Fascinating to see the ire from those early critics! I'm definitely talking retrospect, for my take. The hipper UK critics & publications from the Nineties, moving forward (when I started taking note) have usually been warm towards Croz and less so towards Roger. The former has essentially held the position of hippy it's alright to like. His debut album, especially, has been held up as a beacon of Laurel Canyon charm and creativity, and later CSN (&Y) albums have tended to be negatively reviewed apart from his songwriting contributions. Roger, by contrast, just tends to be regarded as the fellow who dragged The Byrds past their sell-by date. His solo career isn't so much dismissed as ignored.
Indeed. Given I think that Roger's post-Byrds career has been at least as interesting as Croz', I think it's a shame that his solo work isn't as highly regarded. His Folk Den project alone deserves much more kudos - at least in my opinion - than it ever seems to get. I'm hoping that, in time, he will be regarded as America's Bert Lloyd.
Fair enough! I love all the Croz tracks you've listed, and more but I'm a big fan of Roger's too. I find plenty to enjoy on all his solo records. I think all four writers from the original Byrds line-up have had outstanding solo careers, and all very different too.
That t-shirt was obviously a trusty go-to in Chris Hillman’s laundry rotation at the time, lol. Well spotted. Is Michael’s foot in a cast?
Thinking about this again and I think your timeline is bang on just based on the appearance of Gene Parsons and Clarence. Certainly no earlier than that as they were much more cleaned up previously. Also the length of Gram Parsons' hair jives with that timeline.
Hey @carlwm , what records by Country Gazette do you have? I have Hello Operator.... but it seems the compilation is mostly from their 80s records which doesn't include Byron Berline, Roland White, or Clarence White. Do you have "Don't Quit Your Day Job"? I found it on youtube and it is a great listen. This is the album to feature Clarence White and includes a cover of "Teach Your Children". Edit: Another thing with that photo. Clarence, Gene Parsons and Sneaky Pete were very short people. I've noticed this with them compared to Roger and Chris in the Byrds/FBB in other photos, but it's funny to see the shorties lumped together here.
Kind of surprised to see anti-Christgau animadversion in this thread. I'm used to seeing it elsewhere on this forum, for various reasons not worth re-litigating, but Christgau was/is a major Byrds fan. Of the first generation of "rock critics," I think only Sandy Pearlman loved them more. Christgau was promoting Notorious and Sweetheart long after those records were out of print and hard to find. He even called Dr. Byrds "first-rate" and literally referred to McGuinn as a "genius"! The McGuinn Experience only started to lose him after Ballad of Easy Rider (which was too folky for his taste and indeed, for the tastes of lots of Byrds fans to this day). But, as @czeskleba notes, he continued to be fairly generous with McGuinn throughout the '70s. The dude even gave Byrdmaniax a fair hearing.
It isn't his reviews of the Byrds that makes me have a distaste for him. Although, he was not a big fan of the later Byrds, as you said. Like I said, sometimes I agree with him, but there are other times he is just spitting vitriol towards other artists that is biased and unfounded. It is fine to not like everything, but he certainly had a certain taste and could come across as entirely close-minded. He didn't judge albums based on it's genre or it's merits within it's specific framework. He judged it based on this scale: A+ = New York Dolls. A = I like it and it is hard-edged. B = I like some of their previous works, so this is good too. C = I don't like it. Even if the musicianship, vocals, writing, production, etc. are good, I don't like this type of music. D+ or lower = these people have personally offended me because they are dirty hippies. I say this partly in jest, as I haven't gone through every review he has ever written, but that is the pattern I have noticed. Edit: I also understand that each critic is different and shouldn't be the be-all-end-all in your musical tastes, but his reviews in particular seemed incredibly biased, and sometimes just unfair. Richie Unterberger is an example of a very good critic in that he judges music based on the genre or framework or fanbase they are working within or shooting for.
I wish everyone gave it a fair hearing. I think because of the comments that McGuinn and Parsons have made over the years, plus the reviews of the time and it's reputation it is ignored or completely tarnished. Listening with fresh ears and a head clear of the history, or possibly not even knowing it was the Byrds... it is a much better album than it is given credit for. I also think that Melcher's production helped some of the songs and gave them a gospel feel. Much better than it's reputation to my ears.
