Toppermost of the Poppermost - UK Number Ones : part 2 - The 1960s

[daf]

Oh well, he'll be back with Suspicious Minds in four years time.

Sadly, and frustratingly, only a number 2 in the Record Retailer, NME and the Melody Maker charts.

Anyone got the 1969 Radio Luxembourg charts? - thinking it might be at the top in that one (. . . that'd count, right?)

[Ballad of Ballard Berkley]

Oh really? Huh. I thought he reached the actual toppermost of the poppermost with that one.

So we won't hear from ol' swivel hips again until The Wonder of You in 1970? Blimey. That must be comforting to people who aren't fussed about him, I suppose.

[daf]

So we won't hear from ol' swivel hips again until The Wonder of You in 1970?

He does get another 'bonus' number 1 before that one - and from the same general 'Comeback Special' era - so I'll make sure to pop Suspicious Minds in that one.

[Ballad of Ballard Berkley]

Excellent!

[Satchmo Distel]

Bob Marley adapted it into the very powerful "Selassie Is The Chapel":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0LRlmCko58o

[machotrouts]

Come back Eddie Fisher nothing is forgiven

[daf]

They ain't heavy, it's . . .

198.  The Hollies - I'm Alive



From : 20 – 26 June 1965 (1)
        + 4 – 17 July 1965 (2)
Weeks : 3
Flip side : You Know He Did
Bonus : Shindig

Allan Clarke and Graham Nash were best friends in primary school in Manchester, and began performing together during the skiffle craze of the late 1950s.

Allan Clarke: "I had nowhere to sit when I was taken there for the first time. Graham put his hand up and said 'Why don't you come and sit next to me?' Which I did and that was the beginning of a friendship which has gone on until now. We used to sing at school together. We went to a lot of clubs and we ended up at the Salford Boys Club. It's quite a well known thing now and a lot of guys that are now in bands remember the Salford Boys Club. We were in a Minstrels band and sang there. At the age of 14, skiffle came in and we fell in love with the Lonnie Donegan sound. I suppose that happened with a lot if kids in England at the time. It gave kids the opportunity to pick up the guitar, learn three chords and sing skiffle. It was a very exciting time."

Eventually Clarke and Nash became a vocal and guitar duo modelled on American duo the Everly Brothers under the names "Ricky and Dane Young".

Allan Clarke : "When Graham and I first heard the Everly Brothers we used to go out dancing every Saturday night. We went to this favourite club of ours and we walked through the door and all of a sudden we heard this song 'Bye, Bye, Love'. The guitars and energy in that song. We thought 'Wow, there's somebody doing it the way we are.' We thought then that we were a part of The Everly Brothers sound, only English. We made that part of our repertoire when we went out because we could do it so well."

"We had got at least 20 skiffle songs together when one day we were rehearsing in my brother's sweetshop in Salford. He said 'Well, you sound pretty good. Why don't I take you up to a club where they have acts on and see if they will give you a spot.' So at 14 years old he took us up to Devonshire Sporting Club in Salford. We went on and sung 'Cumberland Gap', 'Bring A Bit Of Water, Sylvie', four skiffle songs. We went down very, very well and I think it was because we were kids in short trousers but it wasn't sympathy. The guy said 'That was great.' and gave us 10 bob between us, five old shillings each and said 'Will you come back tomorrow and do some more of our other clubs?' That was the start of Graham and I getting even more interested in music. That went on until we turned into The Hollies."

They teamed up with a local band, The Fourtones, consisting of Pete Bocking (guitar), John 'Butch' Mepham (bass), Keith Bates (drums), and Derek Quinn (guitar).



When Quinn quit to join Freddie and the Dreamers in 1962, Clarke and Nash also quit and joined another Manchester band, The Deltas, consisting of Vic Steele on lead guitar, Eric Haydock on bass guitar, and Don Rathbone on drums, which had just lost two members (including Eric Stewart, who left to join The Mindbenders).

The Deltas first called themselves "The Hollies" for a December 1962 gig at the Oasis Club in Manchester. It has been suggested that Eric Haydock named the group in relation to a Christmas holly garland.

Graham Nash : "We called ourselves The Hollies, after Buddy and Christmas."

In January 1963, the Hollies performed at the Cavern Club in Liverpool, where they were seen by Parlophone assistant producer Ron Richards, who had been involved in producing the first Beatles session. Richards offered them an audition with Parlophone, but Steele did not want to be a "professional" musician and left the band in April 1963. For the audition, they brought in Tony Hicks to replace the departing Steele. Hicks played in a Nelson band called The Dolphins, which also featured Bobby Elliott on drums and Bernie Calvert on bass.

Not only were the Hollies signed by Richards, who would continue to produce the band until 1976 and once more in 1979, but a song from the audition, a cover of The Coasters' 1961 single "(Ain't That) Just Like Me", was released as their debut single in May 1963 and hit No.25 on the UK Singles Chart in June 1963.

At this point, after recording only eight songs for Parlophone, Rathbone also decided to leave the band, and Hicks was able to arrange for his Dolphins bandmate Bobby Elliott to replace him as the Hollies' new drummer in August 1963. Their second single, another cover of The Coasters, this time 1957's "Searchin'", hit #12 in September 1963.



They then scored their first British Top 10 hit in November 1963 with a cover of Maurice Williams and the Zodiacs' "Stay", which reached #8. It was lifted from the band's Parlophone debut album, Stay with The Hollies, released on 1 January 1964, which went to #2 on the UK album chart.

The Hollies became known for doing cover versions, and they followed up with "Just One Look" - #2 in March 1964 - a song that had already had top 10 success in the US for Doris Troy. The hits continued with "Here I Go Again" climbing to #4 in May 1964.

By this time, the Hollies were writing and performing a substantial amount of original material, written by the group's songwriting team of Clarke, Nash, and Hicks, and producer Richards finally permitted the group to release its first self-penned hit, "We're Through". Reaching #7 in September 1964, it was credited to a pseudonym, "L. Ransford", the name of Graham Nash's grandfather. This was followed by two more cover versions, "Yes I Will" - #9 in January 1965, and finally the Clint Ballard, Jr.-penned "I'm Alive" which became the band's first UK No.1 in July 1965.

Finally, the Hollies broke through in North America with an original song that they requested from Manchester's Graham Gouldman. "Look Through Any Window", a UK #4 in September 1965, broke the Hollies into the US Top 40 - reaching #32 in January 1966, and was also a top 3 hit in Canada.

 

Their follow-up single, a version of George Harrison's new song "If I Needed Someone", was undercut when the Beatles decided to release their own version on the UK album Rubber Soul - and only reached #20 in the UK in December 1965. The Hollies then returned to the UK Top 10 with "I Can't Let Go" (UK #2 and US #42 in March 1966).

At this point, a dispute between the Hollies and their management broke out over what bass guitarist Eric Haydock contended were excessive fees being charged to the group by management. As a result, Haydock decided to take a leave of absence from the group. While he was gone, the group brought in the Beatles' good friend Klaus Voorman to play on a few gigs and recorded two singles with fill-ins on bass :

The first was the Burt Bacharach-Hal David song "After the Fox" (released in September 1966), which featured Peter Sellers on vocals, Jack Bruce on electric bass and Burt Bacharach himself on keyboards, and was the theme song from the Sellers film of the same name. Despite the stellar line-up, it failed to chart.

The second, "Bus Stop" - a UK #5 and US #6 in June 1966, was another top class Gouldman song, which featured Bernie Calvert, a former bandmate of Hicks and Elliott from The Dolphins, on bass. Calvert also played a tour of Yugoslavia with the band in May 1966. Although Eric Haydock ultimately proved to be correct about the fee dispute, he was sacked in early July 1966 in favour of Calvert after "Bus Stop" became a huge hit.

At the time of Haydock's departure, Clarke, Nash and Hicks participated (along with session guitarist Jimmy Page, bass guitarist John Paul Jones & Ringo and pianist Elton John) in the recording of the Everly Brothers' 1966 album Two Yanks in England, which consisted largely of covers of "L. Ransford" compositions. After the Everly Brothers album, the Hollies stopped publishing original songs under this pseudonym.

