50 Fun Facts About The Byrds

The words of the Byrds' number one "Turn! Turn! Turn!" come almost entirely from which book of the Bible?

Ecclesiastes supplied nearly every word, which is why the single is often called the US number one with the oldest lyrics. Only the title refrain and the last two lines were newly written.

Which songwriter wrote "Mr. Tambourine Man", the Byrds' debut single and first number one?

Bob Dylan had not yet released the song when the Byrds' manager got hold of an acetate of it in 1964. He later dropped in on a rehearsal to hear their electric version and gave it his blessing.

Gene Clark quit the Byrds in 1966 after a panic attack made him refuse to do what?

Board a plane: Clark, who had witnessed a fatal air crash as a boy, got off a New York-bound flight, and McGuinn told him that a Byrd had to be able to fly.

Which 1966 Byrds single was banned by many US radio stations for alleged drug references in its lyrics?

Eight Miles High was blacklisted after a trade journal claimed it promoted drugs. The band insisted it described their flight to London and the English tour that followed.

Which 1968 Byrds album, made with newcomer Gram Parsons, is hailed as a landmark of country rock?

Sweetheart of the Rodeo swapped psychedelia for pedal steel and country standards, which lost the band hippie fans and angered Nashville's old guard. It stalled at number 77 on release.

Which made-for-TV band inspired the Byrds' sarcastic single "So You Want to Be a Rock 'n' Roll Star"?

The Monkees had shot to fame through their TV series only months earlier, and McGuinn and Hillman's song poked fun at how such pop stars were manufactured.

Which 1969 counterculture road film features the Byrds' "Wasn't Born to Follow" on its soundtrack?

Easy Rider star and producer Peter Fonda asked for the track himself, and McGuinn went on to write and sing the film's theme song as well.

Byrds drummer Michael Clarke was reportedly hired for his resemblance to which member of the Rolling Stones?

Brian Jones's hairstyle was the look the band wanted, and Clarke had it. His musical experience at the time amounted to playing congas around San Francisco and Los Angeles.

Which singer's rival version of "All I Really Want to Do" beat the Byrds' single on the US chart in 1965?

Cher reached number 15 in America while the Byrds stalled at 40, even though their label rushed the single out to bury hers. In Britain the result was reversed: the Byrds made number 4.

On the cover of The Notorious Byrd Brothers, which animal was rumoured to stand in for the sacked David Crosby?

A horse on the album's cover was taken by some fans as an unkind stand-in for Crosby, who had been fired during the sessions. McGuinn and Hillman have both denied that was the idea.

Roger McGuinn of the Byrds bought his twelve-string Rickenbacker after watching which Beatle play one?

Harrison's chiming twelve-string caught McGuinn's ear, and in the studio he had his own heavily compressed to get an even brighter, longer-sustaining tone.

Byrds frontman Roger McGuinn was known by which first name until he changed it in 1967?

Jim was short for James Joseph McGuinn III. His spiritual teacher asked for new names beginning with R and picked Roger from a list that also offered Rocket and Ramjet.

After the Byrds fired David Crosby, which pair joined him in a supergroup named after its members?

Stills and Nash came from hit bands of their own when they teamed up with Crosby in 1968. A year later the group, by then joined by Neil Young, played Woodstock.

Which rocker covered the Byrds' "I'll Feel a Whole Lot Better" on his 1989 album Full Moon Fever?

Tom Petty tipped his hat to the band that shaped his sound by recording the song for his first solo album. His version reached number 18 on the US rock chart.

Which band's 1972 hit version of "Jesus Is Just Alright" borrowed heavily from the Byrds' 1969 arrangement?

The Doobie Brothers took the gospel song into the US Top 40 three years after the Byrds' own single had stalled at number 97, keeping much of the older band's arrangement.

Critics hear the Byrds in which Beatles album, home to "Nowhere Man" and "If I Needed Someone"?

Rubber Soul's "If I Needed Someone" rides a guitar riff much like the one in the Byrds' cover of "The Bells of Rhymney". The Beatles had named the Byrds their favourite American group.

Which folk singer set the biblical words of "Turn! Turn! Turn!" to music before the Byrds made it a hit?

