ALBUM OF THE WEEK # 284 THE BYRDS - MR. TAMBOURINE MAN (50TH ANNIVERSARY ALBUM - 1965)

[RJhog (Admin)]

Artist: The Byrds

Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame Member: Yes (1991)

Album: Mr. Tambourine Man

Producer: Terry Melcher

Disclaimer: All info that does not reside in my brain is gathered from wikipedia.com (mostly because Jon can't stand it) unless otherwise noted.

This week's Album of the Week is an anniversary album.  It's Mr. Tambourine Man by The Byrds.  It's hard to believe we are talking about a fifty year old album.  The title track was written by Bob Dylan and became a number one hit for the band in the U.S. and in the U.K. This is another album that is not a part of my musical history, so once again I'm gonna copy/paste a review, this time from gaslightrecords.com:

In 1965, American music was becalmed. 'Beatlemania' had hit in ’64, leading to an influx of British bands like The Stones, The Animals and The Zombies. It became known as the 'British Invasion' and it almost overwhelmed American music. Then something happened to turn that around and swing the balance back somewhat. It was The Byrds.

At the heart of The Byrds was the tight, harmonized singing of Jim McGuinn, David Crosby and Gene Clark. Having come out of the American folk scene, they 'found' each other at the Troubadour Club in West Hollywood, and discovering they were kindred spirits, decided to form a band. Massively influenced by The Beatles, they saw the film A Hard Days Night and were inspired to go out and buy new instruments - notably a 12 String Rickenbacker for McGuinn and a Gretsch Tennessean for Clark, though Crosby took it over soon after.

Their debut album Mr Tambourine Man was released on June 21, 1965 and is credited with inspiring a whole new musical genre called ‘folk-rock’. Famously, their producer Terry Melcher didn’t think the band were musically good enough to record in the studio. McGuinn was the only one allowed to play on the “Mr. Tambourine Man” single, including the B-side, "I Knew I’d Want You". Melcher organised session musicians to play on the single--a group that later became known as the Wrecking Crew. By the time they were to record the album, The Byrds had convinced Melcher that they were ready to play themselves.

The "Mr Tambourine Man" single was released on April 12 and rocketed to number 1 on both sides of the Atlantic. When David Crosby first heard Dylan’s version he didn’t think the folky 2/4 style would work especially on radio, so The Byrds changed it to 4/4 added a 'Beatle-beat' and some guitar arpeggios at the beginning. As the opening track on the album, it is not only gorgeous but a watershed in modern music history. The jangly chiming of Mcguinn’s 12 string Rickenbacker, Larry Knetler’s distinctive and melodic bass line, lush harmonies from Clark and Crosby with Mcguinn’s voice high in the mix. At 2:20 minutes, it is the perfect pop song.

It’s followed up by Clark’s “I’ll Feel A Whole Lot Better”, a song that launched numerous covers. The guitar riff has more than a hint of The Searchers' "Needles and Pins". The slightly ambiguous/morose chorus--"I'll probably feel a whole lot better when you’re gone"--adds indecision and emotional depth to the lyric. In fact, the prolific Clark supplies almost half the songs for the album, thus making his romantic pop sensibilities evident for all to hear.

The album contains covers of Pete Seeger and Del Shannon songs as well as three more from Dylan, including the second single "All I Really Want To Do", which opens side two. The final track is a tongue in cheek rendition of “We’ll Meet Again”. Dedicated to Stanley Kubrick, it showed, if nothing else, that The Byrds weren’t taking themselves too seriously, right down to the chorus—“Some sunny day, hey, hey, hey”. The thing that stands out most on this album is the sheer breadth of songs, as well as the jangling compressed guitar and angelic harmony singing.

The Byrds' relationship with Dylan produced some polarized responses. Were they the interpreters of Dylan or the plunderers? Did their massive success convince Dylan to go electric? Without doubt they took the thought driven music of Dylan and made it accessible to a whole new audience. The album’s liner notes capture it best:

"There’s a new thing happening, and it probably started with Bob Dylan. He gave the audience a new vocabulary, a new set of symbols to fit the feelings exploding in and around them. The Byrds take his words and put them in the framework of the beat, and make imperative the meaning of those words. And there’s an unseen drive, a soaring motion to their sound that makes it compelling, almost hypnotic sometimes. And when you listen, hear through the sound to the joy that propels it."

Listening to this album, you can’t help thinking that something very special was happening.

Side One:

1. Mr. Tambourine Man

2. I'll Feel A Whole Lot Better

3. Spanish Harlem Incident

4. You Won't Have To Cry

5. Here Without You

6. The Bells Of Rhymney

Side Two:

7. All I Really Want To Do

8. I Knew I'd Want You

9. It's No Use

10. Don't Doubt Yourself, Babe

11. Chimes Of Freedom

12. We'll Meet Again

[Jon]

Maybe I'm not in the mood for a plethora of jangly geetars because this started to sound like one song and it was soon relegated to the dreadful background music. I've heard the first two songs many times before and they're ok, they're probably on that greatest hits disc I have. If any of the others are, I have no clue since I'm not going to check. I was excited to get that disc a few years ago, but I got bored with it quite quickly. Same with this, but much less excitement.

And,  if I'm getting this right, half of this album are cover tunes? That doesn't sit well with me, no sir. Actually, I really don't care.

So, I guess this is a classic album, but some classic albums don't click with some people. I'm one of those people.

Track #8 isn't that bad.

Really now. That jangly geetar is driving me up the wall.

 

[Scott]

Can I say "Ditto" to Jon's comments?  The jangly guitar gets grating real fast and the songs do have a similar feel all the way through the listening experience.

I get the importance of this bands members and how they shaped music after their breakup, but I think this is one of those "you had to be there" albums.  And technically I was there, I was just a newborn though, so musically this is well before my musical interests would have been ready for primetime.  In fact my first recollection of listening to rock and roll music (I'm still trying to forget my Dads Eddie Arnold collection) is a Greatest Hits package of Tommy James and the Shondells, I suppose the songs on that album would have been 68-71ish?

Another great historical piece none-the-less and a fine series though these past two weeks have been outside my wheelhouse  ...

[Niels (Mod)]

It's a few days, since I heard this album, but I had no time, to write my comments, while listening, so I'm relying on my memory:

The Byrds is another one of those bands, that I've tried to check out earlier on, but I wasn't impressed at all.

To me they are "a one-hit wonder", and they didn't even write the song themselves.

Off course the song is "Mr. Tambourine Man", and the version is much better than Dylan's original. Not often, that happens imo, since I'm not a "cover-man", I usually like the originals.

That song isn't the only Dylan-cover The Byrds did, and there's at least one more on this album (Chimes Of Freedom), but none of those are better than the originals.

And how original are the byrds really? When they don't cover Dylan, they sound like a B-version of The Beatles, and that's The Beatles of 1964. In 1965 Beatles were recording "Rubber soul", and were evolving into geniuses.

And what's with the start of nearly all of the songs? They all start with the same guitar-intro!!

I'll give them, that they have exellent harmonies, but after listening to this album, and a double Best of-album earlier, I'm sure, I'll never be a fan of this band.

[RJhog (Admin)]

I think we are all on the same page with this one.  Meh.....