In October 1966, the group's fifth album, For Certain Because, became their first album consisting entirely of original compositions by Clarke, Nash and Hicks. Released in the US as Stop! Stop! Stop!, it spawned a US release-only single, "Pay You Back with Interest", which was a modest hit, peaking at #28.

Meanwhile, the Hollies continued to release a steady stream of international hit singles: "Stop Stop Stop" (UK #2 and US #7 in October 1966)  /  "On a Carousel" (UK #4 and US #11 in February 1967)  /  and "Carrie Anne" (UK #3, US #9, in May 1967).

In mid-February 1967, Bobby Elliott collapsed on stage due to an inflamed appendix. The Hollies were forced to continue their touring commitments without him, using Tony Mansfield, Dougie Wright and Tony Newman as stand-ins for further live dates, and Wright, Mitch Mitchell and Clem Cattini when they began recording for their next album, Evolution, which was released on 1 June 1967, the same day as the Beatles' Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.



Nash's attempt to expand the band's range with a more ambitious composition, "King Midas in Reverse", only reached #18 in the UK charts. The Hollies then released the ambitious, psychedelic album Butterfly, retitled for the US market as King Midas in Reverse/Dear Eloise, but it failed to chart. In response, Clarke and Nash wrote a "bubblegum" song "Jennifer Eccles" which was a hit (UK #7 in March 1968) .

The failure of "King Midas in Reverse" had increased tension within the band, with Clarke and Hicks wanting to record more "pop" material than Nash did. Matters reached a head when the band rejected Nash's "Marrakesh Express" and then decided to record an album made up entirely of Bob Dylan covers. Nash did take part in one Dylan cover, "Blowin' in the Wind", but made no secret of his disdain for the idea and repeatedly clashed with producer Ron Richards.

In August 1968 the Hollies recorded "Listen to Me" written by Tony Hazzard (UK #11 in September 1968), which featured Nicky Hopkins on piano. That proved to be Nash's last recording session with the Hollies; he officially left the group to move to Los Angeles, where he tentatively planned to become primarily a songwriter. Nash told Disc magazine, "I can't take touring any more. I just want to sit at home and write songs. I don't really care what the rest of the group think."

After relocating to Los Angeles, he joined with former Buffalo Springfield guitarist Stephen Stills and ex-Byrds singer and guitarist David Crosby to form one of the first supergroups, Crosby, Stills & Nash, which released "Marrakesh Express" as its debut single. The B-side of "Listen to Me" - "Do the Best You Can" - was the last original recording of a Clarke-Hicks-Nash song to appear on a Hollies record.

Graham Nash was replaced in the Hollies in January 1969 by Terry Sylvester, formerly of the Escorts and the Swinging Blue Jeans. Sylvester also substituted for Nash as part of the group's songwriting team, with Clarke and Hicks. As planned before Nash's departure, the group's next album was Hollies Sing Dylan, which reached the #3 position on the UK chart.

Nash's departure saw the Hollies again turn to outside writers for their single A-sides, but the group's British chart fortunes rallied during 1969 and 1970, beginning with the Geoff Stephens/Tony Macaulay song, "Sorry Suzanne", which reached #3 in the UK in February 1969.

Allan Clarke : "I suppose Graham did me a favour by leaving. It was not one of the best things to happen to me but it made me grow up in the way I had to take over things. I had to make decisions that maybe Graham used to take. Terry Sylvester took over very well from Graham. 'Sorry Suzanne' being there at the right time was the right type of song for The Hollies. I think it made number two and making number two after Graham had left was like having a number one. There was no gap in between Graham leaving and us having a hit single. I don't think that it ever crossed Graham's mind that he thought 'Hey, you're not going to get anywhere without me.' But we proved him wrong."



The follow-up was the emotional ballad "He Ain't Heavy, He's My Brother" written by Bobby Scott and Bob Russell, which featured the piano playing of Elton John; it reached #3 in the UK in October 1969, and #7 in the US in March 1970.

Allan Clarke : "A fabulous song that came out of the blue again. It was one that Tony found. It was just on a publisher's desk. Tony said 'What's that?' and he said 'Have it. It's a song called He Ain't Heavy.' He brought it again to Ron Richards. We thought that maybe ballads weren't our thing at that time but the actual message of that song got through to us. We thought that we've got to give this song a chance. It was beautifully orchestrated, the production on it was marvelous and we got really good vocals out of that."

The Hollies' next single, "I Can't Tell the Bottom from the Top", again featured the young Elton John on piano and reached #7 in the UK in May 1970. The UK hits continued with the UK #14 "Gasoline Alley Bred" (written by Cook/Greenaway/Macaulay) in October 1970, while the Tony Hicks song "Too Young to Be Married" – merely an album track in the UK and the US – became a #1 single in Australia, New Zealand and Malaysia. Allan Clarke's hard-edged rocker "Hey Willy" made #22 in the UK in 1971 and charted in eight other countries.

By 1971, like Graham Nash before him, frontman Allan Clarke was growing frustrated, and he too began clashing with producer Ron Richards over material; after seeing Nash's success since departing, he was eager to leave the group and cut a solo album. After the 1971 album Distant Light, which concluded the band's EMI/Parlophone contract in the UK, Clarke departed from the Hollies in December.

The Hollies signed with Polydor for the UK/Europe in 1972, and Swedish singer Mikael Rickfors, formerly of the group Bamboo, was quickly recruited by the rest of the band and sang lead on the group's first Polydor single "The Baby" (UK #26 in March 1972).



Meanwhile, Parlophone lifted a Clarke-composed track from the previously-unsuccessful album 'Distant Light' (that also featured Clarke on lead vocals and lead guitar), "Long Cool Woman in a Black Dress".

Allan Clarke : "Long Cool Woman' was on an album called 'Distant Light' which we were very pleased with. I wrote this song with Roger Cook who produced the second album which is on 'Sideshow'. I used to meet him in Park Lane where he had an office for Air Studios. One day I had my guitar and we had a bottle of brandy between us and we wrote 'Long Cool Woman'. It was very different from what I usually write. I went into the studios with The Hollies and Ron Richards was ill and got into starting 'Long Cool Woman'. Tony said to me 'You wrote it. You play the guitars.' I said 'Ok.'. I'd laid the guitar tracks down with Bobby, and Bernie on bass and then put the vocal on in two takes. The engineer mixed it and put the slap echo on my vocal and we said 'Right. That's a great album track.'"

It was only a minor #32 hit in the UK, the song became a smash hit outside of Europe, peaking at #2 in the US and Australia in September 1972.

Allan Clarke : "It was put on the album and then I left The Hollies. Not that I wanted to leave The Hollies I just wanted to do something different. I was writing things with Roger Cook and a lot of other people and I wanted to do things my way. The way I look at 'Long Cool Woman' is that was where I wanted to be, an off the cuff thing, and it happened so quickly. I got a phone call from America from a company called Carlin Music and I wanted to know why they wanted to publish it. They said 'Well, it's racing up the charts. The Hollies have got a hit with it.' And there I was, I was the guy that sang the song. I was the guy that played guitars and I wasn't going to be able to go over there to promote it. But you know it made number two in America and virtually number one everywhere else in the world but in England. "

"Long Dark Road", another track from 'Distant Light', was then also released as a US single, reaching #26 in December 1972.

Meanwhile, the Rickfors-led Hollies released their first album, Romany in October 1972. A second Rickfors-sung single, "Magic Woman Touch", released in January 1973, failed to chart in the UK, becoming the band's first official single to miss the UK charts since 1963. A second Rickfors/Hollies album, Out on the Road, was recorded and issued only in Germany in 1973.

With the US success of 'Distant Light' and its singles, Epic pressured Clarke and the Hollies to reform, placing Rickfors in an awkward position. Clarke decided to rejoin the band the summer of 1973, and Rickfors left.

Allan Clarke : "I had a meeting with Tony one day. He said 'Look, we're missing you. Do you fancy coming back to the group and carrying on as we were?'. It was a no brainer to me. I said 'Yeah, let's do it. Let's get on with it. Let's write some songs.' I think the first song I wrote was 'The Day That Curly Billy Shot Down Crazy Sam McGee'. So I wrote that song in mind that it could probably be a follow up to 'Long Cool Woman' but the gap had been too long. But it was a hit."

