But the band really recorded the song with the Wrecking Crew, the legendary group of LA session musicians who played on practically every third #1 hit in that era. Of course, McGuinn is really the one who matters, and his sparkling, chiming 12-string intro is the part of the song that everyone remembers.
The byrds best songs how to#
Dickson wasn’t convinced that they really knew how to play yet, so only McGuinn got to play on the single. (Legend has it that his reaction was this: “Wow, you can dance to that!”) And so the Byrds went into the studio, and with their first single, they hit #1 and changed the course of rock history.īut it wasn’t exactly them in the studio. Dylan heard an early version of the band’s cover, and he loved it. They overhauled the song, changing the tempo and the time signature and throwing out most of Dylan’s lyrics. Tambourine Man.” Dickson had to badger them into recording it. They’d started playing old folk songs in Beatlesque ways, an innovation that made them a must-see on LA’s nascent young-boho scene. The band came together after he teamed up with fellow folk-scene mainstays Gene Clark and David Crosby. He’d spent time as a Brill Building songwriter in New York, working under Bobby Darin, before finding his place on the folk-revival coffeehouse circuit. Finally, the Byrds.) Roger McGuinn, then known as Jim, was the leader. Dickson was the manager of a new Los Angeles band that hadn’t quite settled on a name yet. Later on, he recorded a different version for his next album, 1965’s Bringing It All Back Home, and that’s the version we know now.īut when Dylan recorded that original version, Jim Dickson got ahold of an acetate version of it. (For his part, Dylan has said that it’s not about drugs and that Fellini’s La Strada influenced it.) Dylan recorded a version of the song for his 1964 album Another Side Of Bob Dylan, but he didn’t like how it turned out, so he kept it off the album. It’s a typically obtuse Dylan composition, and it’s never been entirely clear what the song means. A visit to New Orleans during Mardi Gras might’ve been what incited the song. Tambourine Man” in 1964, after going on a road trip with a few friends. Later Byrds albums feel more like McGuinn’s solo career, although there’s still enjoyable material like ‘Lover of the Bayou’ and ‘Chestnut Mare’.Dylan wrote “Mr. I’ve focused on the band’s first six albums on this list – Chris Hillman left the band after 1968’s Sweetheart of the Rodeo, leaving McGuinn as the only original member. There’s plenty of great material on their early records though, as this list attests. As rock music transformed in the 1960s, so did The Byrds – they released ‘Eight Miles High’ in early 1966, a candidate for the first psychedelic rock song, then recorded a country-rock album, Sweetheart of the Rodeo, in 1968.įor all the talent that passed through the band – country visionary Gram Parsons appeared on Sweetheart of the Rodeo, while bassist Chris Hillman emerged as a songwriter on 1967’s Younger Than Yesterday – The Byrds never fulfilled their potential as album artists to the same extent as contemporaries like The Beatles or The Beach Boys. Their clear vocal harmonies and McGuinn’s electric twelve string guitar playing were distinctive. Tambourine Man’, which established the genre of folk-rock. Their first single as The Byrds was their chart-topping cover of Dylan’s ‘Mr. folk scene, featuring three singer-guitarists James Roger McGuinn, Gene Clark, and David Crosby. The Byrds were one of the most significant American bands of the 1960s.
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