I suppose a prior example of folk rock was "The House Of The Rising Sun" by the Animals, with a more bluesy sound though; and a prior example of jangle pop was "Needles And Pins" by the Searchers. But as far as I know, the term "folk rock" was instaled after the debut of the Byrds. So they may have not been the first folk rockers, but they certainly shaped and defined the genre more than anybody.
I view The Byrds as one the greatest assimilators in rock music history. The Byrds are in my top five bands of time but they did not bring the 12 string into the mainstream maybe give George Harrison credit on that one, neither did they event country rock either. “The Beatles did a Buck Owens song, ‘Act Naturally’,” Roger points out, “and I thought, ‘Wow, if The Beatles can do country music within a rock and roll framework then The Byrds can too. They didn't invent raga rock there were at least three bands who beat them to it namely The Kinks and The Yardbirds.
I am not dismissing what The Byrds did and I think they were greatest at the things they did above. However, they were taking their cues from the Beatles and Bob Dylan. There is jangle pop and folk influences all over Beatles For Sale for example. I mean listen to (not 12 string) "Words of Love" and (12 string) "What You're Doing" for jangle pop and "I'm A Loser" for Bob Dylan influenced folk rock. Roger McGuinn: "The people who had been into it were getting kind of burned out. It just wasn't very gratifying, and it had become so commercial that it had lost its meaning for a lot of people. So the Beatles kind of re-energized it for me. I thought it was natural to put the Beatles' beat and the energy of the Beatles into folk music. And in fact, I heard folk chord changes in the Beatles' music when I listened to their early stuff like 'She Loves You' and 'I Want To Hold Your Hand.' I could hear the passing chords that we always use in folk music: the G-Em-Am-B kind of stuff. So I really think the Beatles invented folk-rock. They just didn't know it."
I guess the term is not "invent", as the origin of a genre is never so clear. The correct terms would be "shape" and "define".
I am not saying that either and I just saying it was in the air by other bands as well for example The Beau Brummels. However, I think the Byrds were the greatest folk rock and jangle pop band.
I can think of only one pre-Byrds example of folk rock (at least that any appreciable number of people would have heard): "What Have They Done to the Rain" by The Searchers, which predated "Mr. Tambourine Man" by several months. "Needles and Pins" is often incorrectly lumped in with "12-string" songs, when in fact the record features two 6-string guitars. And of course, the song itself is pure pop, with no folk roots at all. (It's an incredibly great song, but it's not folk rock.) There are many Byrds songs I rate higher than "Mr. Tambourine Man," but there's no denying its revolutionary nature. For all the other things you can say about it, you can't neglect the effect that piercing 12-string riff had on millions of kids listening to their transistor radios in 1965. Really a shot heard 'round the world.
Mr. Tambourine Man: Man, you sometimes forget how good this song actually is, especially in these guys’ hands. Fantastic riff that adds such a ray of sunshine and a sense of sweet Southern California fantasy, wonderous bassline by Larry Kretchel, fantastic vocal harmonies. I like the original well enough but this is transcendent. Just an all time classic.
It’s “Nights in White Satin” Not “Knights”. And a closer cousin to all would be “I Who Have Nothing” by Ben E. King. Love’s “Signed D.C.” is also similar. They all use the Em to D.
Mr. Tambourine Man is brilliant and a historical pivot, for better or worse, when rock 'n roll evolved into rock. All historical importance aside, it's a beautiful pop record, full of hooks, melodic and fresh sounding (to me, anyway) more than half a century later. The intro riff on the 12-string followed by the bass guitar are some of the most thrilling few seconds in poprock ever, still. I can remember the first copy of the MTM album I ever bought (in 1973 at age 13, a used West German stereo copy a vet sold me at a garage sale) -- it made that much of an impression on me...and my current copies of the LP still get regular play. Pretty good I'd say, for a group of middling, barely able to feed themselves folk drifters turning to rock in 1965.
