The First Sessions - 1964
1. TOMORROW IS A LONG WAYS AWAY
2. BOSTON
3. THE ONLY GIRL I ADORE
4 YOU WON'T HAVE TO CRY
5 I KNEW I'D WANT YOU
6 THE AIRPORT SONG
7 THE REASON WHY
8 MR. TAMBOURINE MAN
9 PLEASE LET ME LOVE YOU
10 YOU MOVIN'
11 IT WON'T Bf WRONG
12 YOU SHOWED ME
13 SHE HAS A WAY
14 FOR ME AGAIN
15 IT'S NO USE
16 HERE WITHOUT YOU
17 TOMORROW IS A LONG WAYS AWAY
(Acoustic Version)
(P) & ©1988 Rhino Records Inc. 222S Colorado Ave., Santa Monica. CA 90404
All Tracks Courtesy of Jim Dickson
Produced by JIM DlCKSON
Recorded at WORLD PACIFIC STUDIOS. 1964
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COLLECTOR’S NOTE: These are not the highly
crafted Byrds classics familiar from their innovative Columbia
recordings, but early "diamond-in-the-rough" demos and work tapes made
while the band was forming and rehearsing. They document an earnest,
talented group of young musicians collaborating for the first time
sharing their influences, honing their skills, searching for a unique
and "magic" sound.
Most of these tracks are from the same sessions documented on the now
out-of-print Preflyte album released by Together Records (and later
reissued on Columbia) in the early Seventies. Rather than simply
reissue that collection, we started from scratch by going back to the
original 1, 2, and 3-track masters preserved by producer Jim Dickson,
evaluating takes for sound quality and performance. "The Only Girl I
Adore" (the earliest track here, recorded when McGuinn, Crosby, and
Clark had first united as The Jet Set) was previously issued only on
Together Records' rare Early LA album. "It Won't Be Wrong" and "Please
Let Me Love You" are alternate versions of tracks on the band's first
commercial single (on Elektra, who dubbed the group The Beefeaters).
"Tomorrow Is A Long Ways Away" has not been previously issued in any
form.
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It was really magic time, like high school for the couple of months you
really loved it. There wasn't any reason to think anything was wrong or
would ever go wrong. Our days were filled with daily stuff and our
nights were filled with The Byrds.
They brought it all back home, as the first important American rock
group to follow the British invasion led by The Beatles. "Mr.
Tambourine Man" was their first single and it went right to the top of
the charts. It was Columbia Records' first Number One single in
something like two years, since Steve Lawrence's daringly double-voiced
"Go Away Little Girl.' And the marriage of rock 'n' roll with Dylan's
lyrics created that enormous shift in pop music that is still felt two
decades later. Back then, Billboard's Eliot Tiegel named it "folk rock"
the merger of a driving beat and lyrics about personal freedom and
social in-justice. Today, it would be laughable to apply the term "folk
rock" to Bruce Springsteen, John Cougar Mellencamp, The Bangles, U2,
Dire Straits, REM ... yet their debt to The Byrds is obvious. Writing
about The Byrds, The Flying Burrito Brothers, Dillard & Clark, and
Crosby, Stills and Nash, Robert Christgau said that The Byrds had made
many things possible, and "if every broken group can produce as much
good music as The Byrds, then rock will be alive for a long time to
come."
The seeds for those groups and for countless tawdry imitators sucked
into the trend were planted in the studios of World Pacific Records,
with these very recordings. If you enjoy works-inprogress, if you like
to watch growing things, then you will like this collection.
The Byrds came together because each of them was ready for something
new – as were we all. Jim McGuinn, who'd worked with Bobby Darin and
toured South America for the State Department with The Chad Mitchell
Trio, had decided The Beatles were the way to go. Early in 1964, when
he first performed some of their tunes as an opening act for Hoyt Axton
at Los Angeles' Troubadour folk club, just about the only person in the
crowd who liked what he heard was Gene Clark. Gene had left The New
Christy Minstrels, and wondered if Jim would be interested in writing
songs with him.
Soon thereafter, David Crosby caught Jim and Gene singing together one
afternoon at the Troubadour, and immediately set to convincing them to
let him sing harmony with them. Impressed with their initial efforts,
Crosby introduced them to producer Jim Dickson, with whom David had
been recording rock 'n' rollish versions of traditional material.
Interested in how they would sound on tape, Dickson recorded their
first collaboration: "The Only Girl I Adore." Excited with the results,
the three decided to form a group – McGuinn suggested The Jet Set as a
moniker, though they weren't sure it was appropriate for a folk trio
... or even if being a folk trio was where it was at ...
Crosby had seen Michael Clarke playing conga drums with Dino Valente in
Big Sur, and when he ran into him in L.A. (again at the Troubadour), he
asked him to sign up. By this time David had discovered that playing
the bass and singing harmony was not happening for him, and switched to
guitar. Dickson had just completed producing a bluegrass album with
Chris Hillman (and the Gosdin Brothers, who would later back Gene Clark
on his first solo effort), and Chris was prepared to invest $40.00 into
a Japanese bass and try switching from mandolin so he could join the
group.
No longer a folk trio, the band began writing and rehearsing at World
Pacific Studios. Dickson charted their progress on tape, recording new
arrangements and demos he hoped would show record companies what the
group could become. All the while, "Jet Set" was sounding too much like
the Peter Lawford crowd, but the group wanted to stay with McGuinn's
interest in flight. "Birds" sounded good-though Cockney slang for
"chicks:' changing the "i" to a "y" did the trick. The Byrds were born.
