Mr. Tambourine Man (album)
Encyclopedia
Mr. Tambourine Man is the debut album
by the American folk rock
band
The Byrds
and was released in June 1965 on Columbia Records
(see 1965 in music
). The album
, along with the single
of the same name, established the band as an internationally successful rock
act and was also influential in originating the musical style known as folk rock. The term "folk rock" was, in fact, first coined by the U.S. music press
to describe the band's sound in mid-1965, at around the same time that the "Mr. Tambourine Man
" single reached the top of the Billboard
chart. The single and album also represented the first effective American challenge to the dominance of The Beatles
and the British Invasion
during the mid-1960s.
The album peaked at #6 on the Billboard Top LPs
chart and reached #7 in the United Kingdom. The Bob Dylan
penned "Mr. Tambourine Man" single was released ahead of the album in April 1965, reaching #1 on both the Billboard Hot 100
and the UK Singles Chart
. A second single from the album, "All I Really Want to Do", also a Dylan cover
, was moderately successful in the U.S. but fared better in the United Kingdom, where it reached the Top 10.
and roots
music background, rather than a rock and roll
one. Lead guitar
ist Jim McGuinn
had been a folk singer at various New York and Los Angeles folk clubs during the early 1960s and had also served as a sideman
with the "collegiate folk" groups The Limeliters
and the Chad Mitchell Trio
. Additionally, he had spent time as a professional songwriter at the Brill Building
under the tutelage of Bobby Darin
. Gene Clark
had also worked as a solo folk singer and as part of The New Christy Minstrels, while David Crosby
had spent time in New York's Greenwich Village
as a folk singer and had also been a member of Les Baxter's Balladeers
. Chris Hillman
's background was more oriented towards bluegrass music
than folk, having been a member of the Scottsville Squirrel Barkers, the Golden State Boys (who later renamed themselves The Hillmen
), and concurrently with his recruitment into The Byrds, The Green Grass Group. Drummer
Michael Clarke
's musical pedigree was less auspicious, having played conga
s in a semi-professional capacity in and around San Francisco and L.A. since leaving his home in Spokane, Washington at the age of 16.
McGuinn and Clark initially met at The Troubadour club in Los Angeles and soon formed a Peter and Gordon style duo, playing Beatles' covers, Beatlesque renditions of traditional folk songs, and some self-penned material. The duo soon added Crosby to the line-up and named themselves The Jet Set in mid-1964. Crosby introduced McGuinn and Clark to his associate Jim Dickson who had access to World Pacific Studios
. Dickson was impressed enough by the trio to take on management duties for the group, utilizing World Pacific as a rehearsal studio and recording the band as they honed their craft and perfected their blend of pop
and folk. Over the coming months Hillman and Clarke were recruited to The Jet Set on bass guitar
and drums
respectively. During this period, Dickson managed to acquire an acetate disc
of "Mr. Tambourine Man", a song written by Bob Dylan that had not been released at that time. The Byrds were initially unimpressed with the song but they eventually warmed to it and began to rehearse and record demos
of it at World Pacific.
After seeing The Beatles' film A Hard Day's Night
in August 1964, the band equipped themselves with similar instruments to The Beatles: a Rickenbacker
12-string
for McGuinn, a Gretsch
Tennessean for Clark (although Crosby commandeered it soon after) and Ludwig
drums for Clarke. The band were signed to Columbia Records on November 10, 1964 and finally changed their name to The Byrds over Thanksgiving
that year. The band, along with the group of L.A. session musician
s later known as The Wrecking Crew
, entered Columbia Recording Studios in Hollywood on January 20, 1965 to record the "Mr. Tambourine Man" single. The Byrds continued to record the Mr. Tambourine Man album without the help of session musicians from March 8 through to April 22, 1965.
Terry Melcher
's lack of confidence in The Byrds' musicianship at the time, most of the band had been replaced by session musicians for the "Mr. Tambourine Man" single and its B-side
"I Knew I'd Want You", with only McGuinn being allowed to play on these tracks. The most distinctive features of The Byrds' rendition of "Mr. Tambourine Man" were the vocal harmonies
of Clark, McGuinn and Crosby, as well as McGuinn's jangling twelve-string Rickenbacker guitar playing (which complemented the phrase "jingle jangle morning" found in the song's lyric
). This combination of 12-string guitar and complex harmony work became the band's signature sound during their early period. Another notable element of the band's rendition of "Mr. Tambourine Man" was the melodic bass playing of session musician Larry Knechtel
, standing in for The Byrds' bassist
, Chris Hillman.