It's a wonderful song, but couldn't possibly have been a Top 40 hit. And in 1965, this was pretty much your sole entry to pop stardom.
The problem with this thesis is that it is extremely unlikely that The Byrds would have heard the first two songs you cite prior to recording "Mr. Tambourine Man" in January of 1965. They were not released in America until the Beatles VI album, which came out in June of 1965. You have to remember that it was rare for imported British albums to make their way to the States in this era. No question that George Harrison was the direct reason McGuinn bought a Rickenbacker 12-string. But the Beatles songs using that instrument that he would have heard by the time The Byrds' official recording career began would have been limited to: Can't Buy Me Love (simple rhythm strums on the chorus only) You Can't Do That I Call Your Name A Hard Day's Night I Should Have Known Better (very simple single-note solo only) If I Fell Anytime at All Despite the presence of the 12-string, I'm not sure that many of these could fairly be cited as examples of "jangle pop." What hasn't been pointed out, too, is that McGuinn took a different approach to playing the Rickenbacker 12-string that did Harrison. On most songs, McGuinn used a combination of a thumb pick and finger picks so that the individual notes he played came out in an arpeggioed fashion. (Listen in particular to the solos in "Chimes of Freedom" and "The Bells of Rhymney.") This, in addition to the 12-string, accounts for much of the "jangle" in Byrds songs. It's true that the other Beatles song you cite, "I'm a Loser" (the one they would have heard) betrays Dylan folk influences. But at the same time it also reflects country influences through Harrison's Chet Atkins-inspired solos. And back to the previous point, it was released on Beatles '65, which ironically has no 12-string present at all on any of its songs!
It should be noted that McGuinn was playing a 12-string before the Byrds, just not an electric. I used to have (or maybe still have back in storage somewhere) a folk comp LP from 1963 that IIRC has all 12-string instros by folk artists including "Jim" McGuinn.
It should me mentioned that this was released in November of 1963, arguably inventing what would later become known as the "Jingle Jangle" sound a year and a half later:
What about "The House Of The Rising Sun"? I think the melody of "Signed D.C." is similar to that old folk song.
And US response to the "british invasion"... Of all 4 first albums, YTY is my favorite too. But they're all great anyway.
It seems that "Mr. Tambourine Man" had a spiritual meaning to McGuinn, according to his own words: "I was singing to God and I was saying that God was the Tambourine Man and I was saying to him, 'Hey, God, take me for a trip and I'll follow you.' It was a prayer of submission."
Not to doubt Jim/Roger, but this sounds a lot to me like something he said in retrospect, rather than something he felt at the time he recorded "Mr. Tambourine Man." He joined the Subud religion in 1965 — though I'm not able to pin down an exact date, this likely happened after the recording of the Columbia version of "Mr. Tambourine Man," which took place in January. (And of course McGuinn had recorded a Preflyte version prior to this.) His conversion to born-again Christianity didn't take place until the mid-1980s. I'd like to know when McGuinn uttered the statement above.
The quote is from 1997, so you're probably right. However, I understand he had always got spiritual inquietudes, so probably he was talking to the form of God he believed at that time. In some way, actually, he may believe that such prayer ("take me for a trip and I'll follow you") led him to Christianity several years later.
I'll Feel A Whole Lot Better. A pretty well known song, written and sung by Gene Clark, the Byrd that couldn't fly (on airplane), so a year later was fired from the band. But at this point Clark was by far the best songwriter of the group, as it can be seen in this Beatlesque tune. Once again the song starts with a jangly 12-string guitar intro, a fingerprint that is repeated on the whole album. The backing vocals are superb (God bless David Crosby), the instrumental middle is very good and the tambourine really justifies its presence. The anti-love theme of the song was also quite rare at the time (but see also the first singles by the Zombies), and this seemed to be an influence on later Bealtes' songs like "You Won't See Me" and "I'm Looking Through You".