As months passed, the group continued practicing, writing, and
searching for sound. By the summer of '64, Jim Dickson had managed to
interest Elektra's Jac Holzman in The Byrds, and the group recorded a
potential single: "Please Let Me Love You" with "It Won't Be Wrong"
(first titled "Don't Be Long"). With the group still gelling, session
musicians Ray Pohlman (bass) and Earl Palmer (drums) were enlisted to
ensure a strong, solid beat. Gene Clark strummed acoustic guitar, and
McGuinn was featured on the electric 12-string.
Holzman was sure the group was on to something. He liked what he heard
but wasn't sure what to do with it. Undecided about signing the band,
Elektra purchased the masters and released the single as "The
Beefeaters" – so labeled by Holzman, not The Byrds (who had no
intention of adopting the name). The single flopped, but the band
finally had enough money to pay rent and buy instruments: Gretsch
guitar for Crosby, Guild bass for Chris, Rickenbacker for McGuinn and
real drums for Mike Clarke (he'd been playing with cardboard boxes and
a tambourine substituting for snare).
Electrified, the group continued working on their material. The
performances here sound young and sometimes imprecise but have this
incredibly airy innocence about them. You can hear traces of Byrds
influences much more easily than you can on their Columbia albums: a
little Beatles, some Everlys and – can it be? – Johnny Rivers, or that
Memphis/Chuck Berry feel. Yet it still somehow sounds fresh, and
unique. The ingredients were conventional, but the mixture created a
new sound.
World Pacific, though primarily a jazz studio, was where The Byrds were
exposed to Ravi Shankar and were visited by Bob Dylan and Lenny Bruce.
Lenny's mother got them their first paying gig: East Los Angeles
College (they were paid $50.00). Meanwhile, practice and recording
continued. Dickson introduced the group to a friend, the late
impresario Ben Shapiro ... and when Clark, Crosby and McGuinn sang live
to a set of demos (thereby doubling their voices), Ben's teenaged
daughter Michelle absolutely raved about it. The next day, when Shapiro
related the story to Miles Davis, Miles promptly got on the phone with
Irving Townsend at Columbia Records – Townsend referred the matter to
A&R man Allen Stanton – Stanton met with Dickson, heard these
recordings, and signed the group to Columbia in November, 1964 ... a
few months later, CBS staff producer Terry Melcher recorded "Mr.
Tambourine Man" and The Byrds graduated from demos and $50.00 gigs to
The History Of Rock Music As We Know It.
Jim Dickson (who, with Eddie Tickner, went on to manage The Byrds, and
who later produced The Flying Burrito Brothers, among others) says
these cuts are sort of like baby pictures – and it takes a while before
you feel comfortable showing them. A few details
catch my attention. In "She Has A Way" you begin to hear how pretty
Crosby could sing. Gene Clark's voice has a nice peach fuzz quality to
it. "You Won't Have To Cry" really gets to me; damned if I know why;
there's this peculiarly serious aura about the whole thing. I guess
it's the same thing Dwight McDonald was referring to when he wrote
about a good movie: "Did it change the way you look at things? The ...
question is whether ... the director has imposed his personal vision
strongly more real than the common light of day. The hallucination soon
dissipates like a dream but, also like a dream, it may be significant.
Perhaps such films ... make some change in one's subconscious that
lasts long after the visual effect has vanished; certainly they have
cast a poetic spell on me ... "
The Byrds cast that poetic spell on us all and the extremes seemed
ordinary. I remember trying to track down the daughter of Berkeley's
chief of police (or was it a councilman?)-they all had reason to
believe she'd run away from home to be with Crosby ... Michael
threatened to leave the group between sets one night ... I got the
story of a fist fight (between Dickson and Crosby?) during a photo
session at the beach ... McGuinn and his toys. He started with robots,
walkie-talkies and CB – and moved on to synthesizers and seven
television receivers that do funny things ...
When Dylan was in town he stopped by Ciro's where the faithful gathered
and The Byrds held forth. Lennon, McCartney and Harrison came to a
recording session. That's the first time I heard young rock musicians
talking about sitars. Crosby told me to check out two groups because
they were going to be big: Jefferson Airplane and Lovin' Spoonful.
Ciro's, on the Sunset Strip, was the center of the scene, the place to
be for the advance guard – Teri Garr, Toni Basil and Vito's free-form
dancers; Carol "Five Easy Pieces" Eastman, Helena "maggots and riots"
Kallaniotos and Jack Nicholson; John Altoon, Wally Berman and all the
easy riders. These days Gene performs with Carla Olson; Crosby and
McGuinn are solo acts; Michael has become a painter and his work is
starting to sell and Chris has Desert Rose. And Ciro's is The Comedy
Store.
The Byrds was the first American supergroup, before hippies, riots, the
Haight, love-ins, freak-outs, VCRs, DAT, Moog, Dolby, Hair, rap music
and psychedelic bubble gum. I haven't been caught up in anything like
it since.
Billy James
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Produced by JIM DICKSON
Recorded at WORLD PACIFIC STUDIOS, 1964
Produced for Compact Disc by BILL INGLOT
Compilation/Art Direction: DON BROWN
Photography: BARRY FEINSTEIN and others
Digital Prep & Transfers: BILL INGLOT and KEN PERRY/K·DISC
Project Assistance: GARY STEWART
All Songs Published by Tickson Music. except "Mr. Tambourine Man"
Published by Warner Bros. Inc. – ASCAP and "Please Let Me Love You"
Published by Warner-Tamerlane Publishing Corp. – BMI.
©1988 Rhino Records Inc. 2225 Colorado Ave. Santa Monica, CA 90404
