Album: The Byrds, Greatest Hits, 1983 reissue
Acquired: I bought this from a pharmacy located in a shopping center located across the street from my elementary school, St. Pius X School, in 1985. I was in high school by then, but I got my hair cut in a doo-licious flattop at a barber shop a few doors down from the pharmacy across the street from St. Pius. Don't ask me why I remember this bit so vividly, but I distinctly recall finding this tape on the bottom shelf of the impulse purchase rack in front of the register at the pharmacy. It was one of maybe six cassettes for sale. What it was doing in the pharmacy is anyone's guess.
Yes, I get paid by the pointless fact when I submit these blog entries. All that stuff about the pharmacy should even earn me a double bonus. Twice nothing! I'll be a rich man.
Best Track: "So You Want to Be a Rock 'n' Roll Star"
Lasting Memory: I didn't really get into music until my freshman year of high school. Even though Clair played a little guitar and Mom had a few hundred records from her time working at Capitol Records in New York in the early 1960s, the Lamb house wasn't what anyone on VH-1's Behind the Music would call a "musical household." (Nick Lachey? What the ...)
I didn't really understand how people could geek out over music and musicians until I saw other kids my age and a little older than I was doing it. It seems odd to come to this realization just now, but I can honestly say that I became something of a good music fan only because I saw a bunch of my wrestling teammates seeking out and enjoying good music. Bob Villaflor and Dave Harris, in particular, showed me the aural ropes.
Which finally gets me to the lasting memory part. I carried The Byrds Greatest Hits tape with me to school for about two weeks straight because I was going to trade it with Bob for his The Smith's Meat Is Murder record. Bob never brought in his record, so I still have my Byrds cassette. I wonder how different my life would have turned out if I had begun listening to The Smiths when I was 14 instead of when I was 22 or so. Would I have worn a pompadour instead of a flattop? Would I have stayed thin? Would I have tried to find a girlfriend in coma?
Only the me in the alternate reality where Bob made good on his end of the album swap knows.
But you all know The Byrds, so I won't belabor or rehash any analysis about how seminal Roger McGuinn, David Crosby, Chris Hillman, Gram Parsons, and the other rotating members of the band were in folk, country, and hyphenated rock subgenres. Instead, for the curious, I'll post links to The Byrds' biographies on the Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame and the Rolling Stone Web sites. The differences are telling in that the Hall goes out of its way to portray the group in a positive light, while the magazine goes a past showing the band's warts to making you smell the pus. I say don't hide history, but at the same time, just enjoy the songs and let people handle their own drama.
One thing I think both band bios should have done is fully draw The Byrds' family tree, of which one branch of would look something like Byrds --> Buffalo Springfield --> Crosby, Still, & Nash (and sometimes Young) --> Neil Young and Crazy Horse --> Pearl Jam. Another branch would look like Byrds -- > Flying Burrito Brothers --> Emmylou Harris --> Ricky Skaggs & Kentucky Thunder --> Ricky Skaggs and Allison Krauss.
A family tree like that would be fascinating. Feel free to make one and show it to me.
A family tree like that would be fascinating. Feel free to make one and show it to me.
Up Next: The Call, Modern Romans, 1983
Word Count to Date: 17,957
1 comment:
I think I actually own a book of rock-and-roll family trees -- I'll have to go look for it.
Go Hokies!
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