The scale you describe is funny but pretty much accurate. (As someone who loves the Dolls, I find it gratifying.) I think a lot of the reason why people are mad at Robert Christgau is because Tom Hull put almost all of his writings online about 20 years ago. Hull was doing it as a kind of historical archive, but people got confused and thought that all of those reviews were to be considered current and reflected Christgau's current opinion. If Tom Hull hadn't bothered making that website, I expect that people would regard Robert Christgau today similarly to the way they regard Lester Bangs (who also had strong opinions that cut against the grain of a lot of people's preferences). The way the website mixes up very old reviews with relatively new ones obscures the fact that for most of his career, Christgau was writing to a very specific audience -- readers of the Village Voice, most of whom shared his point of view. The Christgau Consumer's Guide column had as specific an audience in mind as, say, Savage Love does today. Like all critics, Christgau had limitations. (As a jazz fan, I've frequently found his 10th-grader's understanding of that music frustrating.) However, those limitations are often overstated. He has praised a lot of "soft" R&B, folk, and country music -- he was a major booster of DeBarge, Al Green, Joy of Cooking, and Iris DeMent, to name a few. On no account were his tastes limited to fast, punky rock and roll, as they're often stereotyped, although of course he was a major voice in getting national attention for punk. He was also one of the first nationally-distributed critics to take hip-hop and African pop music seriously. He definitely had a prejudice against slick Los Angeles music that he thought was masquerading as counterculture, or anything that struck him as artistically self-important, as well as anything that he thought was indifferently sung and/or lacking rhythmic interest, so unfortunately that covers a lot of the '70s singer-songwriter thing. I pretty much share those prejudices of his, though of course I too have been stung by the odd nasty Christgau put-down of something I love -- sometimes because I sense he's letting his prejudices get the better of his ears, and sometimes because I suspect on some level he might have been right. (His total dismissal of The Verve in the '90s is probably my "favorite" Christgau lapse outside of his pronouncements on jazz and Marvin Gaye.) Still, as I've pointed out many times on this forum, no single critic did more to promote the idea that pop music should be taken seriously as art than Robert Christgau. So if you consider pop music serious art, you should thank him for making that idea mainstream.
On this point I pretty much agree. Although I think "Glory Glory" doesn't really work with its weak McGuinn vocal (it was a bizarre choice of single), I get a lot of enjoyment out of everything else on the album, including the three Skip tracks. The sound of the album has a certain leaden quality (a combination of the elaborate arrangements and the slow tempos) that makes me less inclined to reach for it than, say, Farther Along -- but, as with Farther Along (and Ballad of Easy Rider), I've long thought that had it been released under some other name, it would probably be regarded as a "lost classic" today. That being said, I see some indications that its reputation is slowly being recuperated. Certainly in the streaming/discogs era, more and more listeners exploring the Byrds are approaching the Skip-era albums without prejudice and finding much there to enjoy.
I stand corrected on Country Gazette, Roland White was with them through the 80s, Roger Bush was not.
I agree on this entire post. Again, often I share his prejudices and often he is right. There has just been times when I too have been "stung" by his putdowns on something I love and sometimes I feel it is entirely out of left field or just completely biased. I find myself reading a lot of his reviews because I do respect his view or his tastes and his takes on being overly-slick, indifferent, self-important, etc. as you said. But there are times he is just being a grade A *******.
The "leaden quality" is actually an apt description. Good work . I like Glory, Glory. But I also like Roger's weak vocals or strained "coke voice" of the 70s, or whatever it was. I also feel that Melcher wasn't given much to work with and his additions did nothing but uplift the songs. Sure they weren't "Byrds-y" but there is no way the originals were all that exciting. His production buoys the songs or uplifts the songs and adds a spiritual element. It is a bit "leaden" or tinny or flat or cold production wise, however, in comparison to Farther Along or BOER which I find incredibly warm records. I try to support Skip more than the average Byrd fan, and I do like some of his solo work. But he was producing some mature, interesting and fun material in the Byrds and on his original solo outings. It seemed to have petered out into parody or something eventually (I am not familiar with much after Oh What a Mighty Time by NRPS, but even then the entire NRPS became a bit of a self parody). Especially when he just kind of hung on to the dying remains of the Burritos, New Riders and Byrds reunions. I actually think there was some interesting talent and an amalgamation of styles that was quite neat for awhile, especially in the Byrds. No matter what Roger says, without Skip at the time the Byrds would have almost been a covers band. In fact, without the 3 "other" Byrds, the Byrds would have been dead in the water by 1969.