After Clarke's return, the Hollies returned to the charts with another swamp rock-style song penned by Clarke, "The Day That Curly Billy Shot Down Crazy Sam McGee", reaching #24 in the UK in 1973.

In 1974 they scored what was to be their last major new US and UK hit single with the Albert Hammond/Mike Hazlewood-composed love song "The Air That I Breathe", which reached #2 in the UK and Australia and made the Top 10 in the US. The next single, "Another Night", only managed to reach #71 in the US in July 1975. And after the US failure of the Hollies' single "4th of July, Asbury Park", written by Bruce Springsteen, Epic gave up on the Hollies in the US.

 

The Hollies continued to have singles chart hits during the rest of the seventies, but mostly in Europe and New Zealand. In 1976 the group released three singles, none of which charted in the UK or the US : "Star" an uptempo harmony number reminiscent of their sixties hits, charted only in New Zealand and Australia, the hard rock number "Daddy Don't Mind" charted only in The Netherlands and Germany, and "Wiggle That Wotsit," an excursion into disco territory, charted only in The Netherlands, Sweden, and New Zealand.

Always very professional in their continuous concert engagements, the Hollies had album chart successes with compilation albums in 1977 and 1978, which kept them going through the late 1970s, and by the end of the Eighties they would be back at the top of the charts . . .

"I'm Alive" was written for The Hollies by American songwriter Clint Ballard Jr. However they originally passed the song over to another Manchester band, The Toggery Five, before changing their minds and recording the song, which became their first No 1 hit in the UK Singles Chart.



It spent three weeks at number one in the UK and was also a #1 hit in Ireland. The song was released as a single in the US peaking at #84 in August 1965.



 

Other Versions include :   The Blizzards (1965)  /  "Je revis" by Frank Alamo (1965)  /  "Grazie a te" by The Rokes (1965)  /  Syndicate of Sound (1966)  /  "Tunnen sen" by The Esquires (1966)  /  "Es Begann" by Hans Blum (1966)  /  Olsen & Olsen (1987)  /  Danny McEvoy (2011)  /  Fletan Power (2014)  /  The Substitutes (2016)  /  Ilkka & Logic Pro X (2018)

On This Day  :

20 June : Ira Louvin, country singer (The Louvin Brothers), dies at 41
22 June : David O Selznick, Film producer, dies of a heart attack at 63
23 June : Bonehead, (Oasis), born Paul Benjamin Arthurs in Burnage, Manchester
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
4 July : Jo Whiley, radio DJ, born Johanne Morton Whiley in Northampton
7 July : Otis Redding records "Respect"
14 July :  Italian Felice Gimondi wins 52nd Tour de France
15 July : "Mariner IV" sends back 1st pictures of Mars

Extra! Extra! Read all about it! :

             

[The Culture Bunker]

It's far from my favourite Hollies number ('I Can't Let Go' would have been an ace #1), but it's miles better than the tepid pap from Elvis we had just before. Strong chorus, nice playing and singing from the lads.

[Satchmo Distel]

Something rather odd happened to those charts because Elvis and the Hollies both went back to No. 1. It's very unusual for two consecutive tracks to do that.

[purlieu]

Ooh, I enjoyed that. Strong but wistful melody, sweeping chorus, good vocals, nice guitar jangle, poundy drums. That's the best 'song I didn't previously know' in this thread for a while.

[machotrouts]

I don't fully trust this song. I find it slightly too easy to imagine a choir singing it.

The Hollies then released the ambitious, psychedelic album ... but it failed to chart. In response, Clarke and Nash wrote a "bubblegum" song "Jennifer Eccles" which was a hit (UK #7 in March 1968) .

Love how obnoxiously on-the-nose all the comedy noises are. "Is THIS what you bubblegum-addled cunts fucking want? IS IT? FUCK you!"

The Hollies' next single, "I Can't Tell the Bottom from the Top"

Ah yes I remember when that Boyfriend Twins blog went viral, didn't know it had a theme tune though.

[Ballad of Ballard Berkley]

Love how obnoxiously on-the-nose all the comedy noises are. "Is THIS what you bubblegum-addled cunts fucking want? IS IT? FUCK you!"

The vocals sound so disdainful too, they're not even trying to hide their piss-taking cynicism. Nice one, Hollies.

As for I'm Alive, it's not my favourite imperial phase Hollies single - that honour goes to either Bus Stop, King Midas In Reverse or the aforementioned I Can't Let Go - but it's still a bracing bit of proto-power pop. They leave you in no doubt that they are indeed very much alive.

[The Culture Bunker]

When you listen to a Hollies compilation (my own choice: '20 Golden Greats'), it might be surprising to know they only had one chart topper in the 60s/early 70s. But then, the Who didn't get any and the Kinks have only one more coming up while a class act like the Zombies never even got a sniff of the top ten.

Hollies secret weapon: Bobby Elliot, despite dodgy hairpieces/hats.

[daf]

The Who didn't get any

Thanks to the lovely Melody Maker chart, they will be smashing up their guitars in this thread in the not too distant future.

[The Culture Bunker]

Fair enough! I sometimes forget we're covering all bases on that front. Though I'm guessing we still won't be covering (for example) Elvis Costello and Bananarama.

[daf]

Though I'm guessing we still won't be covering (for example) Elvis Costello and Bananarama.

Costello gets a legit #1 in both the Melody Maker and the NME charts - you can probably guess which song!

Bananarama do appear at the top spot twice - with Band Aid in 1984 and Band Aid II in 1989 - so I could pop them in one of those  - probably the second - as it'll tie in nicely with PWL who produced that one.

[daf]

The Price of Drugs, it's . . .

198b. (NME 194.)  The Everly Brothers - The Price of Love



From :  3 - 9 July 1965
Weeks : 1
Flip side : It Only Costs A Dime

In the early sixties Don Everly, depleted by years of constant touring, became involved with Ritalin therapy – essentially a program that mixed an amphetamine-like stimulant and vitamins to restore a patient's general perkiness.

Don : "People didn't understand drugs that well then. They didn't know what they were messing with. It wasn't against the law: I saw a picture of my doctor with the president, you know? But it got out of hand, naturally. It was a real disaster for a lot of people, and it was a disaster for me. Ritalin made you feel energized. You could stay up for days. It just got me strung out. I got so far out there, I didn't know what I was doing."

Don's first wife divorced him in 1961, by which time he was consorting with Venetia Stevenson, a model he'd met on the Ed Sullivan TV show. In 1962, to avoid the draft, the Everlys enlisted together in the Marine Corps reserves, doing six months with a howitzer unit at Camp Pendleton. Don emerged from this drugless stint considerably strengthened. He married Venetia, a new beginning. But soon he was back on Ritalin. Phil, meanwhile, had been briefly involved with a different program of drug treatments. And, increasingly, the brothers were at each other's throats.

Phil : "What we needed was to take a long vacation, to get off the merry-go-round. There were too many people making too much money off us, keeping us going. Things were too confused. We should have taken a long rest. But in those days we couldn't. The tensions between Don and I ... well, we're just a family that is like that, I guess. Everything that was happening then contributed to it. But you could just as easily say that the tension between us existed from day one, from birth. And will go on forever."

The Everlys' 1962 hits, "Crying in the Rain," a Brill Building song written by Carole King and Howard Greenfield, and "That's Old Fashioned (That's the Way Love Should Be)," were to be their last two to reach the Top Ten in the US. Don was by then obsessed with Ritalin – and, in his growing paranoia, feeling smothered as an individual artist within the Everly Brothers.

One crazed day in a London hotel room, during an Autumn tour of England, he attempted to kill himself by taking an overdose of barbiturates. Venetia got him to a hospital, where his stomach was pumped. Released, he returned to his hotel and tried again, gulping more pills. This time, his rescuers put him on a plane back to the States, where he was committed to the mental ward of a New York City hospital and given electroshock therapy.

Don : "They say shock therapy is good for some things, but it didn't do me any good. It was a pretty primitive treatment at the time – once they gave it to you, you couldn't remember how long you'd been there. It knocked me back for a long time. I thought I'd never write again."

