Fact #148395
When:
Short story:
Full article:
The Byrds - Sweetheart Of The Rodeo
By Johnny Black
Originally published in the book Albums by Thunder Bay Press (2005)
Having pioneered psychedelia in 1966 with their album 5D, The Byrds were among the first to react against it. Along with Dylan and The Band, whose John Wesley Harding and Music From Big Pink appeared in the same year, they returned to the folksy roots of American music, to simple melodies, sweet close harmony vocals and understandable lyrics.
When The Byrds assembled to begin recording in Nashville during March 1968, they were in state of disarray, having lately replaced two founder members, drummer Michael Clarke and singer-songwriter David Crosby, with Kevin Kelley and Gram Parsons. It was Parsons, with his roots in country and soul, who was most responsible for The Byrds whole-hearted plunge into music formerly associated with rednecks and truck drivers.
As well as guitarist Clarence White, who would later join The Byrds full-time, the band was augmented in Nashville by a squad of the finest session players money could buy, including John Hartford on banjo, Earl Ball on piano, Roy Huskey on bass and, most significantly, Lloyd Green and Jaydee Maness on steel guitars.
It was the prominence of the slippery quicksilver swooping and soaring of those guitars that made Sweetheart sound unlike any album previously marketed at rock fans. With hindsight, of course, it's easy to see country-rock as a logical development for a band whose bass-player, Chris Hillman, had earned his chops in bluegrass bands, and whose leader, Roger McGuinn, had served his time as a Greenwich Village folkie.
At the time, however, it didn't seem that way. Country was seen seen as a reactionary right wing music, whereas rock tended to be left wing and radical, so a switch from one to the other was not just a bold move, it was potentially career-busting.
What saved the project was the sincerity The Byrds brought to the album, playing it absolutely straight (except perhaps for McGuinn's exaggerated dopey hick vocal on The Christian Life), and picking a selection of great songs that straddled folk, soul and country, alongside a couple of fine Parsons originals and two recent Dylan songs.
A certain amount of mystery still shrouds McGuinn's decision to remove Parsons' lead vocals from several cuts, replacing them with his own. Parsons' former producer Lee Hazlewood started the problems by threatening to sue because he still had him under contract, but there's also little doubt that McGuinn was unhappy to have Parsons' voice dominating most of the album. For one thing, although Parsons' singing was always deeply emotional, it wasn't always strictly in tune. For another, The Byrds had been McGuinn's band from the start, and he wasn't about to accept relegation to the role of back-up singer.
Although critics received the album warmly, the public's confusion about the new direction meant that Sweetheart was not a big seller. Nevertheless, a year later The Beatles would be singing Get Back, and country rock would emerge as a powerful new force in the early seventies when The Eagles took The Byrds direction to its logical conclusion.
---------------------------------------------------
Roger McGuinn (The Byrds] : The reason Sweetheart didn't do well was because the AM stations didn't go for country and neither did the country people, although the underground FM stations did. So we had a minority of the radio listening audience.
Tweet this Fact
By Johnny Black
Originally published in the book Albums by Thunder Bay Press (2005)
Having pioneered psychedelia in 1966 with their album 5D, The Byrds were among the first to react against it. Along with Dylan and The Band, whose John Wesley Harding and Music From Big Pink appeared in the same year, they returned to the folksy roots of American music, to simple melodies, sweet close harmony vocals and understandable lyrics.
When The Byrds assembled to begin recording in Nashville during March 1968, they were in state of disarray, having lately replaced two founder members, drummer Michael Clarke and singer-songwriter David Crosby, with Kevin Kelley and Gram Parsons. It was Parsons, with his roots in country and soul, who was most responsible for The Byrds whole-hearted plunge into music formerly associated with rednecks and truck drivers.
As well as guitarist Clarence White, who would later join The Byrds full-time, the band was augmented in Nashville by a squad of the finest session players money could buy, including John Hartford on banjo, Earl Ball on piano, Roy Huskey on bass and, most significantly, Lloyd Green and Jaydee Maness on steel guitars.
It was the prominence of the slippery quicksilver swooping and soaring of those guitars that made Sweetheart sound unlike any album previously marketed at rock fans. With hindsight, of course, it's easy to see country-rock as a logical development for a band whose bass-player, Chris Hillman, had earned his chops in bluegrass bands, and whose leader, Roger McGuinn, had served his time as a Greenwich Village folkie.
At the time, however, it didn't seem that way. Country was seen seen as a reactionary right wing music, whereas rock tended to be left wing and radical, so a switch from one to the other was not just a bold move, it was potentially career-busting.
What saved the project was the sincerity The Byrds brought to the album, playing it absolutely straight (except perhaps for McGuinn's exaggerated dopey hick vocal on The Christian Life), and picking a selection of great songs that straddled folk, soul and country, alongside a couple of fine Parsons originals and two recent Dylan songs.
A certain amount of mystery still shrouds McGuinn's decision to remove Parsons' lead vocals from several cuts, replacing them with his own. Parsons' former producer Lee Hazlewood started the problems by threatening to sue because he still had him under contract, but there's also little doubt that McGuinn was unhappy to have Parsons' voice dominating most of the album. For one thing, although Parsons' singing was always deeply emotional, it wasn't always strictly in tune. For another, The Byrds had been McGuinn's band from the start, and he wasn't about to accept relegation to the role of back-up singer.
Although critics received the album warmly, the public's confusion about the new direction meant that Sweetheart was not a big seller. Nevertheless, a year later The Beatles would be singing Get Back, and country rock would emerge as a powerful new force in the early seventies when The Eagles took The Byrds direction to its logical conclusion.
---------------------------------------------------
Roger McGuinn (The Byrds] : The reason Sweetheart didn't do well was because the AM stations didn't go for country and neither did the country people, although the underground FM stations did. So we had a minority of the radio listening audience.