Published on Jan 31, 2000
I wonder sometimes what it would be like to witness first-hand
the defining moments of rock history. To rush to the record store
and listen to “Strawberry Fields Forever” for the first time. To
see Hendrix play at Monterrey Pop. To see Dylan plug in at Newport
in 1966. Or to hear some unknown group out of L.A. cover a Dylan
tune and change the course of rock and roll history.
With one memorable, Bach-inspired riff and soaring vocal
harmonies, the Byrds shot to the top of the charts with Dylan’s
“Mr. Tambourine Man” in 1965. It’s a truly epic recording. Roger
(then known as Jim) McGuinn’s chiming electric 12-string blazing
over solid instrumental backing (actually supplied by studio
musicians as the Byrds were so unfamiliar with playing electric
instruments at the time) is the instrumental trademark. The vocals,
led by McGuinn and augmented by Gene Clark and David Crosby, linked
the beautiful harmonies of the Beatles with Dylan’s trippy,
brilliant lyrics. And, amazingly, it was a massive hit.
In the mid-60s, before
Sgt. Peppers, LPs were often just a vehicle for hit singles.
While single tracks would be relentlessly rehearsed and recorded
dozens of times, album cuts were more or less slopped together.
Mr. Tambourine Man shows signs of breaking out of this
formula. While several of the tunes smell heavily of filler, there
are some really wonderful moments on this album that Top-40
listeners would have missed.
First among these is “Feel A Whole Lot Better”, a Gene Clark
original with a pricelss riff and deceptively complex lyrics (“I’ll
probably feel a whole lot better when you’re gone…”…note the
uncertainty in that line). Two further dips into the Dylan songbook
– covers of the epic “Chimes Of Freedom” and the rather lightweight
“All I Really Want To Do” – are also exceptional.
“Chimes” is a loping, expansive work that cycles between
gorgeous harmonies and tight instrumental backing. “All I Really
Want To Do”, while not the most powerful lyric Dylan ever crafted,
is an exercise in imaginative arrangment – witness how the Byrds
turn one of Dylan’s verses into an ascending middle eight before
dropping back into the tune proper. Fantastic stuff. But perhaps
the most effective track on this album is McGuinn’s rearrangement
of Pete Seeger’s “Bells Of Rhymney” into a strangely ethereal piece
drenched in vocal harmonies and 12-string riffs.
The reliance on cover material from Dylan and Seeger, in my
view, primarily stems from the fact that the group had been
together for such a short time. This is reinforced by the relative
weaknesses of the original material and other covers on the record.
Examples of the latter include the fun but somewhat derivative
cover of “Don’t Doubt Yourself, Babe” (by Jackie DeShannon) and the
fairly obnoxious British wartime nugget “We’ll Meet Again.”
The rest of the originals, most of them by often underrated lead
singer Gene Clark, are a pronounced step down from the tunes
mentioned above. “You Won’t Have To Cry” is lightweight 60s pop, as
is “I Knew I’d Want You”. Although McGuinn’s 12-string provides a
musical gimmick, very little separates the songwriting here from
what a hundred other bands were producing at the time. On the other
hand, “It’s No Use” has a nice stuttering guitar riff that
contrasts well with the chorus, and “Here Without You” has a lovely
McCartney-esque melody. So the potential for excellent original
material was definitely there, but remained largely untapped until
the group’s fourth album,
Younger Than Yesterday.
The bonus tracks appended to this record by Columbia are fairly
unrevealing, and certainly don’t come as a great a shock as the
excellent extras on the other three “first-stage” Byrd reissues.
“She Has A Way” is another lightweight Clark ballad, used as a
B-side. The rest of the tunes are alternate versions, including the
original single version of “All I Really Want To Do” and a slightly
different take of “Feel A Whole Lot Better.” However, the excellent
remastering and notes definitely give the reissue the edge, even
given the fairly pedestrian quality of the bonus cuts.
Mr. Tambourine Man is a very important rock and roll album.
But, like
Sgt. Peppers’ (and this is perhaps a controversy for another
day), its importance outweighs, in many ways, its quality. About
two-thirds of
Mr. Tambourine Man is excellent, and the other third shows a
lot of potential, not yet fully realized. So I can’t rate this one
as highly as the other Byrds reissues I’ve reviewed on these
pages.
One of the interesting things is that, the more I listen to
these early Byrds recordings, how my opinions slowly change
regarding their quality.
Mr. Tambourine Man at first struck me as by far the weakest
of the first five albums. However, the more I listen to it, the
more I enjoy it. On the other hand, I’ve found that the charms of
Fifth Dimension and
Turn! Turn! Turn! have faded somewhat upon dozens of
listenings. That being said, all three of those albums are good,
and well worth your time and money.
That said, as a Byrds fan and a music fan I have to take this
opportunity to recommend
Younger Than Yesterday and
The Notorious Byrd Brothers to all our readers, and
definitely recommend at least picking up the
Greatest Hits CD which covers the first four albums. No real
fan of popular music should lack a Byrds record – they were
definitely more than just Dylan-imitators or the product of
hype.