I have heard elsewhere, from people who have read Chris's book, that he never even mentions his entire first marriage to Anya Butler, even though her affair with Carlos Bernal is one of the main reasons he left the Byrds. I wonder if he talks about Pamela Des Barres. I doubt it. In any case it's evidently hardly a tell-all. But when even Mike Love can put out a candid, mature assessment of his life and work...
An interesting person: she was British, I believe, and had worked as a secretary for The Who's management. If it's the same person? If so, did she and Chris meet at Monterey?
Similar to McGuinn. With a new renewed faith he is going to gloss over parts of his past. Disappointing really. Have you read Pamela's book?
That's right, she worked for Kit Lambert, and she was also an heiress (albeit not a main heiress) to the Cadbury chocolate fortune. Rogan says she and Chris were already in a long-distance relationship when he wrote "Time Between," and indeed Rogan says the song is about their relationship, so they must have met earlier than 1967. I believe I read somewhere that Anya was in Los Angeles in the summer of 1966 trying to break The Who on US radio. Pamela Des Barres's book is wonderful. It's been a while since I read it. I do remember that it contains a fair amount of significant Burritos/Byrds lore.
I read it maybe 10 years ago or more. I don't recall it all that well anymore, but yes I do recall that as well. Edit: Should also say I get it mixed up with Chris O'Dell's book in my mind as I read them both almost back to back and there is a lot of names in each .
Roger has a very good collection of old transistor radios, he's a serious collector of that kind of thing. I guess the third photo is just him enthusing about a particular early model. Technology, especially mobile gadgets like phones, walkie talkies have always fascinated him.
Yeah, I got that lol. He's always had a penchant for being photographed with examples of what would've been hi tech at the time but now look quaint and amusing. Och it's quite endearing really :>)
It truly is. In fact, it’s the kind of goofiness that helped me—for lack of a better term—understand the guy more than I used to. I like personality quirks, uniqueness. This next bit isn’t aimed at you, just flowing from today’s discussion... Maybe that’s why I (like @Maggie ) loved Miss Pamela’s book too. She made these big, untouchable stars into real people—people with flaws and actual, you know, depth. The book had its share of dark revelations (I’ll never forget reading the harrowing passage about Keith Moon’s nightmares in the aftermath of Neil Boland’s death; the medicine-y smell of his sweat, etc), but also had many hilarious long-running gags—her patient pursuit of Hillman being one of them. You almost want to cheer when she finally gets him. That Hillman doesn’t even mention his first wife is...concerning. I’m being regularly tagged on tweets by a PR person who’s promoting Chris’ book, and I feel ambivalent about it. I did not like the tone he adopted in the Hot Burritos book, which I felt was a sanctimonious, relentlessly negative, one-sided hit job. Now, with this book, I’m filled with dread. Early on, I held out hope that, in terms of his treatment of Gene Clark, he might show compassion. So far I have not heard anything about this, so if anyone can give me a summary, I’d appreciate it. My big fear is that Gene’s life, work and influence will be reduced to a morality tale: “Gene was a nice country boy with a lot of talent who unfortunately got addicted to alcohol and wasted his God-given gifts.”
This is the problem with him writing with this renewed faith. As much as he was involved in a lot of this stuff, he will now be able to stand high and mighty above the seedier aspects of the past and because he survived, he can boast about how overcame everything and others passed away... I am a bit more leary on reading a book written with this type of narrative, so I'd love to hear a review on it as well.
I also think that it's worth emphasizing that just because somebody got saved, it doesn't mean they can't be honest about their past. There are a million examples. (Little Richard comes to mind for me.) Bowdlerizing one's history, and throwing old friends under the bus to make oneself look more saintly by comparison, is a choice -- just like choosing not to tell the story at all is a choice.
I’m reading the book right now and into the 1965 portion. Chris is sticking to the his life, the music and what happened so far. He was extremely complimentary of Roger, Gene and David’s vocal abilities. And how Gene shone as a front man. I had already heard he was going to stay away from the drugs and sex but again I’m just up to the end of their British tour in 65. He does detail his early life very well and doesn’t shy away from the times he got in trouble. The part about his father’s suicide was very moving. Other than a first chapter about the fire that destroyed part of his house in 2017 the book is chronological.
I received Hillman's book on Sunday, maybe I'll find time to read some of it this weekend. I was surprised its not very big, only 238 pages. By comparison, Rogan devoted almost 400 pages to Gene Clark in his Requiem For The Timeless Vol.2 book.
Yeah. Just the other day I was having a discussion with my daughter about the amazing advances in phone technology over the past 30 years... We watch old episodes of Seinfeld, and she is always amused by plotlines that hinge upon someone needing to find a pay phone to reach someone else, or misunderstandings ensuing from mishaps with answering machines. That led to a discussion of how excited people were about the concept of "car phones" when they were introduced.
From a Goodreads reviewer: "So you won't be shocked when you read it - Hillman is a religious type of person these days and the last 50 pages or so are kind of preachy at times, so if you're put off by that type of thing, this probably isn't a book you'll enjoy. If you can overlook the preachiness (is there such a word?), it's an enjoyable read by, and about, someone who survived the '60's rock explosion and is still around to tell the story" Time Between: My Life as a Byrd, Burrito Brother, and Beyond by Chris Hillman (goodreads.com)
Fifty pages out of a 230-page book is a lot. If true, I think this is a huge loss for music fans, because we are quickly losing the remaining voices of those still in a position to provide firsthand accounts. Having said that, I realize my interest in Byrds minutiae might be safely characterized as “excessive.”
As we’ve seen, there’s also a third option: telling one’s story passively, through a Darinesque lens. But I trust it will all work out in the end. Edit: I kind of like the term “Darinesque.” Makes me wish it were a real thing.
The contradiction at the end is a bit troubling, isn't it: the self-doubt ("I don't know anything!") flattened immediately by the bluster of the follow-up lines (which aren't so far from the sort of reactionary world-view that McGuinn was critiquing in the intro to the live version of Ballad Of Easy Rider on the expanded version of Untitled, when he quoted the denouement lines from the Easy Rider film: "Hey hippie, get a haircut! Want me to blow your brains out?!").
All too often, honesty about one's past becomes selective, and designed to fit a narrative. In both of his autobiographies, Johnny Cash is brutally honest about his drug abuse in the 60s, but in his second book (written in the 90s) he really whitewashes and minimizes his late-70s relapse and his ongoing, severe substance abuse throughout the 80s. This is seemingly because it doesn't fit his desired narrative, that he was lost in the 60s but then rediscovered Jesus and was saved. Explaining why you'd relapse and resume abusing drugs after you've had your moment of spiritual epiphany is a more complex, harder story to tell, and one he obviously didn't want to get into.
What we need is a Gene Parsons book. I feel he would be pretty upfront. Though that wouldn't cover the earlier incarnations of the Byrds much.
