The Byrds: Timeless Flight Revisited: the Sequel

by Johnny Rogan

Book by Rogan, Johnny

Genres: Music, Nonfiction, Biography

735 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1997

Reviews

[Paul Bryant · Rating 4 out of 5]

David Crosby sounds like a very annoying person.

22 April 1965. Lizzie Donahue (friend of the band) :

I went to a recording session for the first album and it was clear that david Crosby wasn't getting along with Jim Dickson [producer]. Jim had David on the floor and he was choking him.

4th October 1965. Terry Melcher (producer) :

Michael Clarke left his drums, walked over to Crosby and smashed him in the mouth. He literally knocked him off his stool and said "I've wanted to do that for a long time."

October 1967. David is fired. Jim Dickson :

David hated being a Byrd. He wanted to be a Buffalo Springfield, a Jefferson Airplane or a Door.

Jumping on 20 years, I read that in the 1980s when he toured his band refused to stay at the same hotel as him as they were convinced he'd eventually burn the place down. This was because he had a habit of zonking out in the middle of smoking crack. Like Keith Richard, he appears to be completely unkillable.

**

I also liked this quote :

6 May 1966. Jim McGuinn on the sound effects on "The Lear Jet Song" :

It was not a vacuum cleaner. It was a Lear jet. I really resent the fact that some people think it was a vacuum cleaner.

[Rog Harrison · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked hearing the Byrds on the radio when I was a teenager and I liked them enough to buy their albums when they were re-issued on CD with bonus tracks. Since I retired with plenty of time on my hands I have also bought and enjoyed many CDs released by Gene Clark, Chris Hillman, Roger McGuinn and even Skip Battin! I am not much of a David Crosby fan apart from the first CSN album and his first solo album.

This book was published in 2001 and tells the story of the Byrds and their subsequent careers up to the deaths of Gene Clark and Michael Clarke. I found it a fascinating read especially as I was familiar with most of the music. There is also a discography, session notes and an index for dedicated fans.

[Michael Paquette · Rating 5 out of 5]

Having read Rogan's biography of Ray Davies I was aware that he could be rather long winded. But this work is a well detailed and thoroughly engrossing look at the artists who made up the Byrds and took their long haired, hippie attitude to old time country music. Then the Eagles, Jackson Browne and Fleetwood Mac would slick it up enough to make the charts. A rich and detailed look at the artists, their music, their producers, the industry and their fractuous relationships. The author gives us a full view of the Byrds and the Flying Buritto Brothers who would create an alternative country style that would be copied and transformed by an enormous swath of singers, songwriters and bands and was the birth of what we now know as Americana music.

[Lee Robertson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Brilliant first half but loses a lot of pace and interest in the 2nd half once the band split up in the early 70s

[Document Of Books · Rating 2 out of 5]

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[Bob Breckwoldt · Rating 4 out of 5]

They are younger than that now. Exhausting and exhaustive (over 700 pages - new edition to have even more) account of the great American group, who straddled so many genres of popular music. They were a band that had a egos way out of proportion to their popularity, but often the talent to match their claims. Everyone had talent: Crosby with his harmony and pretentiousness; McGuinn, with that jangling guitar, supporting a nasally Dylan impression; to the folkie voiced, would be country star, Gram Parsons; not to forget Chris Hillman (sorely neglected these days) and Gene Clark (whose reputation increases by the year).
Talent, harmony, drugs, great songs and performances, litigation and liver transplants, deaths and resurrections. It has got the lot and in Rogan they have a writer with the enthusiasm and literacy to retell their story in all its sordid lows and highs, but who never loses sight of their frailties and his humanity.
A must for fans of music and adventures in the great American dream.

[Jason · Rating 5 out of 5]

Probably the most comprehensive, objective, and factual treatment of a band I have ever encountered. Brilliant! Too bad it's not in print in the US... I had to get my copy from interlibrary loan! The extensive notes at the end are also worth perusing, as there is a lot of interesting corollary information there, especially the 9 page synopsis of Journals, the 9-disc bootleg of numerous takes of the Byrds' early songs.

[Brittany McLaughlin]

want to read because of: http://marginalrevolution.com/margina...