Roger McGuinn 1965

Roger McGuinn 1965, hand-drawn with his iconic Rickenbacker 360-12 string on stage during rehearsals of the British TV Show “Ready, Steady, Go!”, August 6, 1965, age 23.

Roger (Jim) McGuinn is an American musician and best known for being the frontman and leader of the Byrds.
As a solo artist he has released 10 albums and collaborated with, among others, Bob Dylan, Tom Petty and Chris Hillman.

During 1963, just one year before he co-founded the Byrds, McGuinn worked as a studio musician in New York, recording with Judy Collins and Simon & Garfunkel.
At the same time, he was hearing about the Beatles (whose first American appearances would come in February 1964) and wondering how Beatlemania might affect folk music.
When he saw George Harrison play a 12-string Rickenbacker in the film “A Hard Days Night”, it inspired McGuinn to buy the same instrument.

He gave rock style treatments to traditional folk tunes and thereby caught the attention of another folkie Beatle fan, Gene Clark, who joined forces with McGuinn in July 1964.
Together they formed the beginning of what was to become the Byrds.
The original five-piece lineup of the band consisted of McGuinn (lead guitar, vocals), Gene Clark (tambourine, vocals), David Crosby (rhythm guitar, vocals), Chris Hillman (bass guitar, vocals), and Michael Clarke (drums).

While “tracking” the Byrds’ first single, “Mr. Tambourine Man”, at Columbia studios, McGuinn discovered an important component of his style.
“The ‘Ric’ (12 string Rickenbacker guitar) by itself is kind of thuddy,” he notes. “It doesn’t ring. But if you add a compressor, you get that long sustain. To be honest, I found this by accident”.

The Byrds became part of the Laurel Canyon scene and pioneered the musical genre of folk rock as a popular format in 1965, by melding the influence of the Beatles and other British Invasion bands with contemporary and traditional folk music on their first and second albums, and the hit singles “Mr. Tambourine Man” and “Turn! Turn! Turn!”.
As the 1960s progressed, the band was influential in originating psychedelic rock and raga rock, with their song “Eight Miles High” and the albums Fifth Dimension (1966), Younger Than Yesterday (1967), and The Notorious Byrd Brothers (1968).
The band also played a pioneering role in the development of country rock, with the 1968 album Sweetheart of the Rodeo representing their fullest immersion into the genre.

In 1991, the Byrds were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, an occasion that saw the five original members performing together for the last time.
Gene Clark died of a heart attack later that year, while Michael Clarke died of liver failure in 1993.

Their signature blend of clear harmony singing and McGuinn’s jangly 12-string Rickenbacker guitar was “absorbed into the vocabulary of rock” and are considered by critics to be among the most influential rock acts of their era.

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