In watching the Gram Parsons documentary last week, Michael/Gram/Chris Ethridge were a bad combo (all three got so messed up on a plane ride at one point they required wheelchairs upon landing). Gram/Michael in particular. So it wouldn't surprise me. Can you imagine being Chris Hillman and handling/babysitting Gram Parsons AND Michael Clarke of the late 60s/early 70s?
Great band, Country Gazette. I also have Hello Operator. Nice compilation. Roland White is on it but not the others you mention. Curiously a Lawrence White is credited as a guest on "bluegrass brushes" but I'm not sure he's family though. I've never managed to find any of the original Flying Fish records it's compiled from. They've become a bit of a holy grail for me. Apart from that, I have: Traitor In Our Midst Don't Give Up Your Day Job Live The Sunny Side Of The Mountain What A Way To Make A Living & Keep On Pushing The last one is credited to Alan Munde & Country Gazette and features Chris Vandertuin on guitar & lead vocals, Dawn Watson on mandolin & vocals and Steve Garner on bass & vocals. These are all performers I only know through this album but they do a sterling job. It's well worth a listen. There's a still real freshness on all these recordings. Since I first discovered them a few years ago, they've become real favourites. A band that you may well already know but I heartily recommend on the off-chance you don't, is The Laurel Canyon Ramblers, who feature Herb Pederson and Bill Bryson from The Desert Rose Band. They have a more traditional bluegrass sound than DRB, and feature a nice mixture of band originals, covers and standards. I've got two out of their three albums and they're excellent.
Thanks. You are right about the freshness in the recordings. At least to my exposure. I believe Herb and Bryson were on a fair amount of Gazette records as well, correct? Thanks for the thorough response and recommendations .
John Einarson clears up some of the questions on this photo in his book, "Hot Burritos". It seems Robert Hilburn, of the L.A. Times, reacted to Dylan's Nashville Skyline album by inviting several members of the L.A. country-rock bands to the Hamburger Hamlet on Hollywood Blvd., for comment on this musical trend.... In what Bernie Leadon described as a "interview free-for-all", they went into a private room, where a 'photographer" snapped a picture. There's a funny story in here, where Michael Clarke yells out to Hilburn, "Hey, Hilburn, why don't you ask Poco about the heroin habit in their band. You wouldn't believe it!" Rusty Young became indignant and embarrassed, as he confronts Michael..You have got to read it for yourself, hilarious!! Anyway, the book paints the timing as May-July, '69..., and implies Bernie Leadon was there, too....
Yes. It's a better, fuller expression of his music. I'd like to see John York in concert some day. Before the pandemic, he'd perform every so often in or near Pasadena, CA, where he seems to live. And Gene Parsons, who lives in Caspar, CA, was performing locally in his area (Fort Bragg) before the pandemic. Post-pandemic, if the timing were right, you could put together an itinerary of California concerts by former Byrds -- catch John and Gene, and Chris Hillman when he's playing in California, and if the stars really align, maybe Roger McGuinn and David Crosby would be doing shows in California too. It wouldn't be a Byrds reunion; more like a progressive dinner. It'd require some driving. Seeing them all in sequence could be pretty interesting.
Also - to beat a dead horse - I believe it was his reviews of The Band and Phil Ochs especially that drew ire from me. Although I think he changed his tone on Phil Ochs after his passing. If ever there was someone who was not masquerading as counter-culture, it was Phil Ochs.
That sounds awesome. Do you know if York and Parsons ever played together? I recall Gene saying that John lived close to him and they were dear friends to this day. Edit: According to Google that is an 8 hour drive. Is that accurate?
