Credit: Far Out / Fotoburo De Boer / Noord-Hollands Archief
Roger McGuinn was one of the driving forces behind The Byrds. Each band member was important, but it was McGuinn who helped them develop their folk rock style, which propelled them to stardom.
Their cover of Bob Dylan’s ‘Mr Tambourine Man’ was a real turning point for the band. They’re often celebrated as one of the bands that helped to knock The Beatles off the top of the charts and usher in the new sound of folk rock. It was Bob Dylan hearing them perform their version of his song in such a different way that made him want to chuck his acoustic guitar out the window and pick up something electric.
The bassist for the band, Chris Hillman, has previously said that the song would likely have never been released were it not for McGuinn. The rest of The Byrds weren’t blown away by the original version, and it wasn’t until McGuinn played around with the structure of the track and the time signature that they realised just how much potential the song truly had.
“Kudos to Roger McGuinn for taking on ‘Tambourine Man’, which didn’t knock us out when we first heard it,” he said. “Bob Dylan had written it in a very countrified groove, a straight 2/4 time signature, and Roger takes the song home and works with it, puts it in 4/4 time, so you could dance to it. Bob heard us do it and said, ‘Man, you could dance to this!’ It really knocked him over and he loved it.”
The band enjoyed some success, but eventually went their separate ways. It was for the best, as each member then moved on to a brand new project, which helped take their careers to new heights and show those listening just how much they could achieve as musicians. David Crosby, for instance, went on to form Crosby, Stills & Nash, a musical project which he acknowledged was every member’s more adventurous effort.
“We had already had some success. You know, The Hollies had had more hits than we’ve ever had, already, for [Graham] Nash […] Buffalo Springfield, The Byrds have had a good running,” said Crosby. “So it wasn’t the launch point for us, you know, really. It was the launch point for CSN.”
Of course, while each member of the band was able to venture off and enjoy the freedom of already having success to back them up while branching off into different styles, a lot of them wound up missing the music they started off making. This is what happened to The Byrds, as after an elongated time apart, a few members wanted to get things going again. One of these people was David Crosby, who asked McGuinn if he wanted to get the band back together. McGuinn said no, but he also told Crosby he wouldn’t be offended if he tried to get things going by himself.
“I suggested it to him. He wants to do The Byrds,” said McGuinn when an interviewer asked if he would be annoyed were the band to reunite without him, “I said, ‘Okay man, take it out and do it. I don’t care’.”
McGuinn went as far as to suggest the person the band should replace him with, but unfortunately, his potential substitute passed away before any kind of reunion could actually happen. “There’s this guy Andrew Gold,” he said, “He had all my Rickenbacker and vocal parts down for The Byrds, but he passed away last year. I said, ‘Why don’t you just get Andrew Gold man, he can do all my parts, he’d be great’.”
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