Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

It's a shame no one has posted here for three weeks, so we will.

We're not sure if this has been posted elsewhere on this forum. This is from 1980, when Gene, Roger and Chris reunited and had a reasonably successful album, with a hit single (Don't You Write Her Off) and decent FM airplay.

Gene Clark was from Kansas City, our hometown, and he has been the subject of a book called Mr. Tambourine Man. It's a very interesting, but not uplifting, read. Unfortunately, his story was basically one of squandered genius. It talks about this 1980 tour in some detail. It started with great promise, but petered out in large part because Gene couldn't perform on a reliable basis, and was barely involved with the followup album. We were interested to see that another post here with the Roger McGuinn interview quoted him as remembering Gene as a brilliant songwriter. If he could have stayed with the band, the Byrds would probably have been even more important historically. That's saying something, given their RRHOF status as it is.

They sound pretty good here, though. (It says the Byrds, but they didn't bill themselves under that name at the time.)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DdXf4H_q ... re=related

Geno wasn't the first self-destructive creative genius in the business, and sad to say, he probably won't be the last. It just breaks my heart that the business is littered with the broken and shattered pieces of such lives.

Even if Gene had managed to hold it together with the Byrds, I'm uncertain that the original 5 could have lasted through the '70s. I think there may have been too many creative conflicts and personal conflicts, and conflicted personalities in the group.

It's difficult to resist the comparison between the Byrds and the Beatles. But I've heard it said that being a Beatle was almost like being a gang member; it was all for one and one for all, at least in the beginning. The Byrds were more like a pirate ship; every man for himself, I've also heard. And by that I infer that the original 5 Byrds weren't necessarily real tight friends.

With the Beatles, there was no leader of the group. With the Byrds, I think there was a power struggle as to who was going to be the leader. Would it be Roger, or Croz? Gene and Chris may have felt caught in the middle. And who knows about Michael Clarke?

JimK

jimk wrote:Geno wasn't the first self-destructive creative genius in the business, and sad to say, he probably won't be the last. It just breaks my heart that the business is littered with the broken and shattered pieces of such lives.

So true, and so sad. And Gene wasn't the only Byrd to end in that fashion... Gram Parsons died even younger, tragically and unneccessarily.

Even if Gene had managed to hold it together with the Byrds, I'm uncertain that the original 5 could have lasted through the '70s. I think there may have been too many creative conflicts and personal conflicts, and conflicted personalities in the group.

I suspect that the original 5 could have hardly made it into the 70s. Crosby had wanted to go in a different musical direction than McGuinn (as did Hillman and Clark) and had been tempted by Stills and Nash. Whatever cohesion they had at the beginning had faded by then.

It's difficult to resist the comparison between the Byrds and the Beatles. But I've heard it said that being a Beatle was almost like being a gang member; it was all for one and one for all, at least in the beginning. The Byrds were more like a pirate ship; every man for himself, I've also heard. And by that I infer that the original 5 Byrds weren't necessarily real tight friends.

An interesting observation that I hadn't thought about before now. John, Paul and George had been playing and even living together for years before their first hit record... they were close friends by the time they had their first successes. The Byrds were musicians who came together to form the group and immediately had their first hit - they didn't have the time to develop close friendships.

The older I get, the more important it seems to be to foster good friendship among band mates. I've been playing in the same band for twenty years. And although we've had a near complete change over in personnel, still two other of my band mates have been with the group for almost as long; one for 18 years, and the other for something like six months or so less than me. New members have been sought among friends and acquaintances, with but one exception, and before he left, I felt that he had indeed been accepted into our "gang" whole heartedly. Whe he left the band for a job transfer out of state, we really wondered how we would be able to carry on. But we did...and are carrying on.

JimK

Gene or Gram Parsons weren't half as self-destructive as Keith Moon...

JakeK wrote:Gene or Gram Parsons weren't half as self-destructive as Keith Moon...

If that's so, then Keith Moon must've been some piece of work! Gram Parsons was 26 years old when he died.

JimK

Moon was 32...

Pete Townshend and Roger Daltrey said he took anything that he wanted...I'm sure you know how he passed out after taking animal tranquilizer...

I hadn't realized that Moon lived to that age. Honest, The Who was not really a group that I kept current on back in the day. I was aware of their early stuff "Summertime Blues" "My Generation" and later on "Tommy."

Matter of fact, I sort of lost track of the Byrds until "Byrdmaniax" came out. And at that, I bought a remaindered copy of it on vinyl about 1972, or so.

JimK

Oddly enough, self-abuse doesn't always result in death or even a failed career in rock and roll. David Crosby is still with us. Then there is Jerry Lee Lewis, he must have signed a pact with the devil