The Byrds

Roger McGuinn talks Dennis Hopper, Bob Dylan, CBS-era Fender amps and the making of 1969's Ballad of Easy Rider

- BY ANDREW DALY

GENERALLY SPEAKING, THERE were two versions of the Byrds - the early lineup featuring Roger (formerly Jim) McGuinn alongside David Crosby, Gene Clark, Chris Hillman and Michael Clarke, and the later, decidedly edgier band that was navigated by McGuinn, the lone "O.G. Byrd," amid a sea of lineup changes. And while that's a gross oversimplification that leaves out a host of in-between lineups, one thing is certain: the band's later variations featured an absolute ace of a guitar player named Clarence White. Some even say that, despite the shimmering beauty of the band's early singles and albums (consider 1965's "The Bells of Rhymney" and 1966's "Wild Mountain Thyme"), the later version of the Byrds created some of the band's most striking music.

McGuinn, to a point, agrees, referring to the White-fortified lineup as "a hot performing band."

"Clarence had been hired as a studio musician for some earlier sessions" [including 1967's Younger Than Yesterday and 1968's Sweetheart of the Rodeo], McGuinn says. "But when everybody else left the band, they left me holding the bag. Clarence wanted to be a Byrd all his life. He told me that he loved the fact that he got to be in the Byrds, along with [multi-instrumentalist] Gene Parsons."

White (along with Parsons) became a full-on Byrd in the summer of 1968, and his unique phrasing added some serious sparkle - and undeniable spark - to a slew of later Byrds albums, including 1969's Dr. Byrds & Mr. Hyde, 1970's (Untitled) and 1971's Byrdmaniax and Farther Along. However, White's guitar work is particularly prominent on 1969's Ballad of Easy Rider, an album named after the Byrds track that famously appears in Easy Rider, the 1969 counterculture film starring Peter Fonda, Dennis Hopper and Jack Nicholson.