“I was emulating Coltrane’s sax on guitar. They called it psychedelic.”
ROGER MCGUINN ON EIGHT MILES HIGH,
IT’S AUGUST 1965 AND THE BYRDS ARE flying home to Los Angeles from a troubled, three-week tour of Britain. Perhaps to distract himself from his chronic aerophobia, singer gene Clark is toying with the makings of a new song. “gene had a basic chord structure,” remembers bandmate roger Mcguinn today, “but he didn’t know what he wanted to write it about and we decided to write it about the tour. david [Crosby] and I helped him with the lyrics. gene asked, ‘how high do you think this plane is flying?’ and I said, Probably about 39,000 feet, maybe seven miles high. And he went, ‘Seven miles high?’ the Beatles had eight days A Week out and he thought eight was a cooler number than seven. (Laughs) I said, We can make it eight – poetic licence.” the Byrds and the Beatles: there was a symbiosis. the movie A hard day’s night had been a key factor in bringing the us folk rockers into being. the groups also shared legendary, erudite Beatles publicist derek taylor, who’d defected to California in 1965 and repped the Byrds as well as the Beach Boys. taylor’s contacts on both sides of the Atlantic, including UK pirate station radio Caroline, earned the Byrds frequent airplay. their first single Mr. tambourine Man was number 1 on both UK and us singles charts and received repeated plays on BBC-TV’s top Of the Pops. “It’s probably one of the best records around,” Mick Jagger told British magazine disc. Like the Beatles, the Byrds were a collection of strong personalities open to a broad range of music. Chicagoan singer/lead guitarist roger Mcguinn had been an accompanist for Judy Collins and Bobby darin. LA-born singer/rhythm guitarist david Crosby was a rebellious high school dropout with a folk background and strong jazz underpinnings. Bassist Chris hillman was an accomplished bluegrass mandolinist, and singer gene Clark a prodigious songwriter, late of the new Christy Minstrels. drummer Michael Clarke had been a conga player, but his minimal kit experience was offset by the right look and ability to learn quickly. they were all driven to synthesize their varied influences and push the boundaries of rock. Another driving force was dylan. the Byrds had started their career by electrifying Mr. tambourine Man, and were on his wavelength. More-over, in the wake of the Kennedy assassination, pop songs expressing anger, despair and loneliness – as well as Blakean ecstasy like tambourine Man – were now commercial. I Want to hold your hand was barely a couple of years old, but by mid 1965 it seemed a little quaint. the British loved the Byrds – or at least their records. their second single, All I really Want to do, another dylan cover, got stuck at number 40 in the us, but climbed to number 4 in the UK. the next step was to find out how england would react to them in person.
BEFORE THE BYRDS LANDED, UK promoter Mer vyn Conn papered London with posters exclaiming “the Byrds Is Coming!” (a homage to the advertising campaign for Alfred hitchcock’s 1963 film the Birds) and touted them as “America’s Answer to the Beatles!” fifty years later, the hype still rankles group members. “Who could live up to the Beatles in the UK?” asks an incredulous roger Mcguinn. “It was a load of crap,” notes david Crosby. “We were nowhere near the Beatles.” the band arrived at heathrow Airport on August 2. “this is one of the things I will never forget,” re- called the late gene Clark for the BBC in 1979. “flying into england for the first time and thousands of people waiting at the airport.” In addition to fans was an english band called the Birds, who included a young ronnie Wood. the Birds’ manager slapped the Byrds with a writ insisting they change their name, claiming his lads pre-dated the us group. As Wood wrote years later in his memoir, the “writs didn’t accomplish anything, except to create a lot of publicity for us.” Mcguinn describes the incident