Then pick a few more cuts-"Deportee," "Old Blue," "Child of the Universe"-from Easy Rider and Dr. Let Notorious and Sweetheart stand on their own (though one song apiece is acceptable anyway), leave the anachronistic "He Was a Friend of Mine" in the dustbin of history, and tell Skip Battin to make his own album.
Thing is, a good statement could have been constructed. If their first greatest hits was (in Paul Williams's deathless phrase) "an essay into rediscovery," this one's a product into recouping. The Best of the Byrds: Greatest Hits Volume II
In sum, better than Farther Along, but if you can only tell arithmetically how much difference can it make? B.
#Songs by the byrds plus#
Two good white gospel (a fundamentalist and a modernist) plus one good Roger McGuinn song (out of four, and he needed a collaborator) plus one good Skip Battin song (he needed a collaborator too-Kim Fowley). On that downhill road-to Kim Fowley, to songs about Antique Sandy and Precious Kate, to the day when the agent man collects what you owe him. I was, lots of times, and I guess I will be again, but mostly to demonstrate my devotion. The new songs are unworthy except for the anomalous McGuinn showcase "Chestnut Mare," the harmonies are faint or totally absent, and the live performance that comprises half this two-record set. I love them-or do I mean him?-too, but it finally seems to be ending. All the rock dynamics are fading, and what replaces them is thoughtful but not compelling. It improves with listening, especially at high volume, but Roger McGuinn does seem to be returning to his roots, which unfortunately lie deep in commercial folk music. I'm sorry to report that this is the poorest Byrds album. Never before did concept-master Roger (né Jim) McGuinn efface himself so disastrously on a Byrds album-and never after, either. David Crosby's "Mind Garden" is a completely unlistenable acid meander, while four (three too many) innocuous folk-rock cum countryrock tunes by Chris Hillman are a familiar-sounding example of how an uninteresting self does its number. But this April '67 failure suffers from two related '67 maladies: pretentiousness and self-expression. The Byrds' Greatest Hits, a profit-taking retrospective from later in the year, sounds like a triumph of produced and programmed rock and roll, while The Notorious Byrd Brothers and Sweetheart of the Rodeo, which followed it in '68, are two of the most convincing arguments for artistic freedom ever to come out of American rock. The Best of the Byrds: Greatest Hits Volume II B.So to celebrate this latest Gene Clark renaissance (a new documentary, The Byrd Who Flew Alone, is also making the festival rounds), we've chosen his 21 finest songs, taken from all eras of his career. Years before the No Other tour, Clark's songs were covered by Tom Petty, the Eagles, Yo La Tengo and Robert Plant, to name a few. But his body of work has long found favor among those music fans and musicians who count themselves as seekers. Born in the small town of Tipton, Missouri, in 1944, Clark was a founding member of folk-rock pioneers the Byrds, penning original material for the group before embarking on a solo career that encompassed heavily orchestrated, sadly underappreciated treasures like No Other and sparser, also underappreciated affairs like 1971's folk-focused White Light.Įxclusive Listen: Lost Gene Clark Album Classic "Kansas City Southern"įor all Clark's songwriting gifts – his music managed the feat of feeling both metaphysical and homespun – the singer-guitarist never found much in the way of solo success, and he struggled with drug and alcohol abuse, dying in 1991 at 46 years old. Forty years after the album was released it remains an awe-inspiringly majestic and moving listen.īeach House and Friends Plan Gene Clark Tribute Tourīut it also represents only a small sampling of Clark's immense skills.
#Songs by the byrds series#
Beginning January 22nd in Philadelphia, members of Grizzly Bear, Fleet Foxes, Beach House, the Walkmen and Wye Oak are joining forces to play a series of concerts during which they'll cover Gene Clark's 1974 cult classic solo album No Other in its entirety.
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