ROGER McGUINN
So you want to be a rock ‘n’ roll star? Roger McGuinn is happy to tell you how he got it done.
A founding member of The Byrds — the iconic 1960s bands that was briefly seen as an American answer to The Beatles — McGuinn is in the midst of his latest tour in which he relies on an entertaining mix of intriguing stories and classic songs to reminisce about his early days, famous friends and the improbable twists and turns in his storied career.
No longer a mere troubadour, McGuinn has dispensed with the tried-and-true concert format and, instead, crafts his performances as theater. In years past, he would typically appear in his trademark black fedora, sit in front of an audience, and tell a few anecdotes between songs. Now, he emphasizes colorful tales about his musical past that he believes are more satisfying for both himself and his fans.
“It’s actually a play: It’s scripted and rehearsed,” he told me shortly after his Sept. 14 performance at The South Orange Performing Arts Center. “But we change it up. Camilla (his wife) and I talk about what to leave in and leave out, and include whatever strikes our fancy. We keep something for a few months and then change it. It’s intentionally theatrical. And we only play in theaters.”
The recent shift comes as the baby boomer generation watches its cultural idols pass away. Sure, some still tour and release new music — The Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, Neil Young, Graham Nash, Judy Collins, Paul McCartney, Smokey Robinson, and former members of The Grateful Dead and Jefferson Airplane, to name a few.
But the road won’t go on forever — which means that McGuinn, at 82, is in rarified company. And so he is enjoying the chance to sift through the past with adoring audiences who have long enjoyed his work. Not surprisingly, it is no accident that he opens nearly every show with “My Back Pages,” a Bob Dylan song about the passage of time and changing one’s outlook that The Byrds released in 1967.
GUY WEBSTER
The Byrds in a 1965 publicity shot (from left, David Crosby, Michael Clarke, Gene Clark, Chris Hillman and Roger McGuinn).
The show is “something of a master class on how to be a pop star,” he said. “But it’s not just about The Byrds. I talk about a lot of the stuff that led up to The Byrds — coming from Chicago, learning guitar, my work as a studio musician, my songwriting in The Brill Building and all the different experiences I had before The Byrds — as opposed to just being an overnight success, which I wasn’t.”
Nonetheless, McGuinn was successful at a relatively early age. After recounting his teenage years learning guitar and attending The Old Town School of Folk Music in Chicago, he told the SOPAC crowd how he landed a brief gig with The Limeliters in 1960 before getting hired by The Chad Mitchell Trio. Both were popular, albeit conventional, folk acts.
Although these experiences have been well chronicled in interviews, McGuinn made it feel fresh, with attention to detail and a folksy ability to tell a story — such as when he talked about receiving a job offer and a plane ticket from Chicago to Los Angeles to work with The Limeliters. The job included playing at The Hollywood Bowl. “I was only 17,” he told the SOPAC audience, shaking his head. “I couldn’t believe it.”
How did that happen? One winter night, he explained, he walked into a club called The Gate of Horn and ended up jamming with a few musicians until 5 a.m. Alex Hassilev, a member of the Limeliters, asked him to audition the next day for a backing slot in the group and subsequently offered him a job, but he had to decline since he wasn’t going to graduate high school for a few more months.
“In June, I got a long-distance call from California and it was Alex, who asked if I still wanted the backing job, which I did,” he said. “But he had to send a letter for my parents to sign because I was under 18. So they sent a letter, my parents signed it and returned it. And I was sent a plane ticket. It cost $97.13, but it was one-way.” He still has the ticket, along with the baggage claim ticket for his guitar and banjo.
From there, McGuinn described his stints doing session work for others, but rightly focused on working for Bobby Darin, the 1960s crooner, as a guitarist and songwriter; that move introduced him to another aspect of the music business. He then recalled his chance encounters with David Crosby and Gene Clark, who became his initial partners in The Byrds.
Roger McGuinn, center, with former Byrds bandmate Chris Hillman, right, and Marty Stuart in 2018.
