The Notorious Byrd Brothers is the fifth studio album by the American rock band the Byrds, released on January 15, 1968, by Columbia Records. The album represents the pinnacle of the Byrds' late-'60s musical experimentation, with the band blending together elements of psychedelia, folk rock, country, electronic music, baroque pop, and jazz. With producer Gary Usher, they made extensive use of a number of studio effects and production techniques, including phasing, flanging, and spatial panning. The Byrds also introduced the sound of the pedal steel guitar and the Moog modular synthesizer into their music, making it one of the first LP releases on which the Moog appears.
Recording sessions for The Notorious Byrd Brothers took place throughout the latter half of 1967 and were fraught with tension, resulting in the loss of two members of the band; rhythm guitarist David Crosby was fired in October 1967 and drummer Michael Clarke left the sessions midway through recording, returning briefly before finally being dismissed after completion of the album. Additionally, original band member Gene Clark, who had left the group in early 1966, rejoined for three weeks during the making of the album, before leaving again. Author Ric Menck has commented that in spite of these changes in personnel and the conflict surrounding its creation, The Notorious Byrd Brothers is the band's most cohesive and ethereal-sounding album statement.
The Notorious Byrd Brothers reached number 47 on the Billboard Top LPs chart and number 12 on the UK Album Chart. A cover of the Gerry Goffin and Carole King song "Goin' Back" was released in October 1967 as the lead single from the album to mild chart success. Although The Notorious Byrd Brothers was critically praised at the time of its release, it was only moderately successful commercially, particularly in the United States. The album later came to be widely regarded as one of the Byrds' best album releases, as well as their most experimental and progressive. Byrds expert Tim Connors has described the album's title as evoking a gang of outlaws from the American Old West.
Background The recording of The Notorious Byrd Brothers, during the latter half of 1967, was marked by severe internal dissolution and acrimony. The Byrds began the recording sessions as a four-piece band, consisting of Roger McGuinn, David Crosby, Chris Hillman, and Michael Clarke—the same line-up that had recorded their two previous albums. By the time of the album's release, however, only McGuinn and Hillman remained in the group. The first line-up change occurred when drummer Michael Clarke quit the sessions after having played on several songs, over disputes with Crosby and the other band members over his playing ability and his apparent dissatisfaction with the material the three songwriting members of the band were providing. Though he remained a band member and continued to honor his live concert commitments with the group, Clarke was temporarily replaced in the studio by noted session drummers Jim Gordon and Hal Blaine.
David Crosby was then fired by McGuinn and Hillman and replaced by a former member of the Byrds, Gene Clark, who stayed on board for just three weeks before leaving again. Prior to finishing the album, Michael Clarke also returned from his self-imposed exile to co-write and play on the track "Artificial Energy", only to be informed by McGuinn and Hillman that he was an ex-Byrd after the album was completed. Amid so many changes in band personnel, McGuinn and Hillman needed to rely upon outside musicians to complete the album. Among these hired musicians was Clarence White, who had also played on the group's previous album, Younger Than Yesterday. His contributions to these and the Byrds' Sweetheart of the Rodeo album, along with his friendship with Hillman, eventually led to his being hired as a full-time member of the band in 1968.
David Crosby's dismissal
David Crosby was fired by McGuinn and Hillman in October 1967, partly as a result of friction arising from Crosby's displeasure at the band's wish to record the Goffin–King composition "Goin' Back". Crosby felt that recording the song was a step backwards artistically, especially when the band contained three active songwriters. Another factor that contributed to Crosby's dismissal was his controversial song "Triad", a risqué composition about a ménage à trois that was in direct competition with "Goin' Back" for a place on the album. He later gave the tune to Jefferson Airplane, who included a version of the song on their 1968 album Crown of Creation. Although the Byrds did record "Triad", the song's subject matter compelled McGuinn and Hillman to prevent it from being released at the time. The track was first issued on the band's 1987 archival compilation album, Never Before, and was later added to The Notorious Byrd Brothers as a bonus track on the 1997 Columbia/Legacy reissue.
Crosby had also annoyed the other members of the Byrds during their performance at the Monterey Pop Festival when he gave lengthy in-between-song speeches on several controversial subjects, including the JFK assassination and the benefits of giving LSD to "all the statesmen and politicians in the world". He further irritated his bandmates at Monterey by performing with rival group Buffalo Springfield, filling in for ex-member Neil Young.
His stock within the band deteriorated still further following the commercial failure of his song "Lady Friend", when it was released as the A-side of a Byrds single in July 1967. His absence from many of the recording sessions for The Notorious Byrd Brothers was the final straw for McGuinn and Hillman. Crosby received a generous severance package and began to collaborate with his new musical partner, Stephen Stills. It has been suggested that the horse on the cover of the album was unkindly intended to represent Crosby, although this has been denied by both McGuinn and Hillman.