 

With the help of a psychiatrist, Don slowly conquered his addiction to Ritalin over the ensuing months. But it was too late to halt the slide of the Everlys' career.  Suddenly, all in a rush, it seemed, The British Invasion with Beatlemania, Dave Clark's 'Tottenham Sound' and The Brumbeats, had swept all in it's path.

Don : "When Phil and I started out, everyone hated rock & roll. The record companies didn't like it at all – felt it was an unnecessary evil. And the press: interviewers were always older than us, and they let you know they didn't like your music, they were just doing the interview because it was their job. Then along came the Sixties, and everyone suddenly got real young, and if you were over thirty, they didn't trust you."

Though their US stardom had begun to wane two years before the British Invasion in 1964, their appeal was still strong in the UK. Their singles were regularly charting in the Top 30, and in 1965 were back at the Top Spot with "The Price of Love". While it was officially a #2 on the Record Retailer chart, it climbed the top of the NME charts for a week in July 1965.

The follow-up, "I'll Never Get Over You" was less sucessful - only reaching #35 in September 1965, but they were back with the Top 11 hit, "Love Is Strange", in October 1965. This would be their last UK chart entry till "It's My Time" briefly dipped it's toe in at #39 in May 1968.

Both 'The Price of Love' and 'I'll Never Get Over You' were included on their next album 'In Our Image', which was released in April 1966.

 

Also included were : "It's All Over"  /  the Sonny Curtis-written "I Used To Love You"  /  Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil's "Glitter And Gold"  /  "Lovey Kravezit"  /  "(You Got) The Power of Love"  /  "Leave My Girl Alone"  /  "The Doll House Is Empty" which would be released as a single in February 1966  /  "(Why Am I) Chained To A Memory"  /  and "June Is As Cold As December"

Their next album, Two Yanks in England, inspired by the fashionable sounds coming from the British scene was recorded in the UK. Released in 1966, it was essentially a Hollies album with the brothers appearing as featured vocalists.

 

The backing band on most of the recordings were The Hollies, and eight of the twelve songs featured were credited to "L. Ransford", the songwriting pseudonym of The Hollies' Allan Clarke, Tony Hicks and Graham Nash. Jimmy Page, John Paul Jones & Ringo, and Elton John are also purported to play on the record as session musicians

Two singles were released from the album in the US; "Somebody Help Me" (b/w "Hard Hard Year") in late 1966 and "Fifi the Flea" (b/w "Like Every Time Before") in early 1967. Both singles failed to chart.

In the UK, just one single was released from the album: "I've Been Wrong Before" in August 1966. This also failed to chart. Also featured were Manfred Mann's, "Pretty Flamingo"  /  "So Lonely"   /  "Kiss Your Man Goodbye" written by Don & Phil  /  "Signs That Will Never Change"  /  "Have You Ever Loved Somebody?" /   "Don't Run and Hide"  /  and another Don & Phil composition, "The Collector", written with Sonny Curtis.

In 1968, they released the 'album Roots,' which was an exploration into the burgeoning country-rock scene.

 

Bookended by 1952 recordings of the brothers : "The Introduction: The Everly Family (1952)" and  "Montage: The Everly Family (1952)", the album also included songs written by Glen Campbell : "Less of Me", Randy Newman : "Illinois", Jimmie Rodgers : "T for Texas", two by Merle Haggard : "Mama Tried" and "Sing Me Back Home", and a Don & Phil original : "I Wonder If I Care as Much".

Despite positive reviews, the album was not a commercial success, and the Brothers found themselves floundering for a coherent musical direction . . .

Don : "The Sixties, boy. I remember meeting Jimi Hendrix one night at the Scene, Steve Paul's club in New York. I was working the Latin Quarter at the time, right? And I had never been to Greenwich Village before, so Steve and Jimi took me on a tour. Here we were, Steve wearing a bathrobe, the three of us smoking a joint in the back seat of his limo. I was still worried about getting busted, but they didn't seem to be. We went to the Bitter End, and there was Joni Mitchell, whom I had already fallen in love with via records. My life changed. I wanted to play these places, too. I wanted to be a part of this music scene. I became friends with Jimi, liked him a lot. He invited me to sessions, even came around to the Latin Quarter to see me, can you believe it?"

"It was all very strange. I took LSD – the best, Owsley's orange sunshine – but I was wearing tuxedos at the same time. We'd be playing a country show one night, then the Fillmore West the next, with the Sons of Champlin or somebody. Played the Bitter End, too, finally. Met Bob Dylan there one night. We were looking for songs, and he was writing "Lay Lady Lay" at the time. He sang parts of it, and we weren't quite sure whether he was offering it to us or not. It was one of those awestruck moments. We wound up cutting the song about fifteen years later."

Phil : "The Sixties weren't my cup of tea. I never bought that philosophy that, you know, we're all brothers and that'll solve everything. And I never believed that music dictated the times. I always thought it reflected them. We were against the grain in that period, and there was a lot of confusion about our direction. Maybe we were just losing the freshness of it all, losing interest."

Don : "We played Saigon once, a benefit for the Tan Son Nhut orphanage. That night we sat on the roof of this house and watched them napalming stuff outside the city. We played a lot of hospitals in the Philippines, too, full of Vietnam casualties. That's when it began to dawn on me that something was dreadfully wrong with that war. I became very political in my mind, totally anti-Nixon, but there didn't seem to be much I could do about it. We were working nine, ten months out of the year; we were really out of touch with what was going on in the world."



In December 1970 came the release of 'Don Everly,' the first solo album by one of the brothers. Perhaps reflecting Don's state of mind at that point, it was a somewhat woozy effort, recorded with the assistance of much booze and other mind-scrambling substances.

By 1971, Phil's first and Don's second marriages had ended. Phil married his second wife, Patricia Mickey, and in 1972 Don met his third-wife-to-be, Karen Prettyman. In June 1973, Phil released his first solo album, 'Star Spangled Springer' with his new wife joining in on two songs.

The split came one month later – at the John Wayne Theatre at Knott's Berry Farm near Los Angeles on July 14th. Don got so drunk that the show was stopped midway through the second of three scheduled sets. Phil, furious, stormed offstage, smashing his guitar to the floor before disappearing. Don carried on alone for the third set. When a spectator asked, "Where's Phil?" he replied, "The Everly Brothers died ten years ago."

Don : "It was a flip statement. I was a half in the bag that evening – the only time I've ever been drunk onstage in my life. I knew it was the last night, and on the way out I drank some tequila, drank some champagne – started celebrating the demise. It was really a funeral. People thought that night was just some brouhaha between Phil and me. They didn't realize we had been working our buns off for years. We had never been anywhere without working; had never known any freedom. We were just strapped together like a team of horses. It's funny, the press hadn't paid any attention to us in ten years, but they jumped on that. It was one of the saddest days of my life."

Phil : "It was silly, you know? But Donald had decided. It was a dark day."

For the next ten years, apart from seeing each other at their father's funeral in 1975, the Everlys didn't speak. Don eventually moved back to Nashville, went fishing, practiced his pasta cookery, and generally kicked back. The Nashville years were a time of healing; Don had a new, stabilizing romantic relationship, with a woman named Diane Craig.

By 1983, he was ready to consider the prospect of a rapprochement with Phil. Their reunion concerts at The Royal Albert Hall in London, filmed for a TV special and recorded for a double album, were hailed as a triumph.



Rockpile's Dave Edmunds was chosen to produce their comeback album. Searching for some hitworthy material, and realizing that the Beatles had been major Everly Brothers fans in their youth, Edmunds rang up Paul McCartney to ask for a song.

Don : "Dave said it was the hardest phone call he ever made, because McCartney is always being asked for something. Paul said if he could come up with anything, he'd give a call. Dave forgot about it, but about six weeks later, the phone rang, and it was McCartney. He said, "I think I've got one."

McCartney's contribution, "On the Wings of a Nightingale", was the center-piece of the ensuing album, 'EB' 84', and became their final UK chart entry - peaking at #41 in September 1984.

Phil Everly died of lung disease at Providence Saint Joseph Medical Center in Burbank, California, on 3 January 2014, 16 days before his 75th birthday.

