byrdsongs, xxvii

Chris Hillman left the Byrds after the release of Sweetheart of the Rodeo in the summer of 1968.  Although dissatisfaction with the band’s management was the immediate impetus for his departure, I’ve gotten the sense in looking at his career and reading as much as I can that country and bluegrass were always his first loves, and this is how I frame his decision to join forces with Gram Parsons in forming the Flying Burrito Brothers.  Parsons was much more of a country purist than McGuinn, and I think Hillman was restless and looking for a way to follow his bliss.  Meanwhile, McGuinn chose to soldier on under the banner of the Byrds, the sole remaining member of the original cast.  Hillman and Parsons asked Clarence White to join them in the Burritos, but White opted to become a full-time member of the Byrds. He’d been playing Byrds sessions going back to Younger than Yesterday and said in an interview that he’d always wanted to be in the band…

The interplay between White and McGuinn is, for me, what puts the post-Hillman Byrds several steps above the other country rock acts of the era.  Here you have two of the greatest guitarists ever in the same band.  White seems to have recognized that the Byrds were McGuinn’s band.  His playing never draws too much attention to itself, though there are certainly moments when he unleashes incredible, c&w-infused solos.  He was also, in the southern tradition, a humble gentleman on stage, remaining calm and restrained, content to be an accompanist for the most part but doing so much more when the music called for it.  Something about the frame of mind of bluegrass pickers who became rock guitarists – I’m thinking here not only of White but also of White’s good friend and admirer, Captain Trips – leads them to comport themselves with gentle humility on stage. They don’t have to blow your mind with all kinds of extra-musical antics, instead letting their playing speak for itself.  I like that.  There’s room for theatricality in rock 'n roll, no doubt, but there’s also something cool about simply allowing the music be the central focus.  This is not to say that Clarence White was devoid of panache.  The white Nudie suits he’d eventually wear on stage were very stylish and gave the Byrds a cosmic cowboy aura…

Tonight’s performance is from an episode of the great teevee program, Playboy After Dark, taped in late 1968.  Bob Dylan’s songbook is a source of continuity amidst a completely transformed band that features, along with White and McGuinn, John York on bass and either (I can’t tell) Gene Parsons (no relation to Gram) or Kevin Kelley on drums. You Ain’t Goin Nowhere had already been covered on Sweetheart of the Rodeo, and a version of This Wheel’s on Fire would eventually be the stunning album opener on Dr Byrds and Mr Hyde.  The Band’s cover of the latter song would become more well-known because Music From Big Pink was one of the great cultural events of the late 60s. But the Byrds’ version, with its incredible wall of guitar noise, is by far the better of the two.  The original versions of both songs performed in this clip eventually showed up on what became known as Dylan’s Basement Tapes, but back in 1968 you had to work pretty hard to hear them.  Scratchy bootleg tapes made the rounds among Dylan acolytes, and tonight’s clip will make you glad they did…