as setting the tour’s tone: “that was fun,” he drily quips, noting that it was downhill from there. “then we all got the flu.” the shows were panned. the band members were more like jazz musicians in demeanour – there were no dance steps or plugs for their new record betwixt tunes. soon to be standard, as showbiz shtick became associated with an earlier generation of performers, for now it led to accusations of unprofessionalism. “‘FLOPS-VILLE’ was London’s verdict on the much-publicised Byrds,” wrote Chris Welch in Melody Maker of one gig. “they performed six numbers in the familiar dylan-cum-tambourine Man-cum-searchers mould.” he quoted disappointed 19-year-old denise hall: “I think they are a drag. Absolutely no stage presentation and all their numbers sound like Mr. tambourine Man. they are not bad, just very, very dull.” the NME’s Keith Altham was no more pleased: “After tuning up for a full five minutes behind the curtain, they were treated to a traditional slow handclap by the impatient audience. then their first two numbers were completely drowned by over-amplification.” Mcguinn says now that, “they were out to get us. the UK press is ver y sensational anyway. they had a lot of fun with us, I think they enjoyed the whole thing.” Crosby: “the promoter was a terrible person – a terrible person. he booked us into really bad gigs and sometimes two, three gigs a day.” yet there is some truth in Altham’s audio critique. It’s a fact that full-on electric rock was in its sonic infancy and the Byrds don’t deny it. “the technology was primitive,” says Crosby. “We didn’t even have monitors. you worked from what you heard off the back of the room.” Meanwhile, says Mcguinn, “our amplifiers were really loud and we were making a lot of noise with the guitars. you couldn’t hear anything.” the upside was that London’s rock elite – the Beatles, the stones (particularly a sociable Brian Jones), Pete townshend and others – were supportive. “Paul [McCartney] took us around in his Aston Martin dB5 and we got to meet John and george,” says Mcguinn. “the Beatles were real nice,” adds Crosby. “We hung out at their homes and recording studios…” And despite the problems, the Byrds were creating a new music – something the Beatles picked up through the sonic crud – fusing dylan lyrics, or those influenced by him, with beat group instruments, Mcguinn’s rickenbacker electric 12-string guitar (one he took to thanks to harrison) and soaring vocal harmonies. Crosby: “We were doing new things – expanding the envelope – and they liked that a lot.” novel influences were coming to bear. the Byrds’ co-manager, Jim dickson, had been a producer/engineer at World Pacific, ravi shankar’s record label, and hipped Crosby to the master sitarist’s music. While in england, Crosby became friendly with george harrison. “I had a ravi shankar record with me,” says Crosby today. “I’d only recently been turned on to him and I thought he and John Coltrane were the two greatest melody-mover-a-rounders (laughs) that had lived to that point. I gave it to george and he told me later that I was the one who turned him on to Indian music. that had repercussions…” A sitar had been used in a scene in help! and it had intrigued harrison, but he publicly credited Crosby as the inspiration for actively seeking out shankar’s music. A scant two months later, he’d
learned enough sitar to use one on Norwegian Wood. In addition to musical influences, Harrison began a lifelong devotion to Eastern spiritual practice. (McGuinn places Harrison’s initial exposure to Shankar in LA, not London. In either case, the result was the same.) The Byrds’ flight home from London brought one last bummer. “I had hash with me and I put it in a Marlboro box,” admits McGuinn. “I unintentionally stuffed it in the seat pocket in front of Derek Taylor, so the feds went after him.” Federal agents paid a visit to a recording session to inquire. The case was dropped, but it capped a troubled tour.