"The Price of Love" was written by Don Everly and Phil Everly, and first performed by The Everly Brothers in 1965. It charted at number 2 in the UK and number 3 in Ireland. On the NME chart in spent one week at Number 1 in the UK, meanwhile in the USA, the song failed to chart at the hot 100.



Other Versions include :   "Le prix d'aimer" by Frank Alamo (1965)  /  Status Quo (1969)  /  Bryan Ferry (1976)  /  Cisse Häkkinen (1979)  /  Poco (1982)  /  The Nighthawks (1986)  /  Andrew Ridgeley (1990)  /  Cud (1991)  /  Robson & Jerome (1996)  /  Depeche Mode (1981)  /  Teddy Thompson (2008)  /  Danny McEvoy (2011)  /  Panthea (2012)  /  Steve & Dave (2015)  /  Marianne Faithfull (2016)

Extra! Extra! Read all about it! :

         

[Satchmo Distel]

1) The Price of Love: It's a bit of a mash of styles: the Everlys trying to incorporate The Beatles and Dylan rather than just trusting the value of the song, which would have worked better in their old style. They are a country vocal harmony act not R&B or folk rock.

2) Hollies: Nash discusses the reasons he left the group. I'm surprised he doesn't mention 'Jennifer Eccles' here because when he was on Radcliffe and Maconie he cited that song as the final straw:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2wwln1lY_rQ

'King Midas In Reverse' is another example of the UK pop market often being too conditioned by MOR to adapt to something really innovative, even though it was post-Pepper and recorded at Abbey Road.

3) Costello: in addition to no 'official' No. 1 single, he also stalled at 2 on the albums chart behind a compilation called 'Don't Walk - Boogie', which wouldn't happen now because those compilations are excluded from the artist chart. It's a very odd compilation; tracks with nothing in common:

https://www.discogs.com/Various-Dont-Walk-Boogie/release/771550

[The Culture Bunker]

Costello gets a legit #1 in both the Melody Maker and the NME charts - you can probably guess which song!

Bananarama do appear at the top spot twice - with Band Aid in 1984 and Band Aid II in 1989 - so I could pop them in one of those  - probably the second - as it'll tie in nicely with PWL who produced that one.

I hadn't considered the music mags were still doing their own charts in 1979! Or charity singles - I guess Band Aid(s) and USA For Africa provide a chance to talk about loads of bods who otherwise didn't make #1 here. I'm fully expecting revelant posts about Kenny Loggins, Huey Lewis and Hall and Oates.

[daf]

'Don't Walk - Boogie' (. . .) It's a very odd compilation; tracks with nothing in common:

Oh my word - that is an absolute corker of a track-list. Think I'm going to have to track down a copy of that one!

[daf]

I hadn't considered the music mags were still doing their own charts in 1979!

Remarkably, both the NME and Melody Maker continued to compile and publish their own charts right up until March 1988 - So there are plenty more to come.

I'm fully expecting revelant posts about Kenny Loggins, Huey Lewis and Hall and Oates.

Well, I'll do my best - going to need a bigger spreadsheet here!

[The Culture Bunker]

Well, I'll do my best - going to need a bigger spreadsheet here!

I think if you had to research and compile texts on the various sorts that appear on one British 1985 charity single, you'd crack up first.

[Satchmo Distel]

We recently had 'Ferry Aid' on the TOTP thread, which plumbed the absolute dregs of the z-list pool. I would just copy and paste the links with the hyperlinks for each 'act' embedded:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferry_Aid#Performers

[DrGreggles]

We recently had 'Ferry Aid' on the TOTP thread, which plumbed the absolute dregs of the z-list pool. I would just copy and paste the links with the hyperlinks for each 'act' embedded:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferry_Aid#Performers

Not quite 'Dr in Distress' levels of WHOOOOOO???, but a fair stab at it.

[machotrouts]

I'm going to spend most of the second half of the 1960s bitterly resenting harmonicas, aren't I?

[daf]

With their jingle-jangle guitar, They'll come followin' you, it's . . .

199.  The Byrds - Mr Tambourine Man



From : 18 – 31 July 1965
Weeks : 2
Flip side : I Knew I'd Want You
Bonus : TV Performance

The Story of The Byrds :

The original five-piece lineup of The Byrds consisted of (from left to right) : Chris Hillman (bass guitar, vocals), David Crosby (rhythm guitar, vocals), Michael Clarke (drums), Jim McGuinn (lead guitar, vocals, tiny rectangular sunglasses), and Gene Clark (tambourine, vocals)



The nucleus of the Byrds formed in early 1964, when Jim McGuinn, Gene Clark, and David Crosby came together as a trio. All three musicians had a background rooted in folk music, with each one having worked as a folk singer on the acoustic coffeehouse circuit during the early 1960s. In addition, they had all served time, independently of each other, as sidemen in various "collegiate folk" groups: McGuinn with The Limeliters and The Chad Mitchell Trio, Clark with the New Christy Minstrels, and Crosby with Les Baxter's Balladeers.

By early 1964, Jim McGuinn had become enamored with the music of The Beatles, and had begun to intersperse his solo folk repertoire with acoustic versions of Beatles' songs. While performing at The Troubadour folk club in Los Angeles, McGuinn was approached by fellow Beatles fan Gene Clark, and the pair soon formed a Peter and Gordon-style duo, playing Beatles' covers, Beatlesque renditions of traditional folk songs, and some self-penned material. Soon after, David Crosby introduced himself to the duo at The Troubadour and began harmonizing with them on some of their songs.

Gene Clark : "McGuinn and I started picking together in The Troubadour bar which was called 'The Folk Den' at the time ... We went into the lobby and started picking on the stairway where the echo was good and David came walking up and just started singing away with us doing the harmony part ... We hadn't even approached him."

Impressed by the blend of their voices, the three musicians formed a trio and named themselves The Jet Set, a moniker inspired by McGuinn's love of aeronautics. Crosby introduced McGuinn and Clark to his associate Jim Dickson, who had access to World Pacific Studios, where he had been recording demos of Crosby. Dickson quickly took on management duties for the group, while his business partner, Eddie Tickner, became the group's accountant and financial manager.



Drummer Michael Clarke was added to the Jet Set in mid-1964. Clarke was recruited largely due to his good looks and Brian Jones-esque hairstyle, rather than for his musical experience. As the band continued to rehearse, Dickson arranged a one-off single deal for the group with Elektra Records' founder Jac Holzman. The single, released on 7 October 1964, coupled the band originals "Please Let Me Love You" and "Don't Be Long", featured McGuinn, Clark, and Crosby, augmented by session musicians Ray Pohlman on bass and Earl Palmer on drums. In an attempt to cash in on the British Invasion craze that was dominating the American charts at the time, the band's name was changed for the single release to the suitably British-sounding The Beefeaters. It failed to chart.

In August 1964, Dickson managed to acquire an acetate disc of the then-unreleased Bob Dylan song "Mr. Tambourine Man". Although the band was initially unimpressed with the song, they began rehearsing it with a rock band arrangement, changing the time signature from 2/4 to a rockier 4/4 configuration in the process. In an attempt to bolster the group's confidence in the song, Dickson invited Dylan himself to World Pacific to hear the band perform "Mr. Tambourine Man". Impressed by the group's rendition, Dylan enthusiastically commented, "Wow, man! You can dance to that!"

Soon after, inspired by the Beatles' film A Hard Day's Night, particularly the jangly guitar arpeggio in the fade-out to A Hard Days Night - which would become their trademark sound - the band decided to equip themselves with similar instruments to the Fabulous Four : a Rickenbacker twelve-string guitar for McGuinn, a Ludwig drum kit for Clarke, and a Gretsch Tennessean guitar for Clark (although Crosby commandeered it soon after, resulting in Clark switching to tambourine). Crafting their entire sound from

In October 1964, Dickson recruited mandolin player Chris Hillman as band's bassist. Hillman's background was more oriented towards country music than folk or rock, having been a member of bluegrass group the Scottsville Squirrel Barkers. Two weeks later, during a Thanksgiving dinner at Eddie Tickner's house, the Jet Set decided to rename themselves as "The Byrds", a name that retained the theme of flight and also echoed the deliberate misspelling of The Beatles.