Pete Seeger wrote the melody, the title refrain and the closing lines. The song was first released in 1962 by the Limeliters, a folk group McGuinn was backing at the time.

Gram Parsons quit the Byrds in 1968 rather than tour which country, objecting to its racial segregation?

South Africa was two days away when Parsons walked out in London. The others went, found themselves playing to segregated audiences despite promoters' assurances, and left amid death threats.

Under which name did McGuinn, Clark and Crosby perform as a trio in 1964 before becoming the Byrds?

The Jet Set was a nod to McGuinn's love of aeronautics. The band kept the theme of flight when they renamed themselves later that year.

Which genre label did the American music press coin in June 1965 to describe the sound of the Byrds?

Folk rock entered the vocabulary just as "Mr. Tambourine Man" reached number one. The single set off a boom of Byrds-influenced acts on the American and British charts through 1966.

The Byrds settled on their deliberately misspelled name over which holiday dinner in 1964?

Thanksgiving 1964 fell two weeks after the band signed to Columbia. The new name kept the theme of flight and copied the Beatles' trick of a deliberate misspelling.

Which jazz trumpeter's recommendation helped the Byrds win their Columbia Records contract in 1964?

Miles Davis put in a helpful word through a contact of the band's manager, and the then-unknown group signed with the label on November 10, 1964.

David Crosby, newly out of the Byrds in 1967, bought which kind of boat that he later called his muse?

A schooner named Mayan, 59 feet long, was the boat Crosby chose. He wrote "Wooden Ships" and several of his other best-known songs aboard it.

At which 1967 festival did David Crosby's onstage speeches about politics and LSD infuriate the other Byrds?

Monterey Pop crowds heard Crosby hold forth on the Kennedy assassination and the merits of giving LSD to politicians. Four months later he was out of the band.

Which jazz saxophonist's free-form solos did the Byrds' Roger McGuinn try to copy on guitar in 1966?

John Coltrane's albums were on constant rotation on the Byrds' tour bus, alongside tapes of Ravi Shankar, and both fed the band's leap into psychedelia.

Which country music institution's crowd heckled the Byrds in 1968 as its first long-haired rock act?

Grand Ole Opry regulars greeted the band with boos and mocking bird calls, and Gram Parsons then broke with the agreed set list to sing a song of his own.

Which country rock band did Chris Hillman and Gram Parsons form after both left the Byrds in 1968?

The Flying Burrito Brothers brought the two men back together within months of their separate exits, and former Byrds drummer Michael Clarke later joined them too.

David Crosby annoyed his fellow Byrds in 1967 by performing with which rival group in place of Neil Young?

Buffalo Springfield were a man short for a major June festival, and Crosby's guest spot with them, on top of his own behaviour that day, soured relations with McGuinn and Hillman.

Which accessory worn by the Byrds' Roger McGuinn in 1965 became a fashion among American hippies?

Granny glasses with rectangular lenses were McGuinn's trademark, worn alongside David Crosby's green suede cape. The band's casual clothes stood out when most groups still dressed alike.

Which nickname is given to the Los Angeles session players who backed McGuinn on the Byrds' debut single?

The Wrecking Crew were hired because the producer doubted the new band could deliver a perfect take in the studio time available. Only McGuinn played, while he, Crosby and Clark sang.

Which producer, the son of film star Doris Day, oversaw the Byrds' first two albums?

Terry Melcher steered the band to two chart-toppers, lost the job after a power struggle with their manager, and was invited back to produce them again in 1969.

Chris Hillman, the Byrds' original bassist, had made his name in bluegrass bands playing which instrument?

Mandolin was Hillman's instrument in the Scottsville Squirrel Barkers and the Hillmen. He had never picked up a bass guitar before the Byrds recruited him to play one.

Roger McGuinn wrote several Byrds songs for Gene Tryp, an unstaged musical based on which Henrik Ibsen play?

Peer Gynt gave the project its title too, since Gene Tryp is an anagram of it. McGuinn and lyricist Jacques Levy moved the story from Norway to the American Southwest.

