After class, Professor J. Roger McGuinn explains to one of his students why she is getting a flunking grade this term.
It’s been an exciting six weeks, with shows by Crosby, Stills and Nash, Bob Dylan, Roger Daltrey and Roger McGuinn. This added up to a master class in what I now call “classical music,” although only McGuinn acted like a real professor.
You may not know to look at him, but McGuinn once breathed the same air as the Beatles, Dylan and the rest of the long gone aristocracy. Those who have not maintained their fame have suffered somewhat, it is a devastating blow to lose the spotlight, and find your best efforts are no longer good enough for the fickle public.
When someone leaves the spotlight they don’t have a lot of options, and are usually forced to play their same old hits in the same old way. McGuinn has gone down another path. He sits the audience down and walks them through his life, explaining details about the experience and providing a depth that would be absent in a rapid fire blast-from-the-past recreation.
McGuinn has some tales to tell, after nearly fifty years onstage. Starting as a back-up player during the 1960s folk boom, he guided two stages of the Byrds–first interpreting Dylan’s song for the masses (and having the stones to cut out a lot of the nonessential verses) and for providing the template for what became country rock. He tells these stories a lot, as the autobiographical version of his show is rotated and refined per his whim.
He bribed his way into a bar and jammed with one famous folk group while underage, and they hired him on the spot. They flew him to LA, and subsequently became the in-demand backup guy, hopping from one hot group to another. As one door closed another opened, and he slid right through. Has it ever happened to any of us, that we have a great job when someone visits and offers another position that pays twice as much? And you get to be famous, as a bonus.
He is a real gentleman, spinning the stories in a positive way. We hear only how the Byrds explored new avenues, leaving out the ego-driven soap opera sequence that has been accepted as truth. He tells his tales in a relaxed, extemporaneous voice, noting that it wasn’t always cool to talk to the audience (and it still isn’t if Dylan show just weeks ago proves). The next day I heard recordings of McGuinn live from ten years ago, telling the very same story. Surprising, because it seemed so fresh the previous night.
McGuinn has refused to participate in a Byrds reunion, even as the other survivors (David Crosby and Chris Hillman) are reportedly eager to do so. Instead, he prefers to tour accompanied only by his wife Camilla. He doesn’t want to be touring with a bunch of cranky old guys, and finds it “more romantic” to tour on this scale. I could speculate, that Crosby was such an unforgivable asshole in the Byrds that McGuinn has decided to not forgive him. He is a gentleman, after all, and gentlemen have rules.
Both McGuinns are cordial and pleasant, answering the same questions for the thousandth time. They even have a little fun along the way. During the break I told Camilla my favorite-ever McGuinn song was “Dreamland” from 1976′s Cardiff Rose, written by Joni Mitchell and arranged by Mick Ronson. Joni’s own version was inferior, and lacked the fire of McGuinn’s reading. I acknowledged the song would go unplayed this evening, because my favorites are always absent. She agreed, saying that McGuinn “probably wouldn’t remember all the verses.”
Except he slips it into the set, along with its very own story. I suspect that Camilla made the request on my behalf, something she later won’t confirm or deny.
McGuinn, for his part, does the song closer to Joni Mitchell’s version, and flubs the final verse.
For a McGuinn interview where he doesn’t tell the same old stories click here.