Columbia Records released the "Mr. Tambourine Man" single on April 12, 1965. The full, electric rock band treatment that the Byrds and producer Terry Melcher had given the song effectively created the template for the musical subgenre of folk rock. McGuinn's melodic, jangling twelve-string Rickenbacker guitar playing—which was heavily compressed to produce an extremely bright and sustained tone—was immediately influential and has remained so to the present day.

 

The Mr. Tambourine Man album followed on 21 June 21 1965, peaking at #6 in the US and chart and #7 on the UK Albums Chart. The album mixed reworkings of folk songs, including Pete Seeger's musical adaptation of the Idris Davies' poem "The Bells of Rhymney", with a number of other Dylan covers and the band's own compositions including Clark's "I'll Feel a Whole Lot Better". Upon release, the Mr. Tambourine Man album served to establish the band as an internationally successful rock act, representing the first effective American challenge to the dominance the British Invasion.

 

The Byrds' next single was "All I Really Want to Do", another interpretation of a Dylan song. Despite the success of "Mr. Tambourine Man", the Byrds were reluctant to release another Dylan-penned single, feeling that it was too formulaic, but Columbia Records were insistent, believing that another Dylan cover would result in an instant hit for the group. Rush-released in the US in an attempt to bury a rival cover version that Cher had released simultaneously on Imperial Records, the Byrds' version stalled at #40, while Cher's version reached #15. The reverse was true in the UK, however, where the Byrds' version reached #4 in August 1965, while Cher's peaked at #9.

A 1965 English tour was largely orchestrated by the group's publicist Derek Taylor, in an attempt to capitalize on the success of "Mr. Tambourine Man". Unfortunately, with the band being touted as "America's answer to the Beatles", a label that proved impossible for the Byrds to live up to, a combination of poor sound, group illness, ragged musicianship, and the band's notoriously lackluster stage presence, all combined to alienate audiences and served to provoke a merciless castigating of the band in the British press.

 

However, the tour did enable the band to meet and socialize with a number of top British groups, including the Rolling Stones and the Beatles. In particular, the band's relationship with The Beatles would prove important for both acts, with the two groups again meeting in Los Angeles some weeks later, upon the Byrds' return to America. During this period of fraternization, The Beatles were vocal in their support of The Byrds, publicly acknowledging them as creative competitors and naming them as their favorite American group (replacing Sophie Tucker).

For their third Columbia single, they decided to record "Turn! Turn! Turn! (to Everything There Is a Season)", a Pete Seeger composition with lyrics adapted from the Bible. Issued on October 1, 1965, it became the band's second U.S. number 1 single, though only managed #26 in the UK in November 1965.

The Byrds' second album, Turn! Turn! Turn!, was released in December 1965, and while it received a mostly positive reception, critical consensus deemed it to be inferior to the band's debut. Nonetheless, it was a commercial success, peaking at #17 on the U.S. charts and #11 in the UK. 

 

Like their debut, the album comprised a mixture of group originals, folk songs, and Bob Dylan covers, all characterized by the group's clear harmonies and McGuinn's distinctive guitar sound. However, the album featured more of the band's own compositions than its predecessor, with Clark in particular coming to the fore as a songwriter. His songs from this period, including "She Don't Care About Time", "The World Turns All Around Her", and "Set You Free This Time", which was chosen for release as a single in January 1966, but its densely worded lyrics, melancholy melody, and ballad-like tempo contributed to it stalling at number 63 on the Billboard chart and failing to reach the UK chart altogether.

On December 22, 1965, the Byrds recorded a new, self-penned composition titled "Eight Miles High" at RCA Studios in Hollywood. However, Columbia Records refused to release this version because it had been recorded at another record company's facility. As a result, the band were forced to re-record the song at Columbia Studios in Los Angeles on January 24 and 25, 1966, and it was this re-recorded version that would be released as a single. Hobbled by a radio-ban from many US radio stations for supposed drug references, it only reached #14 in the US and #24 in the UK in May 1966.

In February 1966, just prior to the release of "Eight Miles High", Gene Clark left the band. His departure was partly due to his fear of flying, which made it impossible for him to keep up with the Byrds' itinerary, and partly due to his increasing isolation within the band. Clark, who had witnessed a fatal airplane crash as a youth, had a panic attack on a plane bound for New York and as a result, he disembarked and refused to take the flight. In effect, Clark's exit from the plane represented his exit from the Byrds, with McGuinn telling him, "If you can't fly, you can't be a Byrd."

   

The Byrds' third album, Fifth Dimension, was released in July 1966. Much of the album's material continued to build on the band's new psychedelic sound, with McGuinn extending his exploration of jazz and raga styles on tracks such as "I See You" and the Crosby-penned "What's Happening?!?!".

The album also saw Hillman coming forward as the band's third vocalist, in order to fill the hole in the group's harmonies that Clark's departure had left. The title track, "5D (Fifth Dimension)", was released as a single ahead of the album and was, like "Eight Miles High" before it, banned by a number of U.S. radio stations for imagined drug references.

   

The band returned to the studio between November 28 and December 8, 1966 to record their fourth album, Younger Than Yesterday. The band chose to bring in producer Gary Usher to help guide them through the album sessions. The first song to be recorded for the album was the McGuinn and Hillman-penned "So You Want to Be a Rock 'n' Roll Star", the song features the trumpet playing of South African musician Hugh Masekela and as such, marks the first appearance of brass on a Byrds' recording. Issued as a single in January 1967, it peaked at #29 in America but failed to chart in the UK.

The album also included the evocative Crosby and McGuinn penned song "Renaissance Fair", a cover of Dylan's "My Back Pages". Two of Hillman's country-oriented compositions, "Time Between" and "The Girl with No Name", plus the jazz-tinged Crosby ballad "Everybody's Been Burned".

Jim McGuinn became involved in the Subud spiritual association in 1965 and began to practice the latihan, an exercise in quieting the mind. He changed his name in 1967 after Subud's founder Bapak told him it would better "vibrate with the universe." Bapak sent Jim the letter "R" and asked him to send back ten names starting with that letter. Owing to a fascination with airplanes, gadgets and science fiction, he sent names like "Rocket", "Retro", "Ramjet", and "Roger", the latter a term used in signalling protocol over two-way radios, military and civil aviation. Roger was the only "real" name in the bunch and Bapak chose it. While using the name Roger professionally from that time on, McGuinn (born James Joseph McGuinn III) only officially changed his middle name from Joseph to Roger.

Shortly after McGuinn's name change, the band entered the studio to record the Crosby-penned, non-album single "Lady Friend", which stalled at a disappointing #82 on the Billboard chart. Around this time, the band decided to dispense with the services of their co-managers Jim Dickson and Eddie Tickner. At Crosby's recommendation, Larry Spector was brought in to handle the Byrds' business affairs, with the group electing to manage themselves to a large extent.

Between June and December 1967, the Byrds worked on completing their fifth album, The Notorious Byrd Brothers. The album featured contributions from a number of noted session musicians, including bluegrass guitarist and future Byrd, Clarence White who contributed country-influenced guitar to the tracks "Natural Harmony", "Wasn't Born to Follow" and "Change Is Now".

Throughout late 1967, there was increasing tension and acrimony between the members of the group, which eventually resulted in the dismissals of Crosby and Clarke. McGuinn and Hillman became increasingly irritated by what they saw as Crosby's overbearing egotism and his attempts to dictate the band's musical direction. In addition, during the Byrds' performance at the Monterey Pop Festival on June 17, 1967, Crosby gave lengthy in-between-song speeches on controversial subjects, including the JFK assassination and the benefits of "giving LSD to all the statesmen and politicians in the world", to the intense annoyance of the other band members.

Tensions within the band finally erupted in August 1967, during recording sessions for 'The Notorious Byrd Brothers' album, when Michael Clarke quit the group over disputes with his bandmates and his dissatisfaction with the material that the songwriting members of the band were providing. Then, in September, Crosby refused to participate in the recording of the Goffin–King golden timeless classic "Goin' Back", clearly off this box on drugs, he considered it to be inferior to his own "Triad".

