1964 - Aug 8, 1990
The Byrds - There Is A Season (Box Set, 4CD/1DVD, Columbia Legacy, 2006)
Review from Pitchfork:
I generally think of the Byrds as two bands. The first, which lasted for five albums, is the Roger McGuinn, David Crosby, Chris Hillman, Michael Clarke (and, initially, Gene Clark) group, which embodied that sound. You can't listen to much post-1965 rock without running into its influence sooner or later, and when something is descirbed as "Byrdsy," it's likely this incarnation of the band that's being referenced. The second Byrds is something much less defined. It begins with the country-rock masterstroke Sweetheart of the Rodeo. It's fractious and never establishes a clear identity, but its influence is just as huge, even if its musical legacy is far more mixed.
There Is a Season, the latest in a seemingly endless string of Byrds anthologies, splits its four discs evenly between the two distinct phases of the band and presents a strange mix of hit singles, album tracks, live material (including five previously unreleased recordings), and obscurities ranging from B-sides to songs that only saw their first release on reissues and the original 1990 Byrds box. The huge book comes with a lengthy and painstakingly detailed essay by David Fricke that tells the band's story as well as I've seen it written, and includes a bonus DVD with some (lip-synched) 60s TV appearances. But it's hard to tell what the audience for the set is, given that hardcore Byrdmaniax won't find much new sound here. It's sort of like a really big best-of set.
That said, it's a well-chosen one, and it opens with some of its most enticing material: six songs the band recorded with Jim Dickson prior to the "Mr. Tambourine Man" sessions. The first of these, featuring McGuinn, Crosby, and Hillman as the Jet Set, reflects the trio's adoration for the Beatles in its composition but is basic folk in its arrangement. The next two, both recorded after drummer Clarke and troubled singer Clark joined the band, establish the Byrds sound, with the 12-string electric guitar and those unique two-part, three-voice harmonies. These tracks became the band's first single, released on Elektra under the name the Beefeaters, a tag chosen by Elektra head Jac Holzman in the hopes he could align the group with the British Invasion. Thankfully, the single flopped and they weren't stuck with the name.
The first songs from the newly christened Byrds-- "Airport Song", "You Movin'", and "You Showed Me"-- simmer with creativity, refining the Beefeaters-era sound and expanding its boundaries. "You Movin'" even hints at the band's forays into psychedelia with its manic guitar solo. But it's "Mr. Tambourine Man" that truly launched the band-- and helped make the British Invasion a two-way exchange. Bringing Bob Dylan to a much larger audience than he'd had previously, it's two perfect minutes that seemed to map out a way forward for U.S. guitar pop.
The rest of the songs on Discs One and Two are remarkably uniform in their brilliance and accessible risk-taking. "I'll Feel a Whole Lot Better", "The World Turns All Around Her", "All I Really Want to Do", and "Have You Seen Her Face" are positively exquisite pop, still as arresting today as ever. "Eight Miles High", inspired by the band's collective obsession with John Coltrane's Africa/Brass album and Ravi Shankar, is one of psychedelia's opening shots, as it's hard to think of a song that did more to move the plot forward while also giving us a great, memorable tune. By the time the band's original incarnation was coming to an end, they were expertly balancing sophisticated pop with open experimentation, and it's nice to see songs like Crosby's elegant "Triad" and "Lady Friend"-- included here along with mind-warpers like "Dolphin's Smile", which features McGuinn mimicking dolphin calls with his guitar.
The last two discs are much less even. I've never thought as highly of the band's country phase as their early material-- for one thing, with both Clark and Crosby gone, they'd lost their two most accomplished composers and a huge element of what made them distinctive-- although Sweetheart of the Rodeo is an excellent album and a milestone for its deft blending of country and rock. Gram Parsons is better represented on this box than he was on the original album, with three of his unused vocal versions (all previously available on the Sweetheart reissue) in the tracklist, including his own read of his excellent "100 Years From Now".
The years after Sweetheart are the band's least known, and by 1969, McGuinn was the only original member left, ultimately assembling a country-rock band with Skip Batten, Gene Parsons, and longtime Byrds studio hand Clarence White. McGuinn admits in Fricke's liners that he likely should have stopped calling it the Byrds after Hillman left to form the Flying Burrito Brothers with Parsons, but there is good material to be found in the band's latter-day recordings. You just have to look harder. This final version of the band was best in a live setting, and it's fitting that there are a slew of live tracks on Discs Two and Three. "King Apathy III", from Live at the Fillmore, February 1969, has a nasty crunch uncommon in the band's repertoire, while later live dates spotlight White's prodigious guitar talent. They also unfortunately emphasize how much McGuinn benefited from having Clark and Hillman around to double his lead vocals.
Late material from the Byrdmaniax and Farther Along albums does little to encourage a re-examination of those albums, and a version of "Roll Over Beethoven" recorded for the Banjo soundtrack just highlights the fact that none of these guys came up playing basic rock 'n' roll. Two songs from Byrds, the band's unlikely 1973 reunion album that came together at Crosby's urging, are strangely good, showing Gene Clark's songwriting prowess virtually undiminished. Ultimately, though, the Byrds became lost in the very country-rock scene they helped create.
The box's DVD is essentially a collection of artifacts and TV appearances that make it easy to see why a lot of bands found miming in front of spastic teenagers tiresome. McGuinn's ever-present rectangular sunglasses and Crosby's penchant for parkas are good for a laugh, but genuine live performances would have added more value. There Is a Season does a good job of gathering material from across the band's run, while also giving proper weight to the best of it. It's nice to have such a comprehensive overview, but it can't help being mostly redundant for the biggest Byrds fans, while also being a bit of an earful for newcomers.
- Joe Tangari, September 29, 2006