![]() ![]() McGuinn is now working on a new project that started over 50 years ago. I was always not considered a real folk singer. "I really always wanted to be a real folk singer and I was always in the peripheral part of folk music as a sideman. ![]() "I thought the Byrds were a good nine-year detour from my dream of becoming like Pete Seeger - a folk singer or a storyteller like Will Rogers or somebody," he says. Also, when I wrote 30 years ago, I put a lot of stuff in there that I don't want anybody to know."Īlso, as successful as the Byrds were, they're not McGuinn's entire story, as he's quick to point out. ![]() "And putting it in book form isn't really important to me. "I really consider that my autobiography," he adds. Besides, some things are better off in the past, he says. "I decided I didn't want to," he says, noting that 2014's Stories Songs & Friends includes several memoir-like recollections. (McGuinn and his wife have been practicing evangelical Christianity since 1978.) He says he has no plans to revisit the project. Years ago, he put together a memoir that was rejected by the publisher for containing too much religious content. McGuinn has revisited his history before. It was kind of a blur back then, everything was happening so quickly." "We did some photo sessions with beauty queens on the beach, things I hadn't seen in awhile. "I didn't remember the photo session with the models," he says. Revisiting these moments brings out a chuckle from McGuinn. Many of those memories are depicted in the upcoming photo book The Byrds: 1964-1967, which includes approximately 500 photographs: studio shots, alternate album covers and just about everything in between. McGuinn, fascinated with John Lennon and George Harrison's Rickenbacker guitars, traded in a couple of his instruments for a 12-string.Īlthough the Byrds persevered through several decades and incarnations, it was their first few years - their "peak," according to McGuinn - that had the strongest impact. When the trio went to see the Beatles' A Hard Days Night in 1964, they were hooked on the excitement of being rock 'n' roll stars. McGuinn recording with the likes of Judy Collins and Simon & Garfunkel before relocating to Los Angeles, where he was offered a performance job at the Troubadour. He soon met David Crosby and Gene Clark, with whom he'd form the Byrds. A year and a half later, he took a job as a staff songwriter at New York City's Brill Building, where Carole King and Gerry Goffin were churning out hits and a steady stream of hit pop music was flowing. McGuinn, 80, got it working sometime in 1962, when, after graduating from Chicago's Old Town School of Folk Music, he began playing local coffeehouses and landed a job as a guitarist for Bobby Darin. "I always felt it was important to be a starving musician," he tells UCR, "to prod you on to getting it working instead of taking a job and doing music on the side." When he looks back at his six-decade career, it's the simple fact that he's made a living in the music business that makes him the proudest. Roger McGuinn has never been one to fuss much. ![]()
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