Putting boxed sets on lists of essential
listening is probably a cheat. I’m guessing that people use these lists,
if at all, to get some idea what they should be listening to, or what
constitutes a basic record library. Of course, that’d be what they do
with lists from, well, established critics. Boxed sets aren’t usually the
best recommendation for those who want an overview, or only the very best of an
artist or group.
With the Byrds, there
isn’t a single album that adequately represents everything that made the
band so special: Gene Clark’s magnificent songwriting, often stunning
vocal harmonies, the pioneering country influence of Gram Parsons, and the fiery
live sound of the last line-up. The best-of focuses on McGuinn’s
12-string and plaintive vocals, which were front and center on most Byrds hits
and what most people probably associate with the group.
They were a classic case of
missed opportunities:
- losing their best songwriter and tossup for best
singer, Gene Clark, over jealousy, his fear of flying, etc.
- barely using Gram Parsons on his one album with
the group (although this may have been due more to GP’s obligations
to another label than to a conscious decision on the part of the Byrds)
- having one of the greatest guitar-players in
popular music, Clarence White, and barely using him on the piano- and
acoustic guitar-based Byrdmaniax,
giving him his most extensive showcase on the dreadful live version of
Eight Miles High (on Untitled)
- getting a decent rhythm section behind White and
McGuinn, becoming a viable live band, then choosing poor material to
record (see: most anything by Skip Battin, especially if it has a Kim
Fowley co-writing credit) and putting out crappy, interminable live
versions of your hits (Untitled’s
“Eight Miles High” again—it’s bad enough to bear
repeating)
While the Byrds may not have
had the kind of epic conflict that continually hobbled the Beach Boys, from
about 1966 on, they had enough misfortune and made enough bad decisions to keep
them from fully realizing the greatness they promised with their early records.
The box is the best way to hear what made the Byrds contenders for the title “American’s
Beatles” without some of the most atrocious material ever to curse a
major band’s records. A few come close, but there isn’t a
single Byrds album that maintains the high hit-to-miss ratio of this box set. Although I’ve read a number of strongly
dissenting opinions, this is about as good a career-spanning collection as you
could put together.
To paraphrase Reuben and the
Jets, the Byrds had essentially three stages of their fine, fine, superfine
career, all decently represented here. [What’s noticeably absent is
anything from the formative Preflyte-period; a few of those cuts seem essential
to an overview like this box.] Most of the other decisions are pretty solid,
except …
In the past few years, I’ve
become extremely Gene Clark partisan, so I have to protest (ha!) the preponderance
of Dylan stuff from the Clark era. (Was “It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue”
even a single by the Byrds?) It gives an unfair image of the group’s
reliance on Dylan’s songwriting for their success. Clark’s “I
Know I’d Want You” and “Set You Free This Time” seem as
definitive to the early Byrds’ sound as “Spanish Harlem Incident.”
Oh, and including their version of Jackie DeShannon’s “Don’t
Doubt Yourself, Babe” would’ve shown them making their mark on a
cover tune not written by Bob Dylan. *
As long as I’m harping
about insufficient credit, Chris Hillman is almost totally overlooked as a
songwriter, bassist, and unsung contributor to the group’s sound, after Clark
and before Parsons. At least some of his best songs are included here.
And as far as undue credit,
could Gram Parsons’ contribution to the Byrds be more overrated? Don’t
get me wrong; GP’s work with this band, the Flying Burritos, and with
Emmylou is records I could not do without. But Sweethearts not only was a
dismal failure when released, it was more of an aberration than a lasting
influence on the group’s sound. The departure from massive vocal
harmonies and jangly 12-string guitar as the Byrds’ dominant features was
due to the loss of Clark and Crosby rather than Parsons giving the group a new
direction.
My final beef with the song
selection is probably indefensible on any but the most petty personal grounds—too
much Crosby. So many of his Byrds songs exemplify everything
lazy, self-indulgent, and emptily introspective about late 60’s So-Cal
music. And this set feels like it’s chock-full of them, although, looking
at the track listing, it’s not. He can turn out material that doesn’t
turn my stomach, like his best stuff here, and later solo tracks like “Traction
In the Rain.” Generally, though, his songwriting all seems like the box
set’s “Psychodrama City” – and I can’t put it
better than Tim Connors does on his Byrd Watcher site* – “more or
less melody-free.”
The last phase of the band –
what do you call it, Flame-Out? – was notable for Clarence White’s
amazing guitar work and their evolution into a strong live act. It also closed
out their existence with a run of sub-par albums on which some fine material,
especially the collaborations between McGuinn and Jacques Levy, was
overshadowed by songs so weak they make me yearn for “Mind Gardens,”
bloated arrangements, and producers’ lousy selections from the available material.
Bad decisions? Giving over an
entire album side to a live rendition of “Eight Miles High” that
includes all of one chorus and one verse. As the (much-later) release, Live at the Fillmore, shows, they had a
ton of other songs that better showcased White’s ability and their
newfound onstage power. I’m not as offended by the ponderous
strings-and-chorus arrangements on Byrdmaniax
and many fans, but I will admit that the stripped-down box set version of “Kathleen’s
Song” does demonstrate how Terry Melcher suffocated this delicate gem. As
I groused above—waaay above—Melcher squanders White entirely on Byrdmaniax, centering most of the songs
around piano or acoustic guitar. And my lord, the Skip Battin songs …
Ok, so the remastered-bonus
tracks Sony Legacy versions of the Byrds catalog cover the
previously-unreleased stuff on the box set; it’s still nice to have those
last few reunion tracks, especially since the deaths of Clark and Clarke make
another one impossible. Despite the flaws in song selection, and the ludicrous insert
artwork and titles (“We Have Ignition”!), the Byrds Box is one of
the best sets of its kind.
* What’s kind of eerie
is that the Dylan-Clark connection had one final coincidence: a milestone date
in May
24, 1991. On that day, Dylan—whose
music put the band on the charts—turned 50. And Gene Clark, whose
songwriting was overshadowed by the band’s reliance on Dylan material for
hits, died.
** Tim
Connors’ Byrd Watcher site, ebni.com/byrds/,
is an exhaustive and insightful Byrds resource that I strongly recommend; be
sure to allow yourself plenty of time. You’ll want to be there for a
while.
Thirsty for more of my Desert Island selections? Click here!