By ANN MOSES
From the Tiger Beat Archives, June 1966
The black Triumph 500 screeched to a halt before a lonely hillside home in Laurel Canyon. “Sorry I’m late,” shouted the windblown, caped David Crosby. Chris Hillman had been waiting a short while on the front steps, observing the beauty that surrounds the one bedroom house on the hilltop.
Once inside, you are immediately struck by the emptiness of the modern home with wooden walls. The living room is large and there is an overabundance of candles, several of which are lit, even in the daytime. In the center of the room sits a black circular table with such articles as marbles, candles, plastic cubes, and geometric cubes of all kinds serving no particular purpose.
Sitting cross-legged on the floor his hair tussled from the motorcycle ride, David began to explain his first impressions of the other Byrds and how they got together. Chris sat nearby listening observing and occasionally contributing to the conversation. David thought back, “I met McGuinn six years ago he was out here from Chicago to accompany the Limelighters on their second record. That far back! He and a few other people exposed me to folk music and I kinda liked it. I had been studying acting.”
“Then I met Michael (Clark) in Big Sur. I was hitchhiking down from San Francisco. This was when I was a very poor folk singer. I was playing my 12 string on the porch of the Redwood Lodge. Michael jumped out of the truck with his hair down to his shoulders. I had pretty long hair, too. You should’ve seen McGuinn with long hair and a beard! I told Michael to come to Los Angeles. I didn’t know why because I hadn’t been down here and gotten into the group yet. But I told him to come to LA and he did. He thought I was crazy and I thought he was crazy and I thought McGuinn was crazy, too. I thought they were all nuts, but I liked ‘em!
“When I got down to LA I walked into the Troubadour and there was a McGuinn sitting with this cat, Gene Clark. It was obvious that they had been listening to the Beatles, which you can’t really help. I listen to the stuff and I thought ‘Hey, that’s pretty good.’ I wanted to start singing with them. I started singing harmonies and they weren’t too bad. So they let me sing. I said ‘Hey, can I sing with you a lot?’ And they said, ‘We are making a group.’ And they said ‘maybe you can join the group and I said ‘maybe I’ll join your cruddy old group’ and we kinda got together and hey, I’ve never had so much fun since. It’s great, I love it!”
David confided, “I never planned to ‘make it’ because I just wanted to sing music. I eventually wanted to get a boat. (He used to crew on a sailboat) I hoped I’d be able to get one. Inherit it, marry it, borrow or steal it, beg or buy it. I didn’t care. I knew I wasn’t likely to ever get enough bread to buy it, but I wanted one anyway.”
Since the Byrds first began as a group, Chris has been labeled “the quiet Byrd.” He remarked, “I’m constantly told to smile. I shrug it off. I don’t smile when I’m on stage because I don’t smile when I’m off. There’s no reason, I’ve just never smiled much. I laugh, but I laugh on the inside.”
Four Byrds had warned of Chris shy, quiet nature, but he fooled us all! Chris, though he is not eager to admit it, laughs, talks and has as good a time as any of his friends! His straight blonde hair reaches just over his eyebrows and his clear blue eyes sparkle as he talks.
Chris added, “We toured with Bo Diddley in the South a few months ago. It was great. It was beautiful. We jammed with him sometimes.”
David put in, “It was really groovy. Because that’s the old guard the real roots of rock and roll. Chuck Berry and Bo are the mother and father of the whole business.”
The Byrds, having been together for just a year, feel they project the same image when they began. It wasn’t a planned thing, but Chris said, “It’s just freedom, individualism, I guess.” David nodded, “We are just a bunch of crazy musicians hanging around together playing music, which is pretty much where it’s at! We don’t try and get any fake images going, we don’t try and come on what we aren’t! Were just musicians and were nuts and we play music!”
Because they play music, they fall into the whirlwind life of touring. Chris mentioned, “I love seeing different places, you know, traveling around. I’m not really a club fancier, but I really like to get out where ever I am. If we were in Arkansas, I just go out in the street and see what was happening in Arkansas–see the people and how they act.”
David, however, does not share his enthusiasm for venturing out in unknown locals. A time David uses his flamboyant humor to mimic the country bumpkin in a strictly “cowpoke” accent. He explained, “If we go out in small towns, we all get hassled. It’s either people over 30 saying, ‘Hey, look over there, I’ve been to two cow shows and they never seen anything like that thar!’ And ‘Hey, long hair, are you a boy or girl, ha, ha, ha, ha!’ Or it’s kids who like us, which can be a hang up too, when there are 30 or 40 of them trailing us. Anyway it’s not too much fun, so we just stay inside.”
When they do stay inside the confines of the hotel, the long hours are usually spent listening to records as they take along a small portable record player. Chris smiled slightly, “I like to read sometimes. I’ll read anything I see I think I might like, but science fiction is what I read mostly. In my free time at home if the weather is nice I’ll ride my motorcycle. I just bought a camera and I would like to take pictures.”
It was only months ago that the Beatles and the Byrds shared a day together in Benedict Canyon and an evening at Columbia recording studios in Hollywood. David seemed pleased, “The first day they got here they sent a limousine to pick us all up. We talked about everything–music, people, life, international happenings, everything! They’re bright, aware cats. They’re very real and very easy to communicate with if you come at them straight across. There are no walls, no nonsense. If you come onto them in some weird way, they’ll just playing word games with you for ten hours and laugh. They’re incredible word gamers.”
David went on, relating the story of the recording session which Byrd fans Paul and George visited. “George asked us to come up to the house and watch some movies they were going to show since he didn’t want to go to a party being held for them. We couldn’t because we were doing a session. He asked if he could come and we said ‘Hey, of course, we’d love it!’ We got Derek Taylor to smuggle him out in his little Citroen. He never said anything during the session except ‘Oh, that was nice,’ or ‘Who wrote that?’ Then later Paul came in and really did a number on us! We were just overdubbing and he came in like a big operator and took over as engineer, just joking. It really shook up our engineer!”
The Byrds have gained many friends in a short period of time–Bo Diddley, Bob Dylan and the Beatles, to name a few. After talking with the straightforward young man, one can easily understand why. It’s a pity that everyone can’t sit and just talk with the fabulous Byrds– they would have friends that could not be counted in five figure numbers!
Comments on this entry are closed.