakup (so that's goodbye to the Hot Burritos). And a song that wouldn't be used had the band not broken up (Do You Know How it Feels was brought back from his International Submarine Band days). We then end up with eight songs. Putting that all together and sequencing it, we end up with something like: Side One: 01 The Devil in Disguise (The Gilded Palace of Sin) 02 Sin City (The Gilded Palace of Sin) 03 Your Gentle Ways of Loving Me (Dr. Byrds & Mr. Hyde) 04 Do Right Woman (The Gilded Palace of Sin) 05 Stanley's Song (Dr. Byrds & Mr. Hyde) 06 My Uncle (The Gilded Palace of Sin) Side Two: 07 Wheels (The Gilded Palace of Sin) 08 Juanita (The Gilded Palace of Sin) 09 Dark End of the Street (The Gilded Palace of Sin) 10 Drug Store Truck Drivin' Man (Dr. Byrds & Mr. Hyde) 11 Hippie Boy (The Gilded Palace of Sin) I believe the album would still be called The Gilded Palace of Sin, as that's a much better title than Dr. Byrds, and sounds nice next to Notorious Byrd Brothers and Sweetheart of the Rodeo. It's a great album, but still not as fantastic as the regular Burritos album, due to the abscence of two of Parsons' greatest tunes. The McGuinn tracks, however, are the ones who benefit the most from their company. Now they sound like they belong in the album they're in, with other quality material alongside it. As for three songs being too few for him, that was also how many he got on Sweetheart, before the lawsuit debacle, so fair enough. The arrangements would be virtually the same, due to the presence of Pete Kleinow. The only difference on the Burritos tunes would be McGuinn playing Hillman's parts, and Hillman playing Ethridge's. And as for the Byrds material, they would keep their arrangements as well, with Clarence appearing as a session musician (and maybe even turning them into a sextet!), with maybe some harmony vocals by Gram in Truck Drivin' Man.
This kind of question is both interesting to ponder but also not something I'd ever want to see happen, because I love Gilded Palace as it is and I like Dr. Byrds enough to not want to see most of it to cease to exist. I really doubt McGuinn would have agreed to do a second all-country album, particularly after the sales failure of Sweetheart. He viewed it as an experiment, not a permanent change in direction. And he certainly wouldn't have agreed to an album where he sang only three songs. So I think it's more likely that several of the rock songs from Dr. Byrds would have made the cut, and the album would have been a rock/country mishmash as Dr. Byrds was. Meanwhile, "Your Gentle Way's of Lovin' Me" (that's how it was titled on the original record) was brought to the band by Gene Parsons, so you'd have to throw that one out if Parsons never joined. And "Stanley's Song" is pretty weak and deservedly an outtake, so I doubt that would have made it. On the Burritos side, I doubt "Hippie Boy" would have made the cut if they'd had this much material to work with. And at least a couple of the other Gilded Palace songs would have to go to make room for sufficient lead vocals for Roger.
These “what if” scenarios, I guess, are fun to speculate about for many. But Sweetheart of the Rodeo, The Gilded Palace of Sin, the Dillard and Clark Expedition and If Only Could Remember My Name are all stone cold classic albums from the era that stand the test of time.
I agree with David Crosby: "There were only ever five Byrds." David Crosby, Jim McGuinn, Gene Clark, Chris Hillman, and Michael Clarke. All the rest were hired hands, salaried employees. The Byrds diminished as each member left.
Agreed, however I would add that had Roger ditched the name after Sweetheart and the latter day Byrds been called McGuinn, White & Parsons then we’d all be talking about how underrated and ahead of their time they were. I return to all of their albums regularly (possibly with the exception of Byrdmaniax but that is mostly due to production and Battin’s songwriting) and find much to like about them.
Here's a topic worth a few posts - the changing voices of Roger McGuinn. As far as I can see, he's the only Byrd to have done what Dylan did, i.e. vary his singing voice over the years. There's his cool, hip "Tambourine Man" voice, his coke-ravaged growl on the live stuff from the 70s, his Irish sea shanty voice, his high whinnying voice of the last 20 years... The others have pretty much stayed the same - Crosby has occasionally tried to get raw and bluesy, with mixed results, Hillman has stayed solidly in that mellow country-ish vein. Gene's voice aged - goodness knows what it would sound like now, if he was still with us - but he didn't try to change his singing persona like Roger does/did. I think Roger peaked in the period from Ballad of Easy Rider to Byrdmaniax. Love the way he handles things like "Tulsa County" and "Chestnut Mare".
Heh, that’s a non money making talent I have also . For some stupid reason,I can remember where and the circumstances of buying many of my albums and 45’s ( back in the day) also . It’s not something I go around telling people in the general public, but I figure people here might understand, in our oasis of nerd-dom.
Actually, early on, Gene did indeed sing with an affectation. It's there on his 1964 demos found on The Lost Sessions and of course the Pre-Flyte set that's been around in one form or another for 50 years or so. The main offender IMO is "The Only Girl I Adore". Geno turns in a performance that is utterly laughable, right down to the final "OH!!!". Fortunately, this voice never made it to any commercially released material at the time and the Gene we all know and love found his voice and stuck with it