Which songwriting duo wrote "Goin' Back" and "Wasn't Born to Follow", both recorded by the Byrds in 1967?

Goffin and King's "Goin' Back" split the band. David Crosby dismissed it as lightweight and refused to sing on it, arguing the Byrds should record their own material instead.

Which trumpeter, later famous for "Grazing in the Grass", guested on the Byrds' 1967 single about pop stardom?

Hugh Masekela gave the Byrds the first brass part on any of their records. Chris Hillman had worked out the song's bass line while playing on one of Masekela's own sessions.

Before he owned a drum kit, Byrds drummer Michael Clarke practised on a tambourine and which makeshift items?

Cardboard boxes, struck with real drumsticks, stood in for a kit during the band's first rehearsals in 1964. Clarke's earlier experience had been on hand drums.

Gram Parsons was first hired by the Byrds in 1968 to play which instrument before he switched to guitar?

Keyboards were what McGuinn and Hillman wanted to fill out their three-piece on stage. Parsons soon moved to guitar and pulled the whole band towards country music.

Which British-sounding name did the future Byrds use for their 1964 debut single on Elektra Records?

The Beefeaters was a ploy to cash in on the British Invasion, but the single failed to chart. Session players handled the bass and drums on it.

David Crosby gave "Triad", a song the Byrds declined to release, to which San Francisco band?

Jefferson Airplane put the song, about a three-way love affair, on their 1968 album Crown of Creation after McGuinn and Hillman chose a cover version over it.

Which Byrd co-invented the StringBender, a device that lets a Fender Telecaster mimic a pedal steel guitar?

Clarence White built the device with the band's drummer, Gene Parsons. A lever bends the B string so that an ordinary electric guitar can swoop like a pedal steel.

Which spiritual movement led the Byrds' McGuinn to take the first name Roger in 1967?

Subud, which began in Indonesia, treats a new name as a sign of spiritual rebirth. McGuinn had been initiated in January 1965, the month the Byrds recorded their first hit.

Which future solo star played electric piano as a session musician on the Byrds' "Mr. Tambourine Man"?

Leon Russell was a Los Angeles studio regular who had played piano on Phil Spector productions for the Ronettes and the Crystals. His first solo album followed in 1970.

Which electronic instrument, then new to rock, did the Byrds use on The Notorious Byrd Brothers in 1968?

Moog synthesizer parts on the album were played partly by McGuinn himself, who had first come across the instrument at a festival demonstration booth the previous summer.

The Byrds' album title Younger Than Yesterday comes from the words of which song covered on that record?

My Back Pages supplied the phrase after the working title, Sanctuary, was dropped. The band's cover of the song was later released as a single too.

Which 1969 album is the only one by Roger McGuinn's best-known band on which McGuinn sings every lead vocal?

Dr. Byrds & Mr. Hyde followed so many line-up changes that McGuinn kept his three new bandmates to backing vocals, fearing their unfamiliar voices would confuse fans.

At which Sunset Strip nightclub did the Byrds build their first following during a residency in spring 1965?

Ciro's filled with Hollywood scenesters such as Jack Nicholson and Arthur Lee while teenagers crowded the sidewalk outside. Some historians see those nights as the first stirrings of the hippie counterculture.

Which 1971 Byrds album had strings, horns and a gospel choir overdubbed while the band was away on tour?

Byrdmaniax was orchestrated by its producer, allegedly without the group's consent, and Columbia refused to pay for a remix. One Rolling Stone review wrote the band off as dead and boring.

Which label, founded by David Geffen, paid the five original Byrds to reunite for an album released in 1973?

Asylum Records got one album out of the reunion, titled simply Byrds. It reached number 20 in America, but critics were unimpressed and the planned tour never happened.

Which former Beatles press officer worked as the Byrds' publicist and organised their 1965 tour of England?

Derek Taylor's tour had the band billed as the American rival to his old employers, a label they could not live up to amid illness, poor sound and a hostile press.

Which pop star mentored the Byrds' McGuinn when he worked as a Brill Building songwriter in New York?

Bobby Darin first hired McGuinn in 1962 as a backup guitarist and harmony singer, then paid him $35 a week to write songs for his publishing company.