Tensions reached a breaking point during October 1967, when McGuinn and Hillman drove to Crosby's home and fired him, stating that they would be better off without him. Crosby subsequently received a cash settlement, with which he bought a sailboat and soon after, he began working with Stephen Stills and Graham Nash, from The Hollies, in the successful supergroup Crosby, Stills & Nash.



David Crosby : "They came over and said that they wanted to throw me out. They came zooming up in their Porsches and said that I was impossible to work with and I wasn't very good anyway and they'd do better without me. And frankly, I've been laughing ever since. Fuck 'em. But it hurt like hell. I didn't try to reason with them. I just said, 'it's a shameful waste ... goodbye.'"

Now reduced to a duo, Hillman's cousin Kevin Kelley was quickly recruited as the band's new drummer, but it soon became apparent, however, that recreating the band's studio recordings with a three-piece line-up wasn't going to be possible and so, McGuinn and Hillman, in a fateful decision for their future career direction, hired Gram Parsons as a keyboard player, although he quickly moved to guitar.

On March 9, 1968, the band decamped to Columbia's recording studios in Nashville, Tennessee, to begin the recording sessions for the Sweetheart of the Rodeo album. While in Nashville, the Byrds also appeared at the Grand Ole Opry on March 15, 1968, where they performed the Merle Haggard song "Sing Me Back Home" and Parsons' own "Hickory Wind". Being the first group of "hippie longhairs" ever to play at the venerable country music institution, the band was met with heckling, booing, and mocking calls of "tweet, tweet" from the conservative Opry audience.

 

The band also incurred the wrath of renowned country music DJ Ralph Emery, when they appeared on his Nashville-based WSM radio program. Emery mocked the band throughout their interview and made no secret of his dislike for their newly recorded country rock single, "You Ain't Goin' Nowhere". Parsons and McGuinn would later write the pointedly sarcastic song "Drug Store Truck Drivin' Man" about Emery and their appearance on his show.

Following their stay in Nashville, the band returned to Los Angeles and throughout April and May 1968, they worked on completing their new country-oriented album. During this period, Parsons attempted to exert a controlling influence over the group by pressuring McGuinn to recruit either JayDee Maness or Sneaky Pete Kleinow as the band's permanent pedal steel guitar player, and also demanding that the group be billed as "Gram Parsons and the Byrds" on their forthcoming album. Ultimately, Parsons' behavior led to a power struggle for control of the group, with McGuinn finding his position as band leader challenged.

 

Parsons' dominance over the band waned during post-production for 'Sweetheart of the Rodeo', when his appearance on the album was contested by music business impresario Lee Hazlewood, who alleged that the singer was still under contract to his LHI record label. As a result of this, McGuinn and Hillman replaced Parsons' lead vocals on the songs "You Don't Miss Your Water", "The Christian Life", and "One Hundred Years from Now". In the album's final running order, Parsons is still featured as lead vocalist on the songs "You're Still on My Mind", "Life in Prison", and "Hickory Wind".

Roger McGuinn : "There was a genuine concern that we would get sued if we kept Gram's vocals on it. So we put mine on and then the contract dispute went away ... Basically it was a misunderstanding. I wouldn't have had any involvement at all if it had been up to Gram. He was taking over the band, so we couldn't really let that happen."

With their new album now completed, the Byrds flew to England for an appearance at a charity concert at the Royal Albert Hall on July 7, 1968. Following the concert, just prior to a tour of South Africa, Parsons quit the Byrds on the grounds that he did not want to perform in a racially segregated country - or, in Hillman's opinion, to remain in England with Mick Jagger and Keith Richard of the Rolling Stones, whom he had recently befriended.

The ensuing South African tour was a disaster, with the band finding themselves having to play to segregated audiences—something that they had been assured by promoters they would not have to do. The under-rehearsed band gave ramshackle performances to audiences that were largely unimpressed with their lack of professionalism and their antagonistic, anti-apartheid stance. The Byrds left South Africa amid a storm of bad publicity and death threats.

After Gram Parsons' departure, McGuinn and Hillman decided to recruit noted session guitarist Clarence White as a full-time member of the band in late July 1968. Shortly after his induction into the band, White began to express dissatisfaction with drummer Kevin Kelley and soon persuaded McGuinn and Hillman to replace him with Gene Parsons (no relation to Gram or Nicholas), who White had previously played with in the country rock band Nashville West.

The McGuinn–Hillman–White–Parsons line-up was together for less than a month before Hillman quit after becoming increasingly disenchanted with the Byrds since the South African débâcle, and was also frustrated by business manager Larry Spector's mishandling of the group's finances. Things came to a head on September 15, 1968, following a band performance at the Rose Bowl stadium in Pasadena, when Hillman and Spector came to blows backstage. In a fit of rage, Hillman threw down his bass in disgust and flounced out of the group, to join Gram Parsons in forming The Flying Burrito Brothers.



As the only original band member left, McGuinn elected to hire bassist John York as Hillman's replacement. York had previously been a member of the Sir Douglas Quintet. In October 1968, the new line-up entered Columbia Studios in Hollywood to begin recording the Dr. Byrds & Mr. Hyde album with producer Bob Johnston. The sessions saw the band juxtaposing their new country rock sound with more psychedelic-oriented material, giving the resulting album a stylistic split personality that was alluded to in its title.

The album was released on March 5, 1969 to generally positive reviews, but in America became the lowest-charting album of the Byrds' career, peaking at number 153 on the Billboard album charts. However the album fared much better in the UK, where it attracted glowing reviews and reached number 15. A number of tracks on Dr Byrds & Mr. Hyde, including the instrumental "Nashville West" and the traditional song "Old Blue", featured the sound of the Parsons and White designed 'StringBender' that allowed White to duplicate the sound of a pedal steel guitar on his Fender Telecaster.

The band issued a version of Bob Dylan's "Lay Lady Lay" as a single in May 1969, which failed to reverse the group's commercial fortunes in the U.S., reaching #132.

Between June and August 1969, the Byrds worked with their old producer, Terry Melcher to complete the Ballad of Easy Rider album. The first single to be released from the album was the title track, which was written as the theme tune for the 1969 countercultural film Easy Rider. A second single taken from the album, "Jesus Is Just Alright", was released in December 1969 but it only managed to reach #97 in the US.

In September 1969, just prior to the release of 'Ballad of Easy Rider', bassist John York was asked to leave the band. York had become disenchanted with his role in the Byrds and had voiced his reluctance to perform material that had been written and recorded by the group before he had joined. He was replaced, at the suggestion of Parsons and White, by Skip Battin, a freelance session musician and one-time member of the duo Skip & Flip.

In early 1970 that the time was right for the group to issue a live album. However, it was also felt that the band had a sufficient backlog of new compositions to warrant the recording of a new studio album. The studio recordings featured on "(Untitled)" mostly consisted of newly written, self-penned material, including "Chestnut Mare", which was issued as a single in the U.S. on October 23, 1970. It only managed to climb to #121 on the Billboard chart, but did much better in the UK when it was released as a single on 1 January 1971, reaching #19 on the UK Singles Chart and giving the Byrds their first UK Top 20 hit since 1965.



In May 1971, just prior to the release of the Byrdmaniax album, the Byrds undertook a sell-out tour of England and Europe, which included a performance at the Royal Albert Hall in London.

When the Byrdmaniax album was released on June 23, 1971, it was received poorly by most critics, with a review in Rolling Stone magazine describing the Byrds as "a boring dead group" and memorably dismissing the entire album as "increments of pus". The consensus among most reviewers was that Byrdmaniax was hampered by Melcher's inappropriate orchestration and by being an album almost totally bereft of The Byrds' signature sound.

Clarence White : "Terry Melcher put the strings on while we were on the road, we came back and we didn't even recognize it as our own album. It was like somebody else's work. Our instruments were buried."

On November 17, 1971, less than five months after the release of Byrdmaniax, the Byrds issued their eleventh studio album, Farther Along. The Skip Battin and Kim Fowley penned song "America's Great National Pastime" was taken from the album and released as a single in late November, but it failed to chart on either side of the Atlantic.

In July 1972, Gene Parsons was fired from the group for a number of reasons, including McGuinn's growing dissatisfaction with his drumming, disagreements that he and McGuinn were having over band members' pay, and his own discontent over the band's lack of morale during this period. Parsons was quickly replaced with L.A. session drummer John Guerin, who remained with the Byrds until January 1973, when he decided to return to studio work.

