(Credits: Far Out / Fotoburo De Boer / Noord-Hollands Archief)
Tue 17 March 2026 14:30, UK
Despite so many changes in personnel throughout their history, The Byrds were always consistent when it came to retaining their identity as a group, even if the people involved kept changing.
Throughout the entirety of their original run, Roger McGuinn was at the heart of things, which definitely made maintaining this consistency a little easier, given how he was writing many of the songs for the band. If a band can at least hold onto one person who drives their work in a particular direction for as long as they remain active, then there’s significantly less chance of things going completely astray, but if you’re getting rid of the main source of inspiration, then you might as well call it quits.
Nobody else in the band stayed the same for the duration, but did that really matter if McGuinn was dictating things at all points? Sure, the addition of new members would add slightly different flavours, but if there’s still the presence of McGuinn on all Byrds records, then you’re bound to have a level of consistency that bands who let go of their most formidable members.
Yes, some other members who came and went strived to have their say, with some notable former members such as David Crosby, Gene Clark and Gram Parsons all trying to squeeze in their own ideas and take control, but their eventual departures or firings from the band ensured McGuinn retained his place at the helm.
However, for all of the variety of talent they had in the group, McGuinn himself believed that there was only one guitarist they ever had in their ranks who was able to live up to the challenge, deliver to the highest standard, and even make himself appear on the same level as some of the all-time greats.
While it was their earlier material that was the most successful, he claimed that the period the band had towards the end of the 1960s and into the 1970s was the happiest time for him, and that it saw him working with perhaps the best collaborator he’d ever had in Clarence White.
“Clarence and I were good friends, and we loved playing together,” he later confessed in a 2022 interview with Grammy. “He was probably the best guitar player we ever had. It was like having Jimi Hendrix or Eric Clapton in your band, or something.”
McGuinn then went on to recall how Hendrix was even floored by the abilities of White, who joined the band in 1968 after the departure of Gram Parsons. “I remember one time at the Whisky, Jimi Hendrix came backstage, and he went running right over to Clarence and shook his hand,” he stated.
Adding, “The first time we played at Fillmore East with Clarence and the band, there was a big difference between the way it had been with the audience reaction. The audience was used to a certain level of Byrds musicianship, and when Clarence came out there, he just slayed them. He was just incredible.”
While his tragic death less than a year after the Byrds chose to disband came as a shock to his former bandmates, the final years of the band were seemingly characterised by his brilliance as far as McGuinn was concerned, and while his career up until that point had shown plenty of promise, his unfortunate passing at a young age arguably meant that this star wasn’t able to fulfill his full potential.