Another Dylan cover, "All I Really Want to Do", was the first song to be recorded for the album following the "Mr. Tambourine Man" and "I Knew I'd Want You" session and it would go on to become the band's second single release. Producer Terry Melcher felt confident that the band's debut single would be, at the very least, a regional hit and so he brought The Byrds back into the studio on March 8, 1965 to record a follow-up. This March 8 recording session yielded the version of "All I Really Want to Do" that appears on the album but the song was later re-recorded on April 14 and it was this later take that graced the A-side
of The Byrds' second single.
Although the band's musicianship had improved since the recording of their debut single, it was assumed by both Columbia Records and the band's manager that the entire album would be recorded with session men providing the musical backing. However, the band had other ideas and insisted that they be allowed to perform the album's instrumental accompaniment themselves. Melcher felt satisfied that the group had polished their sound enough to be able to produce professional sounding backing tracks and thus, The Byrds were allowed to play on all of the remaining songs on the album without any help from outside musicians. However, a persistent myth about the album is that all of the playing on it was done by session musicians. This misconception is likely due to confusion between the "Mr. Tambourine Man" single and the album of the same name. Chris Hillman has noted that the contrast between the smoother, more polished sound of the two tracks featuring session musicians and the rawer sound of the rest of the album is quite noticeable.
For the most part, the Mr. Tambourine Man album consisted of two types of songs: band originals, primarily penned by Clark, the group's central songwriter during its first eighteen months of existence, and covers of modern folk songs, composed primarily by Bob Dylan. The Clark-penned songs included "Here Without You", a song detailing a bittersweet trip through the city in which every landmark and physical object reminds the singer of an absent lover, and "I Knew I'd Want You", a Beatlesque recountal of the first flushes of romance. Although "I Knew I'd Want You" had been recorded as the intended B-side of the band's debut single, it's interesting to note that had the band failed to secure permission to release "Mr. Tambourine Man" from Dylan and his manager Albert Grossman
, "I Knew I'd Want You" would've been issued as the group's first A-side.
A third song from the pen of Gene Clark featured on the album was "I'll Feel a Whole Lot Better", an upbeat number with pounding tambourine
, jangling Rickenbacker and criss-crossing vocals from Clark on the lead and McGuinn and Crosby on backing vocals. The song bore a passing resemblance to The Searchers
' 1963 hit
"Needles and Pins" and has, since its release, become a rock music
standard
, inspiring a number of cover versions over the years. Two of the album's songs were co-written by Clark and McGuinn: "You Won't Have to Cry", which featured a lyric concerned with a woman who has been wronged in love, and "It's No Use", which anticipated the harder-edged, psychedelic
sound that the band would begin to explore towards the end of 1965 and throughout 1966.
The abundance of Dylan material on the album, with three songs taken from the Another Side of Bob Dylan
album alone, led to accusations of the band being too reliant on his work. However, the Dylan covers, including "Chimes of Freedom
", "All I Really Want to Do", and "Spanish Harlem Incident
", in addition to the title track, remain among The Byrds' best-known and most enduring recordings. Another enduring cover included on the album was an expansive arrangement of Idris Davies
and Pete Seeger
's "The Bells of Rhymney
", stressing the band's folk music
roots. "The Bells of Rhymney" was a relative newcomer to the band's stage repertoire, having been worked up in March 1965, during The Byrds' residency at Ciro's
nightclub
on the Sunset Strip
. The song, which told the sorrowful tale of a coal mining
disaster in Wales, had originally been adapted by Pete Seeger from a lyric by the Welsh poet Idris Davies. During recording, the band paid special attention to their diction and pronunciation of the song's lyrics but in spite of this attention to detail, the band actually mispronounced the word "Rhymney" in their recording of the song. Although the song had a somewhat somber theme it became one of the band's most popular numbers during their residency at Ciro's. "The Bells of Rhymney" was also influential on The Beatles, particularly George Harrison
, who co-opted McGuinn's guitar riff
and incorporated it into his own composition, "If I Needed Someone
", from the Rubber Soul
album.
The band also covered two non-folk songs on the album: "Don't Doubt Yourself, Babe" by Jackie DeShannon
, an early supporter of the band, and Vera Lynn's
World War II
era standard, "We'll Meet Again". The latter was given a very sardonic reading, influenced by the song's appearance in the final scene of Stanley Kubrick's
movie Dr. Strangelove. This treatment of "We'll Meet Again", sequenced at the end of the album, began a tradition of closing The Byrds' albums with a tongue-in-cheek or unusual track, a policy that would be repeated on several subsequent LP
s.