Following Guerin's departure, the band underwent a further personnel change following a show of February 10, 1973 in Ithaca, New York, when Skip Battin was dismissed by McGuinn, who had decided that the bassist's playing abilities were no longer of a sufficient standard. McGuinn turned to ex-Byrd Chris Hillman, who at that time was a member of the band Manassas, and asked him to step in as Battin's replacement for two upcoming shows on February 23 and 24. Following a shambolic, underrehearsed performance at the Capitol Theatre in Passaic, New Jersey, McGuinn cancelled the band's remaining concert commitments and disbanded the touring version of the Byrds, in order to make way for a reunion of the original five-piece line-up of the band.

The reunion album, titled simply Byrds, was released on March 7, 1973 to mixed reviews. Among the tracks included on the album were McGuinn's folk-flavoured "Sweet Mary", the Joni Mitchell cover "For Free", a re-recording of Crosby's song "Laughing" (which had originally appeared on his 1971 solo album), plus the Gene Clark compositions "Changing Heart" and "Full Circle".



Following the reunion of 1972/1973, The Byrds disbanded and pursued their own solo careers, until . . .

In June 1988, McGuinn, Crosby and Hillman appeared at a concert celebrating the reopening of the Ash Grove folk club in Los Angeles. Although they were billed as solo artists, the three musicians came together for an on-stage reunion during the show, performing a string of Byrds hits including "Mr. Tambourine Man" and "Eight Miles High".

Michael Clarke mounted another tribute tour shortly afterwards, this time featuring former Byrd Skip Battin and newcomers Terry Jones Rogers and Jerry Sorn, under the banner of "The Byrds featuring Michael Clarke" In addition, the drummer also sought to trademark the name "The Byrds" for his own use.

David Crosby : "First Gene went around with a very, very bad band, calling it the Byrds. Well, okay. Gene was one of the original writer/singer guys. But when it gets to be Michael Clarke the drummer -- who never wrote anything or sang anything -- going out there with an even worse band, and claiming to be the Byrds ... and they can't play the stuff. It was dragging the name in the dirt."

In retaliation against Clarke's trademark application, McGuinn, Crosby and Hillman submitted their own counter-claim to gain ownership of the band's name. To strengthen their case, the three musicians announced in December 1988 that they would be performing a series of concerts in January 1989 as the Byrds. The reunion concerts were a resounding success, but with Michael Clarke continuing to tour with his Byrds tribute, McGuinn, Crosby and Hillman filed a lawsuit against the drummer in the spring of 1989.

At the court hearing in May 1989, the judge ruled that McGuinn, Crosby and Hillman had failed to show that they would be irreparably damaged by Clarke's actions. As a result, Clarke gained full legal ownership of the name the Byrds. In the wake of this ruling, the three musicians appeared under the banner of "The Original Byrds" at a Roy Orbison tribute concert on February 24, 1990.



On January 16, 1991, the five original members of the Byrds put aside their differences to appear together at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York City for their induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. The ceremony honoured the original line-up of Roger McGuinn, Gene Clark, David Crosby, Chris Hillman, and Michael Clarke, while later configurations of the group featuring such key personnel as Gram Parsons and Clarence White were quietly passed over. This would represent the last time that the five original members were gathered together.

Gene Clark died later that year of heart failure, and on December 19, 1993, Michael Clarke succumbed to liver disease brought on by alcoholism.

The Single :

"Mr. Tambourine Man" was written by Bob Dylan in February 1964, after attending Mardi Gras in New Orleans during a cross-country road trip with several friends, and completed it sometime between the middle of March and late April of that year after he had returned to New York.

While there has been speculation that the song is about drugs, particularly with lines such as "take me on a trip upon your magic swirling ship" and "the smoke rings of my mind", Dylan has denied the song is about drugs. Though he was smoking marijuana at the time the song was written, Dylan was not introduced to LSD until a few months later.

The Byrds' version of "Mr. Tambourine Man" was released on April 12, 1965 by Columbia Records.



Abridged and in a different key from Dylan's original, it had its antecedents in the American folk revival of the early 1960s, The Animals' rock-oriented recording of the folk song "The House of the Rising Sun", the twelve-string Rickenbacker jangle of The Searchers and the Beatles's George Harrison.

On January 20, 1965, the Byrds entered Columbia Studios in Hollywood to record "Mr. Tambourine Man" for release as their debut single on Columbia. Since the band had not yet completely gelled musically, McGuinn was the only Byrd to play on "Mr. Tambourine Man". Rather than using band members, producer Terry Melcher hired top session musicians, 'The Wrecking Crew', including Hal Blaine (drums), Larry Knechtel (bass), Jerry Cole (guitar), and Leon Russell (electric piano), who (along with McGuinn on guitar) provided the instrumental backing track over which McGuinn, Crosby and Clark sang.

The Byrds' arrangement of the song had been shortened during the band's rehearsals, in order to accommodate commercial radio stations, which were reluctant to play songs that were over two-and-a-half minutes long. As a result, while Dylan's version is five-and-a-half minutes long, the Byrds' version runs just short of two-and-a-half minutes. The single reached number 1 in the US and the UK Singles Chart, making it the first recording of a Bob Dylan song to reach number 1 on any pop music chart.



The influence of the Byrds could be heard in recordings by a number of other Los Angeles-based acts, including the Turtles, the Leaves, Barry McGuire, and Sonny & Cher, the Lovin' Spoonful, the Mamas & the Papas, Simon & Garfunkel, and Love. Also, by late 1965, The Beatles were assimilating the sound of the Byrds into their Rubber Soul album, most notably on the songs "Nowhere Man" and "If I Needed Someone".



Other Versions include :   Johnny Rivers (1965)  /  The Four Seasons (1965)  /  The Silkie (1965)  /  Judy Collins (1965)  /  The Barbarians (1965)  /  Glen Campbell (1965)  /  Billy Strange (1965)  /  Odetta (1965)  /  "Mister Tamburino" by The Minstrels (1965)  /  "L'homme orchestre" by Hugues Aufray (1965)  /  Stevie Wonder (1966)  /  Noel Harrison (1966)  /  The Beau Brummels (1966)  /  Duane Eddy (1966)  /  Billy Lee Riley (1966)  /  Lester Flatt & Earl Scruggs (1968)  /  William Shatner (1968)  /  Marmalade (1968)  /  Melanie (1968)  /  Hugo Montenegro (1970)  /  Con-Funk-Shun (1974)  /  Julie Felix (1982)  /  Teenage Fanclub (1992)  /  Gregory Isaacs (2004)  /  Danny McEvoy (2011)  /  Michael Enz (2014)  /  The Penguins (2016)  /  8-bit (2016)  /  a robot (2017)

On This Day  :

19 July : Evelyn Glennie, percussionist, born Evelyn Elizabeth Ann Glennie in Aberdeenshire
22 July : Edward Heath succeeds Alec Douglas-Home as leader of the British Conservative party
24 July : "Flora, the Red Menace" closes at Alvin Theater NYC after 87 performances
24 July : Bob Dylan threw the bums a dime, and releases "Like a Rolling Stone", didn't heeeeee?
25 July : Bob Dylan is booed by sections of the crowd at the Newport Folk Festival for performing with an electric guitar
27 July : President Lyndon B. Johnson signs a bill requiring cigarette makers to print health warnings on all cigarette packages
28 July : The US sends 50,000 more soldiers to Vietnam
29 July : The Beatles movie "Help" premieres
31 July : Cigarette advertising banned on British TV
31 July : J. K. Rowling, writer, born Joanne Rowling in Yate, Gloucestershire

Extra! Extra! Read all about it! :

                 

[Cardenio I]

Never cared much for The Byrds version.

[The Culture Bunker]

It's fine, but the Byrds are one of those bands that are feted a lot that I've never really been able to get my head into (I could say the same about Dylan too, really). The guitar and vocals can sound nice enough, but the material never really clicks with me.

[Captain Z]

Shyte

[purlieu]

Superb version of a superb song. Will always remind me of One Foot in the Grave.