Peeples is writing a story about Chris’ new book, and shared a Facebook link to a pic of him and Chris. He also shared this pic, with this comment (Rog Tech Nyrd Alert) After MCH was signed by Cap, manager Ron Rainey brought Roger to visit us on the 9th floor. Roger brought a suitcase with a satellite phone. Here we are with my immediate boss, Bruce Garfield.
If anyone can tell what’s on their plate - they’re on this thread! (P.S. is that a battery operated mini-TV next to Mcguinn?) The Byrds at Barney’s Beanery. Photo by Julian
Looks like Roger may have had a “Bad Night At the Whiskey”. [/QUOTE] Is that the same outfit he wore for the MCH album cover shoot...?
He actually didn't eat anything. Distracted by something he was fiddling with, a harmonica and lighter fluid.... Michael was tapping on the table with two straws, trying to duplicate the first bars of Morello's solo from Brubeck's "Three to Get Ready". Then Crosby said, "Play it right Michael. I know you can."
Included in the thread is this entry - anybody have more on this ? I find it to be most interesting: For most of 1969, The Byrds' leader and guitarist, Roger McGuinn, had been developing a country rock stage production of Henrik Ibsen's Peer Gynt with former psychologistand Broadway impresario Jacques Levy.[15] The musical was to be titled Gene Tryp, an anagram of the title of Ibsen's play, and would loosely follow the storyline of Peer Gyntwith some modifications to transpose the action from Norway to south-west America during the mid-19th century.[5] The musical was intended as a prelude to even loftier plans of McGuinn's to produce a science-fiction film, tentatively titled Ecology 70 and starring former Byrd Gram Parsons (no relation to Gene) and ex-member of The Mamas & the Papas, Michelle Phillips, as a pair of intergalactic flower children.[11]Ultimately, Gene Tryp was abandoned and a handful of the songs that McGuinn and Levy had written for the project would instead see release on (Untitled) and its follow-up, Byrdmaniax.[4] Of the twenty-six songs that were written for the musical, "Chestnut Mare", "Lover of the Bayou", "All the Things", and "Just a Season" were included on (Untitled), while "Kathleen's Song" and "I Wanna Grow Up to Be a Politician" were held over for The Byrds' next album.[9][16][17] "Lover of the Bayou" would later be re-recorded by Roger McGuinn in 1975 and appear on his Roger McGuinn & Band album.[18] Despite not being staged at the time, Gene Tryp was eventually performed in a revised configuration by the drama students of Colgate University between November 18 and November 21, 1992, under the new title of Just a Season: A Romance of the Old West.[19][20][21]
I read Requiem for the Timeless last year and I don't recall any reference to a movie with Gram and Michelle, but it could be that detail was simply lost to me in a thousand-page fusillade of facts! I would be curious to know what exactly got performed at Colgate 30 years ago. I wonder if it was just the half-dozen songs we already know ("Chestnut," "Kathleen," "Just a Season," "All the Things," "Politician," "Bayou") strung together with dialogue. A surprising number of genuine Broadway musicals really only have 5 or 6 songs, and each one is reprised two or three times. The Sound of Music comes to mind. Phantom of the Opera has like 3 or 4 distinct songs, each of which is reprised over and over. I have no inside knowledge, but my assumption has always been that McGuinn recorded pretty much everything of substance from the project. He's never been a very prolific composer and is not usually one to leave a decent tune on the cutting room floor. I have seen that "twenty-six songs" figure quite a bit, but as far as I know neither Roger nor Camilla has ever referred to any other song as belonging to the project besides the ones we know. There are McGuinn/Levy songs on several of McGuinn's '70s albums, but they are all topical and don't seem to have anything to do with Gene Tryp, unless they had freshly re-written lyrics. With McGuinn, the simple answer often seems to be the correct one. For example, there has been occasional curiosity about the "lost" Byrds tracks supposedly recorded for Columbia between Farther Along and McGuinn's first solo album. Why have they never surfaced? A few years ago it dawned on me that, as the sole contractual Byrd on Columbia, and as a Columbia solo artist himself, McGuinn almost certainly just reused those tracks (not just the songs, but the tracks themselves) on his solo album. Or, rather, that tracks on McGuinn's album were perhaps first recorded under the name "The Byrds" or as a kind of faux-Byrds, which would have absolutely been McGuinn's right at the time. But then Crosby talked him out of using the Byrds name, and so the sessions became a McGuinn album. There are very few people alive today who know for sure at what point McGuinn stopped leading "Byrds" sessions and started leading "McGuinn" sessions for Columbia. A track without any other Byrds but McGuinn on it even made it onto one of the Byrds remastered CDs, "Lost My Drivin' Wheel."
