Former Members of the Byrds Win Victory With Unfamiliar Audience
bo Bob Drzewiczewski, Rutland Daily Herald, June 28, 1979
Reunions are often uncomfortable nostalgic affairs that remind people of their age, economic shortcomings or expanding waistlines.
Musical regroupings are often more dismal. Time normally changes musicians’ tastes, style, and perspective. Recent attempts at reassembling groups have met with temporary success at best (Crosby, Stills and Nash in particular).
The obsession to recreate the past is a fact of American life. It happens in the entertainment, publishing and musical industry. It also happens frequently in love. Though we were reminded by F. Scott Fitzgerald that “you can’t bring back the past,” we still try.
A recent musical attempt to reconstruct the past (and hopefully to improve on it was made by Roger McGuinn, Gene Clark, and Chris Hillman, three-quarters of the 1960s country-rock group The Byrds (Dave Crosby was the fourth member). The trio reunited in Miami in late 1978 to form a “new” band, appropriately named McGuinn, Clark and Hillman.
In January, a debut album, featuring 10 new songs all written or co-written by band members, on Capitol Records named after the group followed the meeting in Miami. Promoted nationally as a reunion of the Byrds, it sold well.
As is true with most success stories, a hit single Don’t You Write Her Off followed.
This initial wave of success brought the trio to the Saratoga Performing Arts Center Tuesday evening as the lead act for the America concert. As expected, a sizeable portion of the audience was not familiar with the act.
Unable to identify with the group’s initial number, Sad Boy, the crowd slowly began to tap its feet in harmony with lead guitarist McGuinn. It is a type of music that invokes foot-tapping.
Country-rock is perhaps the loosest of all music labels. Classifying a band’s music as country rock allows it to perform anything from classic rock and roll to Beethoven.
There are no boundaries or limitations. McGuinn, Clark and Hillman are countrified without the traditional twang and weeping fiddle backgrounds normally associated with “hillbilly music.” They are refined, well-traveled musicians who play a brand of rock and roll with a subtle country flavor.
Lacking a definable stage presence, the group simply plays. McGuinn generates some of the best guitar music in the recording industry. Often compared by his peers to Eric Clapton and George Harrison, who are considered to be the world’s foremost rock guitarists, McGuinn’s command of his instrument Tuesday explained why he has earned such lofty praise from his contemporaries. McGuinn is versatile. Adjusting to the beat and tempo is second nature to him.
He is stoic on stage. His hair is long, but smartly styled. He could be a salesman at Sears.
Wearing a Levi’s Western-style shirt, the veteran musician races his fingers up and down the body and neck of his instrument without looking at the simple, worn tan guitar. There is no wasted motion, no unnecessary movement.
McGuinn does not swivel his hips or prance around the stage. The only visible movement is in his hands and fingers. Perhaps it is this intense concentration that makes his instrument whine, purr, and blend so well into the unit’s music.
Unlike McGuinn, Hillman is more physically obvious on stage. He moves nervously, wiggles and struts around the performing area. Still, his fingers pluck delicately at the strings of the bass guitar like a skilled craftsman.
Clark is clearly the most energetic performer of the group. The former lead singer of the Byrds quit the music industry in the late 1960s because of a fear of flying. He seemed initially unsure of himself on stage, but this nervousness subsided as the evening progressed.
Leading the group (and the audience) in a rendition of Backstage Pass, Clark put his guitar on his back and waved his arms in the air, instructing the crowd to join in the simple, rhythmic chorus, “A-a-a-a-a-ah, oh-o-o.” As the audience discarded its slight feeling of apprehension, it joined enthusiastically in the chorus. Clark extended the chorus beyond its normal conclusion as the now-enthusiastic fans sang and chanted with the singer and the music.
The victory was gained: an unfamiliar audience was won over.
The audience’s main criticism of the concert was voiced as soon as the trio stopped playing after only 10 songs and 37 minutes on stage: the performance was too short.
A rousing round of applause brought the group back. As McGuinn promised earlier, the group played some “old songs.”
McGuinn’s chiming guitar sounded the first chords of Bob Dylan’s Mr. Tambourine Man, the Byrds’ first hit record (1965). Immediate identification followed. Led by McGuinn’s flawless guitar work on Tambourine Man, the group moved quickly behind Hillman’s grumbling bass into Eight-Miles High, another Byrd’s hit. Improvising on Eight-Miles High, McGuinn made his guitar whine and wail during an extended solo. This display by McGuinn brought the crowd to its feet for the first time of the evening.
Musical reunions are rarely improvements of the original group, but McGuinn, Hillman, and Clark transcend the original Byrds. Its harmony is tighter, music more melodic, lyrics more relevant than the 1960s band. The “new group,” reminiscent of some of the supergroups of the early 1970s, combines a sense of the past, an understanding of the present, and a sprinkle of the future.
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