IN NOVEMBER, THE BYRDS HIT THE ROAD IN THE US with Dick Clark’s Caravan of Stars. Clark was host of Tv dance party American Bandstand and was dubbed “America’s oldest Teenager”. Among the other artists on the bill were Bo Diddley, Paul revere & The raiders and We Five, with everyone performing a couple of their hits. The package was a reminder that however highly The Byrds were evolving, they were still part of a machine designed by straights for “the kids”. Initially stuck on a collective bus that rendered them unable to smoke grass, the band rented a Clark Cortez motor home with beds and shower. McGuinn: “We had a Fender amp up in the front [hooked up to] a Norelco cassette player which I’d bought in London, which was new. I had a blank cassette and we recorded John Coltrane on one side of the tape and ravi Shankar on the other and that was the only music we listened to for a month.” It’s not known which Shankar albums were on the tape, but McGuinn says the Coltrane side contained two by the tenor/soprano saxophonist: Africa/Brass and Impressions. There was a relationship between Shankar and Coltrane – musical and personal. Coltrane had been a devoted Shankar fan since 1961 and the latter’s North Indian classical music had a huge influence on the former’s increasingly modal experimentation in jazz. The saxist had already developed a signature style – peals of rapid-fire notes, dubbed “sheets of sound” by jazz critic Ira Gitler. The sitarist’s stringed bursts were like Trane’s Eastern cousin, adding undulating microtones. The two giants of 20th century music eventually became friends and The Byrds were entranced by both. McGuinn: “By the time we got back to LA we were steeped in Coltrane and ravi Shankar.” Crosby-recalls a fleeting moment of synchronicity. “It was silly and cosmic, but we’d been listening to Coltrane and we pulled up to a stop sign at a railroad crossing and along comes a train full of coal. (Laughs) We get the giggles ’cos there’s a coal train!” It was on this trek that the song Clark had begun on the flight from England was fleshed out. The lyrics were ostensibly snapshots of what-they-did-on-theirs-ummer-vacation. Instead of a sunny travelogue, it was a gloomy, surreal depiction of a trip gone awry. originally credited to Clark, McGuinn and Crosby, there was later to be some mild confusion about its authorship. Clark claimed he’d begun the song with Brian Jones when The Byrds were on tour with the Stones in June ’65. However, the words clearly reference the UK tour and Jones wasn’t known for songwriting – even for his own group. “It was mostly Gene’s tune,” McGuinn told Johnny rogan in 1997. “He had the chord changes and the melody. It was my idea to write about the airplane ride, naturally. Then we all worked out the lyrics, and Crosby’s input was the ‘rain grey town’ and describing the fans ‘in places small faces unbound’.” Today, Crosby says the latter line was actually about the band Small Faces: “We went by a place they were rehearsing.” As a composition, it’s terrific. The words imbue mundane things like street signs, limousines and the everyday experiences of a touring musician in a foreign country with a palpable dread. The tune is moody and evocative, beginning in a minor-key darkness that daybreaks into a cathartic major key. once waxed in a recording studio, it was even better.
EIGHT MILES HIGH WAS FIRST TAPED AT RCA studios in hollywood instead of their label Columbia’s studio. “Columbia was a union house as far as the engineers,” says Crosby. “they’d do things like take a union break when we were in the middle of cutting a tune. they were pushy, stiff and old and unwelcoming to this new music.” Crosby knew the vibe was looser at RCA: “i had been going over to RCA to hang with my pals the Jefferson airplane.” famed engineer dave hassinger (elvis, rolling stones) helped cut a powerful, raw track that some prefer to the final version – but Columbia’s rules were strict and they nixed it. “the first version’s just as good as the second – maybe better,” maintains Crosby. (the RCA version was released as a bonus track in the ’90s when the band’s catalogue was remastered.) and so the Byrds returned to Columbia recording studios and over two days – January 25/26, 1966 – re-recorded the song. Mcguinn’s four-note riff – the record’s majestic instrumental hook – was borrowed from Coltrane’s india from Impressions – and his soloing paid tribute to the saxman’s sheets of sound. “i was tr ying to emulate Coltrane’s sax with my rickenbacker. some jazz guys got it. i ran into the wonderful jazz guitar player larry Cor yell and he said, ‘Man, we heard that record and we just thought they’re playing jazz!’ (laughs) But nobody else knew what that was and they called it ‘psychedelic’.” the split octaves on Mcguinn’s electric 12-string gave it a natural drone akin to indian music: “plus the key we chose, e Minor, is really good for open, modal kind of stuff. You can let go of the chords and go up and down the neck and it rings – it’s got droning qualities.” Mcguinn wasn’t alone in rising to the occasion. the record opened strongly with hillman’s rumbling bass and what may be drummer Clarke’s finest moment on wax. gene Clark, Mcguinn and Crosby’s vocal harmonies were heavenly and the latter’s rhythm guitar was spiky, crunchy hard rock. it’s a collective effort that replicates what Mcguinn often referred to as the “krrriiiiiiissssshhh jet sound… the mechanical sounds of the era” – the sound of a new generation achieving take-off. eight Miles high was released on 45 on March 14 in the Us and april 29 in the UK. “the five of us just played music to each other until it gelled,” Crosby told a press conference. reviews were mostly excellent. Us trade mag record world wrote, “it’s an eerie tune with lyrics bound to hypnotize. will climb heights.” the UK’s Music echo claimed the Byrds’ sophistication had “beaten the Beatles to the punch.” But by the spring of 1966, the words “high” and “trip” were double entendres, carrying the implied or overt use of psychedelic drugs. Bill gavin’s record report, a radio industry trade sheet, lumped it with dylan’s rainy day women 12 & 35 (“everybody must get stoned”), claiming the song’s title was “lsd talk” and dropping both dylan and the Byrds’ new singles from their recommended playlist. stations in washington, Baltimore and houston banned the song. derek taylor issued an irate press release, while the Byrds’ lawyers demanded a retraction from the gavin report, noting the sales drop and threatening to seek damages. it was too late. the single stalled at 14 in the Us, and began its chart descent, while for whatever reasons it never caught on in the UK despite BBC and pirate radio play. the accusations boiled down to the surreal imagery and the use of the word “high”. was eight Miles high a “drug song” or not? Mcguinn: “we were doing acid and smoking pot so it’s a logical conclusion, but it wasn’t the main thrust of the song if you ask me. as far as i was concerned, it was about the trip to england. if you ask Crosby, he’ll say, ‘Of course it was a drug song!’” Crosby: “Of course it was a drug song! it came out at the same time dylan put out ‘ever ybody must get stoned’. [the gavin report] came out and said, ‘we mustn’t have these drug songs!’” Mcguinn viewed the kerfuffle as a defeat. “it blew us out of the game,” he confided to derek taylor. at a time when the finest rockers – particularly the Beatles and Beach Boys – were tearing down walls and making bolder musical and lyrical statements, the Byrds had made their greatest record, only to see it suppressed in their home country. they’d continue to write and record classic lps: Younger Than Yesterday, The Notorious Byrd Brothers, Sweetheart Of The Rodeo, and (Untitled), but eight Miles high was the last hurrah of the original five Byrds. On its release, gene Clark quit, ostensibly due to his fear of flying. “You can’t be a Byrd if you won’t fly!” Mcguinn told him.
ITS FAILURE TO HIT BIG DIDN’T STOP eight Miles high from having a major influence. to western ears, the Byrds’ rendering of eastern music in a rock context was beguilingly exotic and served as an early example of the confluence of pop and what would be dubbed world music. anything vaguely eastern would become associated with drugs and was a key motif in anything meant to connote psychedelia (to ravi shankar’s consternation). and while the Byrds weren’t the only purveyors of so-called “raga rock” – the Kinks and Yardbirds had already tested the waters (on see My friends and heart full Of soul respectively) and the Beatles and stones continued to explore the sitar, tambura and east asian textures – eight Miles high’s influence seems explicit on Jefferson airplane’s white rabbit. noting the trend, guitar manufacturer introduced an electric sitar, a tricked-up model any guitarist could play. it would feature on pop records like eric Burdon & the animals’ Monterey, Joe south’s games people play, even stevie wonder’s i was Made to love her. Ultimately, the omnivorous musicality of eight Miles high would be one of the most powerful indicators that rock would no longer simply accompany teenage hormonal changes. rock music was growing up along with its audience. “we were trying to go for substance rather than just surface,” says david Crosby. “trying to pull the audience up, not play down to them. we’d started out with tambourine Man by taking really good poetry – ‘to dance beneath the diamond sky with one hand waving free’ – and put it on AM radio which was seriously busting the paradigm. we loved that.”