Much to Crosby's chagrin, McGuinn and Hillman reworked his unfinished song "Draft Morning" following his departure and included it in the final running order for the album, giving themselves a co-writing credit. Crosby ended up playing on around half of The Notorious Byrd Brothers: on his own three songs, along with "Change Is Now" and "Old John Robertson". He also appears on several bonus tracks on the 1997 reissue, including "Triad", "Universal Mind Decoder" and an early version of "Goin' Back".
Gene Clark's temporary return Following Crosby's departure, Gene Clark was asked to rejoin the band. Clark had originally left the Byrds in early 1966 due to his fear of flying and his tendency towards anxiety and paranoia. His debut solo album (co-produced by the Byrds' then current producer, Gary Usher, with both Clarke and Hillman playing on it) had been a critical success, but a commercial failure and Clark was currently inactive. Clark rejoined the Byrds in October 1967 for three weeks, during which time he and the band performed on The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour television program, lip-syncing "Goin' Back" and "Mr. Spaceman". The Byrds also played several live dates with Clark during a tour of the Midwest. Following the final concert of the tour, Clark's fear of flying again became a problem when it prevented him from taking a flight to New York with his bandmates and, as a result, he left the band soon after.
It has been debated by biographers and band historians just how involved Clark was in the recording of The Notorious Byrd Brothers. Clark himself claimed during a 1988 interview for radio station KBSG 97 that he was involved in the recording of "Goin' Back" and some other songs from the same period, although he didn't specify what his contributions might have been. There is also studio documentation and eyewitness accounts to suggest that Clark contributed backing vocals to "Goin' Back" and "Space Odyssey". One of those eyewitnesses, John Noreen of the L.A. folk rock band the Rose Garden, has stated in an interview that he clearly remembers being at Columbia Recording Studios during sessions for the album and seeing Clark record his backing vocals. This has been corroborated by the Rose Garden's drummer, Bruce Bowdin, who has claimed that Clark's voice can be heard most clearly on the mono mix of "Goin' Back" which was released as a single. Conversely, the Rose Garden's bass player William Fleming, who was also there, recalled that although Clark was in the studio he didn't participate in any recording. Author and musician Ric Menck has remarked that if Clark is present on either "Space Odyssey" or "Goin' Back", his contributions are not obvious and must have been buried very low in the mix by producer Gary Usher.
The Byrds' lead guitarist, Roger McGuinn, cannot remember whether Clark contributed to the album or not, but he has admitted that it is possible. McGuinn has, however, gone on record as stating that he wrote the song "Get to You" with Clark, and that the writing credits on the album are mistaken; they should have read McGuinn/Clark, rather than McGuinn/Hillman. However, in an interview published in the November 2012 edition of Uncut magazine, Hillman stated that he definitely had a hand in writing the song with McGuinn, although he was unsure whether Clark also contributed to it or not.
Music Production Despite its troubled genesis, the album contains some of the band's most gentle and ethereal music, as well as some of its most progressive and experimental. In a 2002 interview, McGuinn said it was "kind of Beatles-inspired" and cited their album Revolver as an influence. Available at Rock's Backpages (subscription required). Lyrically, it attempted to deal with many contemporary themes such as peace, ecology, freedom, drug use, alienation and mankind's place in the universe. The album, as a whole, represented the apex of the McGuinn–Crosby–Hillman songwriting partnership, and took the musical experimentation of the original Byrds to its farthest logical extreme, mixing folk rock, country, psychedelia and jazz, often within a single song. The band and producer Gary Usher also used a number of innovative studio-based production techniques on the album, in particular making heavy use of phasing, spatial panning, and rotary speaker effects.
The band also began experimenting with the Moog modular synthesizer on a number of tracks, making The Notorious Byrd Brothers one of the first rock albums to feature the instrument. McGuinn had first discovered the Moog during the Monterey Pop Festival, where the instrument's inventor, Robert Moog, had set up a booth to demonstrate his new creation to the musicians who were performing at the festival. Being something of an electronics buff, McGuinn was eager to experiment with the synthesizer in the recording studio, although reportedly, Hillman failed to share his enthusiasm for the instrument. Although McGuinn and Usher played the Moog parts on the song "Space Odyssey" themselves, they ceded the instrument's other appearances on the album to electronic music pioneer and session musician Paul Beaver.
The album also featured the pedal steel guitar playing of session musician Red Rhodes, which represented the first use of the instrument on a Byrds' recording. This use of pedal steel, along with Clarence White's countrified guitar playing, foreshadowed the country rock direction that the band would explore on their next album, Sweetheart of the Rodeo.
Songs