, CS 9172 in stereo
) and August 20, 1965 in the UK (catalogue item BPG 62571 in mono, SBPG 62571 in stereo). It peaked at #6 on the Billboard Top LPs chart, during a chart stay of 38 weeks, and reached #7 in the United Kingdom, spending a total of 12 weeks on the UK albums chart. The preceding single of the same name was released on April 12, 1965 in the U.S. and May 15, 1965 in the UK, reaching #1 on both the Billboard Hot 100 and the UK Singles Chart. A second single taken from the album, "All I Really Want to Do", peaked at #40 on the Billboard Hot 100 but fared better in the United Kingdom, where it reached #4. The album's distinctive fisheye lens
front cover photograph was taken by Barry Feinstein and has since become an acknowledged classic. The album's back cover featured liner notes, written in the form of an open letter to a friend, by Columbia Records' publicist
Billy James. In addition, the back cover also featured a black and white photograph, taken by Jim Dickson, of The Byrds on stage with Bob Dylan at Ciro's.
Upon release, critical reaction to the album was almost universally positive, with Billboard
magazine noting "the group has successfully combined folk material with pop-dance beat arrangements. Pete Seeger's "The Bells Of Rhymney" is a prime example of the new interpretations of folklore." In its July 1965 issue, Time
magazine praised the album by stating "To make folk music the music of today's folk, this quintet has blended Beatle beats with Leadbelly
laments, created a halfway school of folk-rock that scores at the cash box if not with the folk purists." In the UK, the NME
described the band and its debut album by commenting "They look like a rock group but are really a fine folk unit. They play their stringed instruments with great skill and invention against the rock-steady drumming. Their voices merge well...As the first group to bridge the gap between beat and folk, they deserve to be winners." The UK publication Music Echo was also enthusiastic about the album's contents, concluding that the record was "an album which easily lives up to the promise of their great knock-out singles." However, not all reviews of the album were positive: Record Mirror in the UK awarded the album two stars out of five, deriding it as "The same nothingy vocals, the same jangly guitar, the same plodding beat on almost every track. The Byrds really must try to get some different sounds." In more recent years Richie Unterberger
, writing for the Allmusic website, has called the album "One of the greatest debuts in the history of rock, Mr. Tambourine Man was nothing less than a significant step in the evolution of rock & roll itself, demonstrating that intelligent lyrical content could be wedded to compelling electric guitar riffs and a solid backbeat."
The "Mr. Tambourine Man" single instantly established the band on both sides of the Atlantic, introducing the new genre of folk rock and challenging the dominance of The Beatles and the rest of the British Invasion. At roughly the same time that their debut single peaked at #1 on the Billboard charts, the U.S. music press began using the term "folk rock" to describe the band's blend of beat music
and folk. In the months following the release of the Mr. Tambourine Man album and its attendant singles, many acts imitated this hybrid of a British Invasion beat, jangly guitar playing and poetic or socially conscious lyrics. The roots of this sound were to be found in the American folk music revival
of the early 1960s, The Animals
' recording of "The House of the Rising Sun
", the folk-influenced songwriting of The Beau Brummels
, and the twelve-string guitar jangle of The Searchers and The Beatles. However, it was The Byrds who first melded these disparate elements into a unified whole. The Byrds' influence can be heard in many recordings released by American acts in late 1965 and 1966, including The Turtles
, Simon & Garfunkel, The Lovin' Spoonful
, Barry McGuire
, The Mamas & the Papas
, Jefferson Airplane
, We Five
, Love
, and Sonny & Cher
. The Byrds' folk rock sound, as heard on Mr. Tambourine Man, has continued to be influential on many bands, including Big Star
, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
, R.E.M.
, The Church
, The Long Ryders
, The Smiths
, The Bangles
, The Stone Roses
, Teenage Fanclub
, The Bluetones
, and Delays
amongst others.
Mr. Tambourine Man was remastered at 20-bit
resolution and partially remix
ed as part of the Columbia/Legacy
Byrds series. It was reissued in an expanded form on April 30, 1996, with six bonus tracks, including three alternate versions of songs found on the original album, the outtakes "She Has a Way" and "You and Me", and the single version of "All I Really Want to Do".