I also like the unglamorized nature of this photo session... the photos to some degree evoke the style of the early 20th century, when no one smiled in pictures. But I think the colorful sidebar of text clashes stylistically. It's very much an 80s design trope (Home by The Bodeans, the Katrina & The Waves album, and many others that I can't immediately recall) and the bright, cheerful colors seem at cross purposes with the photo. I suppose it's possible the intent was ironic contrast, but to me it seems more like a stylistic mish-mast that doesn't work together. As I said, I prefer either of the CD reissues which make the text more subdued and subtle. The UK cover uses a photo where Gene's mouth is half open, making him look slack-jawed and stupefied. And I don't think the red bar above and below (another 80s trope) is an improvement. This is my least favorite iteration of the cover:
Huh. Very interesting. So they were going for a Rolling Stone feel? I think the design is definitely more evocative of People Magazine (as you observed earlier) than Rolling Stone. So is the text. It still blows my mind that anyone would think of "timeless" as a way to describe this album. Regardless of what one thinks of the music, "timeless" is one thing it most definitely is not. I guess it goes to show that the stylistic cliches of an era (be they fashion, music, or whatever) are less obvious when you're in the midst of them than looking back with the perspective of hindsight.
It's funny -- to me, the CD version is the least appealing of the three covers, because it's the worst photo of Gene. I actually don't mind the UK cover and don't think it makes him look "stupefied" -- to me he looks intimidating, in a "gonna be startin' somethin'" sort of way. But I guess it's the nature of these stark, unvarnished, unsmiling photos (in the early 20th century style, as you say) that the expressions are open to interpretation...
It is still a weird thing to say at the time. For instance, if it had a rootsy feel to it I could see someone refer to it as "timeless". But when something sounds current, and of its time even at the time, "timeless" is a terrible describing word to use. I am out of the loop on new music, but it would be similar to someone hearing mumble rap and describing it as that "timeless" sound. If that makes sense.
According to the review of the show in Full Circle issue 14 which contains a copy of the programme the songs performed were: Just a Season: A Romance of the Old West Act I Chestnut Mare - Peer All The Things - Peer Solveig's Song* - Solveig Act II Lover of the Bayou - Mojo Man, Madame, Hookers I Want to Grow Up to be A Politician - Peer The Robbin' of the Stage - The Plummer Gang Just A Season - Peer Home on the Hillside - Peer, Solveig Directed by Jacques Levy Lyrics by Jacques Levy Music by Roger McGuinn The band was: Roger McGuinn - Guitar & Banjo Geoffrey V.S. Ziegler - Guitar Andrew Clark - Bass Scott Lisson - Drums *Solveig's Song aka Kathleen's Song
Here's a link to an article about it... Saturation 70: the Gram Parsons UFO film that never flew McGuinn was going to be involved by writing the music along with the director, Tony Foutz apparently.
Wow, thanks, “Home On the Hillside” - I’m going to hunt for that - unless Rog re-wrote it as “Away From the Dinghy” ( or some other Sea Shanty).
Fascinating. I didn't know Roger played at these performances. But there it is. It's just as I suspected -- the six songs we know and dialogue to fill in the rest. Only "The Robbin' of the Stage" and "Home on the Hillside" are previously unknown. I wonder if the latter is "Pale Blue" or some other familiar song under a new title. Maybe "Robbin'" is a version of "Bag Full of Money" or "Jolly Roger"!
Thanks so much for that great article! It seems like half of the people and happenings were going to be in it!...........and of course Mcguinn was in the mix, musically. Didn’t realize they started shooting film on it..
Long shot possibility: Could “Home On the Hillside” be an early incarnation of what eventually became “King of the Hill”? I say this after looking at the opening lyrics of King of the Hill. Lots of references to living in a house on a hill, albeit a mansion of a house. So while the mystery song title implies a warm home in the country - King of the Hill , on the other hand, flips this pastoral image to depicts a cold mansion perched on a hill looking down on all beneath it. [Verse 1] L.A.'s asleep, you roll up your window The night air is cold, the freeway is clear In a green Gucci bag are you prized possessions The jewels of your mind to hold back the fear [Chorus] And when Monday comes 'round, there's a high, lonesome sound And she follows you down for the kill And a white, blinding light makes it all seem so right And you feel like the king of the hill [Verse 2: Tom Petty with Roger McGuinn] The driveway is long, your princess is lovely Your servants all wait for your knock on the door How many years will you crawl through this castle So satisfied, and still wanting more [Chorus] And when Monday comes 'round, there's a high, lonesome sound And she follows you down for the kill And a white, blinding light makes it all seem so right And you feel like the king of the hill Yeah [Verse 3: with Tom Petty] The guests have arrived with all the right faces But you miss the ball in that room down the hall It's sunrise again, the driveway is empty
Back From Rio was out a good year or so beforehand and a co-write with Tom Petty so I think the programme would have contained a credit for Petty if that was the case.
McGuinn has said that King of the Hill was about John Phillips. Petty had read his autobiography and came away with a negative opinion of him, and that was the genesis of the song, which the two of them wrote together. If the song had any basis in a leftover Gene Tryp song, I’m sure McGuinn would have mentioned it and Levy would have been given a cowrite.
