What stood out for me with the Byrds over there career is they spanned quite a few genres of music and they all did them justice. They had the Folk Rock Music with many Bob Dylan tunes and also Pete Seeger's Turn! Turn! Turn!. They then dabbled into the progressive scene with Notorious Byrd Brothers and had songs like Goin' Back and Change Is Now. They then shifted to more of the Country/Bluegrass Rock sound with basically just McGuinn and Hillman as the original members. Through all this change they continues to have the harmonies and the Rickenbacker Guitar sound.
for me the harmonies, Crosby`s 12 string magical. there are a few songs which shows how this band influenced other musicians they also didn't forget there own influences Dylan being one of them!
Saw a version of this band over 20 years ago and have seen Roger play, great band, have all their albums as one should expect, would love to see them again but that will not happen.
The thing I have noticed about The Byrds is how they could change who was in the band and even the style of music over the years and still sound great. That is what amazes me about them. Of course the harmonies are fantastic and the guitar play is as well, but with all the different styles of music they made it happen every time.
I have been listening to The Byrds a lot recently, particularly two compilations: 20 Essential Tracks From The Boxed Set: 1965-1990 (1990) and The very Best of The Byrds (1997). The latter is probably the better of the two in that the sound is more punchy and it avoid some of the straight country songs, but their best track Lady Friend is a serious omission.
These are my two favourites and both are from the excellent Younger Than Yesterday (1967). My Back Pages is a real earworm:
One of the Byrd's best Dylan covers is their version of All I Really Want to Do, from the first album, Mr. Tambourine Man. Chimes of Freedom is not bad either, with the chiming sound. On the subject of Dylan covers, it would not be right to leave out the version of It's All Over Now, Baby Blue from The Ballad of Easy Rider.
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