As he narrated his past, he dropped in a song here and there. At the outset, he played material made famous by Bob Gibson (a key figure in the folk music revival of the ’50s and ’60s) and Leadbelly. Of course, he played several hits by The Byrds, including “Turn! Turn! Turn (To Everything There Is a Season)” and “Mr. Spaceman.” There was also a song he and Clark co-wrote that became a hit for The Turtles called “You Showed Me.”
His memories — about subjects such as the outsized influence The Beatles had on The Byrds’ mindset, from their stage uniforms to their choice of instruments — were precise and illuminating. ” ‘Let’s see, Ringo uses Gretsch drums, so we should use those,’ ” McGuinn remembered. “ ‘George Harrison has a Rickenbacker, so we need that. Paul McCartney plays a Hofner bass …’ ”
And of course, there was Dylan. For probably the umpteenth time, McGuinn recalled how Jim Dickson, who was the first producer for The Byrds, knew Dylan and landed a copy of “Mr. Tambourine Man.” He remembered how Crosby didn’t like the folkie 2/4 time, so McGuinn spiced it up with an intro using 4/4 time and created the famous opening heard in their version, which was a hit.
McGuinn also touched on his time with Dylan’s mid-’70s Rolling Thunder Revue, which he called a “circus,” given its ever-changing cast of musicians and haphazard organization. Nonetheless, it was a fruitful time for McGuinn, who then recorded one of his best solo albums, Cardiff Rose, which was produced by Mick Ronson, another Revue veteran who had played guitar for David Bowie.
What else does McGuinn typically mention? Well, there was a 1963 oddity called “Beach Ball,” a song he wrote that was recorded by The City Surfers, a short-lived New York group of which he was a member. A young trio called The Bee Gees sang backing vocals. And there was his friendship with Tom Petty, whose guitar sound helped introduce a younger audience to The Byrds.
Oddly, McGuinn didn’t mention a seminal Byrds album — Sweetheart of the Rodeo — at SOPAC. By the time it was released in 1968, the band was down to just two original members, McGuinn and Chris Hillman, who had come into his own as a songwriter. But it also featured hired hand Gram Parsons, who nudged them further toward country rock.
Although The Byrds always had a country flavor — Hillman had played in bluegrass groups in the past and the band recorded a few country-style songs — the Sweetheart album is often credited with launching the country rock genre. While not a commercial success, its influence grew exponentially over time, helping to cement Parsons, who died in 1973, as a musical legend.
The cover of Roger McGuinn’s 2001 album, “Treasures From the Folk Den.”
“That’s going to be in the next show,” McGuinn said when I asked about the album. “We’ll put the Sweetheart stuff in. It’s just a matter of picking and choosing. I can’t do everything I ever did and I’m happy with everything we’re doing now. And sometimes I forget something. I was going to do ‘Eight Miles High’ (another legendary Byrds song) at the show you saw, but it slipped my mind.”
For all the time spent on The Byrds, McGuinn made a point of telling the audience about his true passion: his Folk Den project, which he created in 1995 to preserve folk music. Each month, he records a song and posts the lyrics and chords on a free-access website that is hosted by the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. “It’s something I feel strongly about because it could be lost,” he said.
Beyond this, McGuinn is re-recording some songs he wrote with Jacques Levy in 1969 for a country rock musical that was never staged. But doing new material isn’t planned. “There’s not a big market for me doing pop music and lots of people don’t care about folk music anymore,” he said. “And I don’t feel a need to be a rock ‘n’ roll star anymore. I’m happy being what I am.”
To stay in that groove, McGuinn says he tries to practice guitar at least a few times a week, and it’s paying off. His dexterity on the frets appeared fine at SOPAC. He is cautious about his voice, though, so he now plays just two shows every week. “It will crack if I play every night,” he said. “I don’t feel old, though. Age is just a mental thing. Look at Mick Jagger running around the stage.
“I’ll be doing this as long as I can. Why wouldn’t you want to do something you love? If something comes up and I can’t do it anymore, I’ll know it. But Pete Seeger was 94 and still performing as best he could. We have a conversion van and Camilla and I drive from town to town. We navigate the road together. It’s like a honeymoon trip. And I’m still having a lot of fun.”
For more on McGuinn, visit ibiblio.org/jimmy/mcguinn.
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