The album was selected by Rolling Stone
magazine as #232 on their list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.
The Byrds
Additional Personnel
/Legacy
. The reason for the remix was explained by Bob Irwin (who produced these re-issues for compact disc) during an interview:
He further stated:
Irwin's assertions that no liberties were taken have been proven false in many instances. There is a short section of "Chimes of Freedom" that exists in the stereo remix that didn't appear in the original mix. The song "Mr. Tambourine Man" appears in a radically different, super-wide stereo remix, whereas the original stereo mix was so narrow as to almost be mono. The fades are different on almost every song as well.
Many fans enjoy the remixed album because it's very close to the original mix in most cases and offers noticeably better sound quality. However, there are also a lot of fans who dismiss the remix as revisionist history
and prefer to listen to the original mix on vinyl
or on the pre-1996 CD releases.
Album
An album is a collection of recordings, released as a single package on gramophone record, cassette, compact disc, or via digital distribution. The word derives from the Latin word for list .Vinyl LP records have two sides, each comprising one half of the album...
by the American folk rock
Folk rock
Folk rock is a musical genre combining elements of folk music and rock music. In its earliest and narrowest sense, the term referred to a genre that arose in the United States and the UK around the mid-1960s...
band
Musical ensemble
A musical ensemble is a group of people who perform instrumental or vocal music. In classical music, trios or quartets either blend the sounds of musical instrument families or group together instruments from the same instrument family, such as string ensembles or wind ensembles...
The Byrds
The Byrds
The Byrds were an American rock band, formed in Los Angeles, California in 1964. The band underwent multiple line-up changes throughout its existence, with frontman Roger McGuinn remaining the sole consistent member until the group disbanded in 1973...
and was released in June 1965 on Columbia Records
Columbia Records
Columbia Records is an American record label, owned by Japan's Sony Music Entertainment, operating under the Columbia Music Group with Aware Records. It was founded in 1888, evolving from an earlier enterprise, the American Graphophone Company — successor to the Volta Graphophone Company...
(see 1965 in music
1965 in music
-Events:*January 4 – Fender Musical Instruments Corporation is sold to CBS for $13 million.*January 12 – Hullabaloo premieres on NBC. The first show included performances by The New Christy Minstrels, comedian Woody Allen, actress Joey Heatherton and a segment from London in which Brian Epstein...
). The album
Album
An album is a collection of recordings, released as a single package on gramophone record, cassette, compact disc, or via digital distribution. The word derives from the Latin word for list .Vinyl LP records have two sides, each comprising one half of the album...
, along with the single
Single (music)
In music, a single or record single is a type of release, typically a recording of fewer tracks than an LP or a CD. This can be released for sale to the public in a variety of different formats. In most cases, the single is a song that is released separately from an album, but it can still appear...
of the same name, established the band as an internationally successful rock
Rock music
Rock music is a genre of popular music that developed during and after the 1960s, particularly in the United Kingdom and the United States. It has its roots in 1940s and 1950s rock and roll, itself heavily influenced by rhythm and blues and country music...
act and was also influential in originating the musical style known as folk rock. The term "folk rock" was, in fact, first coined by the U.S. music press
Music journalism
Music journalism is criticism and reportage about music. It began in the eighteenth century as comment on what is now thought of as 'classical music'. This aspect of music journalism, today often referred to as music criticism , comprises the study, discussion, evaluation, and interpretation of...
to describe the band's sound in mid-1965, at around the same time that the "Mr. Tambourine Man
Mr. Tambourine Man
"Mr. Tambourine Man" is a song written and performed by Bob Dylan, which was released on his 1965 album Bringing It All Back Home. The Byrds also recorded a version of the song that was released as their first single on Columbia Records, reaching number 1 on both the Billboard Hot 100 chart and...
" single reached the top of the Billboard
Billboard (magazine)
Billboard is a weekly American magazine devoted to the music industry, and is one of the oldest trade magazines in the world. It maintains several internationally recognized music charts that track the most popular songs and albums in various categories on a weekly basis...
chart. The single and album also represented the first effective American challenge to the dominance of The Beatles
The Beatles
The Beatles were an English rock band, active throughout the 1960s and one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music. Formed in Liverpool, by 1962 the group consisted of John Lennon , Paul McCartney , George Harrison and Ringo Starr...
and the British Invasion
British Invasion
The British Invasion is a term used to describe the large number of rock and roll, beat, rock, and pop performers from the United Kingdom who became popular in the United States during the time period from 1964 through 1966.- Background :...
during the mid-1960s.
