Latest news
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03/13/2008 03:33 PM
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Study shows music affects moods, students agree
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The Mozart effect is one that has been around for a long time. Studies suggest that when a child under age 3 is subject to the music of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, their brain development is increased.Whether or not the stories and studies prove anything, the question remains: Does music have an effect on people?Psychology professor [...]
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03/13/2008 03:33 PM
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Keeping Music Real
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Music is a powerful thing. It evokes feelings and has the power to bring people together. Music is also a way for people to express themselves and share ideas, whether through poetic lyrics or throbbing anthems. But today, artists are not known for their music, but for how extravagant their outfits are and how many [...]
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03/13/2008 03:33 PM
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Rising rap star doesn't need RIAA
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You won’t hear up-and-coming rap star Flo Rida griping about fans pilfering his songs on P2P sites, or complain that technology is hurting the music industry. Don’t talk to him about so-called digital divides either.
As one of rap music’s fastest rising stars, Rida, 28, is new enough to music success that fans are still precious [...]
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03/13/2008 11:34 AM
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A lesson in sharing: the music of today plays the give-and-take game
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Now, more than ever, North American bands and music fans are becoming more open to music originating somewhere outside the continent. Sri Lankan-born M.I.A.’s unique sound rules the club scene, while the Afro-pop inspired Vampire Weekend have seen their debut album enter the Billboard Top 20. New York City’s Yeasayer have also recently garnered acclaim [...]
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03/13/2008 11:34 AM
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Two short notes on pop music
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“Romany Soup” is absolutely classic: haunting, hypnotic, melodic. Please do get started on Bolan. Please do. (And don’t you dare leave out “One Inch Rock”.)
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The Byrds |
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The Byrds Biography |
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As Roger McGuinn once said of the Byrds, "It was Dylan meets the Beatles." The Byrds combined the upbeat, melodic pop of the Beatles with the message-oriented lyrics of Bob Dylan into a wholly original amalgam that would be branded folk-rock. If only for their harmony-rich versions of Dylan's "Mr. Tambourine Man" and Pete Seeger's "Turn! Turn! Turn!," drenched in the 12-string jangle of McGuinn's Rickenbacker guitar, the Byrds would have earned their place in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Yet the group continually broke ground during the Sixties, creating revelatory syntheses of sound that were given such hyphenated names as space-rock ("5D [Fifth Dimension]"), psychedelic-rock ("Eight Miles High") and country-rock (their Sweethearts of the Rodeo album). At a time when rock and roll was exploding in all fronts, the Byrds led the way with an insatiable curiosity about the forms and directions pop music could take. In so doing, they became peers and equals of their mentors, Dylan and the Beatles.
McGuinn had been a folk-music accompanist for such acts as the Limelighters, the Chad Mitchell Trio and Judy Collins, among others. Singer/guitarists David Crosby and Gene Clark were West Coast folkies, while bassist Chris Hillman and drummer Michael Clarke arrived with bluegrass and rock backgrounds, respectively. Formed in Los Angeles in 1964 (and briefly known as the Jet Set and the Beefeaters), the Byrds built their sound upon the three-part harmonies of McGuinn, Clark and Crosby. Vocal harmonies were a feature of the L.A. pop scene, which also boasted the Beach Boys, Jan and Dean, the Mamas and the Papas, and the Turtles. The Byrds were unique among them in their chameleonic capacity for reinvention with each new single and album. There was a dizzying creativity in evidence, particularly during the peak years of 1965-1967, when the Byrds broke the Top Forty seven times while extending rock into new underground areas.
The group's finest moment was "Eight Miles High," a song about the group's flight to England for a tour -- though it also tapped into the mysterious ether into which the larger counterculture had been piloting itself, politically and philosophically no less than pharmocologically. McGuinn's 12-string solo bore elements of both John Coltrane's modal jazz innovations and the drone of an Indian raga. This sense of tantalizing mystery and playful subterfuge informed the Byrds' best work, from their groundbreaking recasting of Dylan's "Mr. Tambourine Man" to their classic sendup of the celebrity life, "So You Want to Be a Rock 憂' Roll Star." Dylan remained a touchstone; recording more than a dozen of his songs at various stages of their career, the Byrds stand as his ablest interpreters.
By the time the Byrds recorded the landmark Sweetheart of the Rodeo album in 1968, original members Clark and Crosby had dropped out and country-rock pioneer Gram Parsons had come aboard for a brief but influential stay. McGuinn was the only original member of the four-man lineup that lasted from 1969-72, which included guitarist Clarence White, bassist Skip Battin and drummer Gene Parsons. This version of the Byrds recorded several albums, including the double album Untitled, and evolved into a tightly knit performing group, outstripping the original lineup on that count. (Sadly, guitarist White was killed when he stepped in front of a truck in 1973.) The five original Byrds convened for an ill-fated reunion album in 1973, but by this time the group members were all doing well on their own: McGuinn and Clark as solo artists; Crosby as part of the harmony-based supergroup Crosby, Stills and Nash; Hillman, as a solo artist and member of Souther, Hillman and Furay; and Clarke as drummer for Firefall.
Hillman subsequently found success in the country-music field with the Desert Rose Band, while Crosby successfully fought substance abuse and related health problems in the late Eighties. Gene Clark and Michael Clarke succumbed to health problems in 1991 and 1993, respectively. McGuinn, Hillman and Crosby reunited to perform as the Byrds in 1989, in order to legally reclaim the name, and recorded four songs for The Byrds box set, released in 1990.
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