“The main deal”: The artist David Crosby called the essence of The Byrds
It’s a sign of how titanic Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young were as a band, and people tend to focus on their work after the group rather than before it. All four of them were huge names in music before coming together as one of the world’s first supergroups, yet despite being formed out of members of Buffalo Springfield and The Hollies, it takes a band like The Byrds to be anything other than a footnote in the story of CSNY.
Legitimately, the influence The Byrds had on the music of the 1960s is up there with The Beatles and The Ronettes. They were among the first bands to take the lush, close harmony filled sound of folk music and combine it with the loud guitars of rock ‘n’ roll. They pioneered the sound of country rock and the likes of the aforementioned Beatles were listening closely when making albums like Rubber Soul and Revolver.
However, while rhythm guitarist and backing vocalist David Crosby went on to be the Byrd represented in CSNY, they were absolutely not his band though. Instead, he was more of a lieutenant to the actual brains, not to mention voice behind the band Roger McGuinn, their frontman and sole consistent member from their formation in 1964 through their numerous reunions.
While Crosby went on to be the highest profile member of the band, they were McGuinn’s baby. His signature Rickenbacker 12 string guitar defined their sound as much as their stirring harmonies ever did. What’s more, we know this for sure, as even the ever opinionated, ever cantankerous Crosby has nothing but good things to say about the man.
What did David Crosby think of Roger McGuinn in The Byrds?
In an interview with Analog Planet, Crosby talked at length about The Byrds’s breakout hit, their electrified, electrifying version of Bob Dylan’s ‘Mr Tambourine Man’. To this day, the song still sends shivers down the spine, one of the genuine high points of an incredibly exciting time in music history. To me, the fact that it’s a cover doesn’t diminish that one bit.
After all, though the song is Bob Dylan’s, The Byrds’ version couldn’t be more different from the stark folk tune it’s based on. There still needed to be a genuine artistic vision guiding them to make such a dramatic departure from the original, to the point where it sounds like a whole new song. Crosby has only one answer for who made this all happen.
He says “That’s Roger. Roger primarily. Obviously I did the harmony and my harmonies don’t sound like other people because I’m weird. Roger has a true gift for taking a song and rearranging it into his style. That was The Byrds’ style. He is, I mean always was the essence of The Byrds. The rest of us contributed and I’m not belittling anyone’s contributions but Roger was the main deal.”
David Crosby is not a man to mince words. He calls a spade a spade and as you can tell from any interview he’s given about… well, basically anyone he’s worked with, if he’s got a any problem with someone, that will be what he speaks about first. The fact he was given an oppurtunity to speak about Roger McGuinn and gave him his flowers says everything you need to know about his respect for the man.
