Former Byrd Roger McGuinn is perfectly happy flying solo

Fifty years ago, Roger McGuinn, Gene Clark, David Crosby, Michael Clarke and Chris Hillman got together to form a band. They called themselves The Byrds and created what would be known as folk rock — essentially, putting a “Beatle beat” to folk songs. They not only borrowed their beat, The Byrds also copied The Fab Four’s instrumentation after watching The Beatles’ movie A Hard Day’s Night, with McGuinn procuring an instrument that would give The Byrds their signature “jingle-jangle” sound: A Rickenbacker electric 12-string guitar.

As the golden anniversary of The Byrds looms, McGuinn is adamant about not doing any reunions, despite the fact that any show they did would probably sell out.

“It has a been a big thing I did in my life, but I was with The Byrds for nine years — and I’ve been doing my solo thing for more than 20 years,” he told TODAY. “(The Byrds) was not the longest thing I did, but probably the most successful in terms of audience reaction and No 1 hits.

“But I don’t want to do it again,” he added. “David Crosby does, but I don’t. Every chance he gets with the press he goes, ‘I want to get The Byrds back together again, but Roger McGuinn won’t do it!’ (Laughs) But you know, I’m very happy doing what I’m doing. I get to travel around the world with my lovely wife and I get to play for people and it’s great fun. Getting The Byrds together wouldn’t be fun for me. Not now, anyway.”

It’s not that he’s at outs with his former bandmates (“I email David every Aug 14 with a ‘happy birthday!’ and Chris Hillman and I have been chatting through email”); he’s just not interested in a Byrds reunion — unless it is for a good reason.

“There’s a bridge in New York state, called the Tappan Zee Bridge and it’s falling apart — they’re going to replace it — and Pete Seeger, who passed away, used to live a few miles from that bridge. So if they renamed that bridge the Pete Seeger Memorial Bridge, I’d probably like to get The Byrds to do Turn Turn Turn. That’ll be a cool thing.”

It was Seeger, of course, who fanned the flames of McGuinn’s love for folk music and made him want to pursue a career in music.

“I started going to his concerts while he was still in The Weavers back in the ’50s, and then I went for his solo concerts and I was amazed by how he did those shows himself. He’d been in a four-piece group and nobody thought he was going to be able to pull it off by himself. And he came out there, with a 12-string guitar, a six-string guitar, a banjo and a recorder and he just made the audience sing in three parts and you felt like you didn’t miss the other three parts of the band. It was great fun. And I said to myself, ‘That’s what I want to do when I grow up — I want to be like Pete Seeger’. He was a big influence.”

That influence can be heard on McGuinn’s latest CD/DVD set, Stories, Songs & Friends, a recording of a concert where he, like Seeger, regales the audience with songs from his vast catalogue, interspersed with anecdotes of his life. “I tell stories and the songs all run together and it becomes one big story of my life.”

In some ways, McGuinn’s career has mirrored Seeger’s. Both started out in bands and ended up going solo, and they didn’t stray from their folk roots. The Byrds, for example, had initial success from reinterpreting folk songs. Even when they wrote their own songs (Eight Miles High, I Feel A Whole Lot Better, So You Want To Be A Rock ‘n’ Roll Star), the basic style was rooted in folk music.

Not everybody liked McGuinn’s idea to electrify folk music, though. “(Writer) Tom Paxton wrote an article about our music — he called it Folk Rot,” laugh McGuinn. “There was resentment in the folk community about going electric.

“I was living above John Philips (of The Mamas And The Papas) in a hotel in New York, and after I got interested in The Beatles, I showed John some Beatles stuff and he went, ‘Ugh, that’s just bubblegum music’. But a couple of months later, he was doing just that with The Mamas And The Papas. And it really did work.”

It wasn’t just folk music — McGuinn took inspiration from all sorts of music. The intro on Mr Tambourine Man, for example, is actually based on Bach’s Jesu, Joy Of Man’s Desiring. “Pete Seeger did a version of it on banjo, and I learnt it on banjo so it was in my subconscious,” he said, adding that the discordant solo on Eight Miles High was a nod to jazz legend John Coltrane. “I was thinking of John Coltrane and saxophone. But people didn’t know that, so they thought it was ... they called it ‘psychedelic’, but really, it was jazz.”

After The Byrds ended in 1973, McGuinn embarked on several musical ventures — being part of Dylan’s Rolling Thunder Revue, forming a trio with former Byrd-men Hillman and Gene Clark — but he said he found his true calling as a solo musician, troubadour style.

“I tried to be a solo act at first and then The Byrds came along, so I did that for nine years. Then I went out solo with a band, but that wasn’t, er, The Byrds. But I like just being solo, solo. Without a band. It’s so freeing. I can do what I want.”

And what he wants to do is keep folk music alive. He initiated the Folk Den series in 1995, where he releases one folk song a month for free download. “I love that music and I’ve never lost my love for that, even though we strapped on electric guitars. I went back to it when I had the chance, and I’ve kind of been there ever since.

“I want people to be able to remember the songs, because these songs aren’t real commercial any more. Younger musicians may not have been exposed to them, so I’m doing my part by recording these songs on my website (http://www.rogermcguinn.com), and there are more than 200 MP3s for free download.”

Another project he likes is playing with the Rock Bottom Remainders, a band made up of authors such as Stephen King and Amy Tan, who perform rock ‘n’ roll songs for charity. “I played with them for more than 10 years. It’s so much fun. They’re fun people to hang out with, because they’re so clever and witty, it’s like hanging out with Mensa.”

And how does he rate the authors as musicians? “Well, Stephen King is not a great guitar player or singer, but he’s got a lot of spirit,” he said. “Dave Berry plays really good guitar and sings really well. Amy Tan is delightful on stage: She sings These Boots Are Made For Walking and dresses like a biker chick, in black leather and everything. And Greg Ilse used to be a professional guitar player before he became an author. He started writing because he thought he could make more money — and he was right!”

Would McGuinn be inspired by these authors to write a book? “This CD/DVD is kind of like my book about my life,” he said.

And no, he wouldn’t want to change a thing about it. “I’m having a good time. I’ve checked off all the boxes. I don’t think there’s a downside to my life,” he said, before reconsidering: “Well, I’d take the drugs away. We really didn’t need LSD or pot to be creative. It was just a diversion. It was entertainment, recreational. It didn’t expand the mind, it just made us think we were smarter. It just made us laugh a lot and eat too much.”

So does McGuinn miss the big time? “The idea that the big time being the be all and end all?” he said. “Having done that, I have to say, it’s not all that great. I don’t mean to be sour grapes about it, but there’s a lot of hassle to it. Not just the paparazzi. The little girls would tackle me and rip off my glasses for a souvenir. It’s not all that wonderful.

“I think there’s a sweet spot between the big time and er, playing the Holiday Inn. Chris Hillman always said, ‘I’ve got this nightmare that if we keep The Byrds together, we’re going to be playing at the Howard Johnsons’!”

Stories, Songs & Friends is available from cdbaby (http://www.cdbaby.com/Artist/RogerMcGuinn). Read the full interview at http://tdy.sg/poparazziblog