The album peaked at #6 on the Billboard Top LPs
Billboard 200
The Billboard 200 is a ranking of the 200 highest-selling music albums and EPs in the United States, published weekly by Billboard magazine. It is frequently used to convey the popularity of an artist or groups of artists...
chart and reached #7 in the United Kingdom. The Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan is an American singer-songwriter, musician, poet, film director and painter. He has been a major and profoundly influential figure in popular music and culture for five decades. Much of his most celebrated work dates from the 1960s when he was an informal chronicler and a seemingly...
penned "Mr. Tambourine Man" single was released ahead of the album in April 1965, reaching #1 on both the Billboard Hot 100
Billboard Hot 100
The Billboard Hot 100 is the United States music industry standard singles popularity chart issued weekly by Billboard magazine. Chart rankings are based on radio play and sales; the tracking-week for sales begins on Monday and ends on Sunday, while the radio play tracking-week runs from Wednesday...
and the UK Singles Chart
UK Singles Chart
The UK Singles Chart is compiled by The Official Charts Company on behalf of the British record-industry. The full chart contains the top selling 200 singles in the United Kingdom based upon combined record sales and download numbers, though some media outlets only list the Top 40 or the Top 75 ...
. A second single from the album, "All I Really Want to Do", also a Dylan cover
Cover version
In popular music, a cover version or cover song, or simply cover, is a new performance or recording of a contemporary or previously recorded, commercially released song or popular song...
, was moderately successful in the U.S. but fared better in the United Kingdom, where it reached the Top 10.
Background
Prior to forming The Byrds, most of the members of the band had come from a folkFolk music
Folk music is an English term encompassing both traditional folk music and contemporary folk music. The term originated in the 19th century. Traditional folk music has been defined in several ways: as music transmitted by mouth, as music of the lower classes, and as music with unknown composers....
and roots
Americana (music)
Americana is an amalgam of roots musics formed by the confluence of the shared and varied traditions that make up the American musical ethos; specifically those sounds that are merged from folk, country, blues, rhythm and blues, rock and roll and other external influential styles...
music background, rather than a rock and roll
Rock and roll
Rock and roll is a genre of popular music that originated and evolved in the United States during the late 1940s and early 1950s, primarily from a combination of African American blues, country, jazz, and gospel music...
one. Lead guitar
Lead guitar
Lead guitar is a guitar part which plays melody lines, instrumental fill passages, guitar solos, and occasionally, some riffs within a song structure...
ist Jim McGuinn
Roger McGuinn
James Roger McGuinn is an American singer-songwriter and guitarist. He is best known for being the lead singer and lead guitarist on many of The Byrds' records...
had been a folk singer at various New York and Los Angeles folk clubs during the early 1960s and had also served as a sideman
Sideman
A sideman is a professional musician who is hired to perform or record with a group of which he or she is not a regular member. They often tour with solo acts as well as bands and jazz ensembles. Sidemen are generally required to be adaptable to many different styles of music, and so able to fit...
with the "collegiate folk" groups The Limeliters
The Limeliters
The Limeliters are an American folk music group, formed in July 1959 by Lou Gottlieb , Alex Hassilev , and Glenn Yarbrough . The group was active from 1959 until 1965, when they disbanded. After a hiatus of sixteen years Yarbrough, Hassilev, and Gottlieb reunited and began performing as...
and the Chad Mitchell Trio
Chad Mitchell Trio
The Chad Mitchell Trio were a North American vocal group who became known during the 1960s. They performed folk songs, some of which were traditionally passed down and some of their own compositions. Unlike many fellow folk music groups, none of the trio played instruments...
. Additionally, he had spent time as a professional songwriter at the Brill Building
Brill Building
The Brill Building is an office building located at 1619 Broadway on 49th Street in the New York City borough of Manhattan, just north of Times Square and further uptown from the historic musical Tin Pan Alley neighborhood...
under the tutelage of Bobby Darin
Bobby Darin
Bobby Darin , born Walden Robert Cassotto, was an American singer, actor and musician.Darin performed in a range of music genres, including pop, rock, jazz, folk and country...
. Gene Clark
Gene Clark
Gene Clark, born Harold Eugene Clark was an American singer-songwriter, and one of the founding members of the folk-rock group The Byrds....
had also worked as a solo folk singer and as part of The New Christy Minstrels, while David Crosby
David Crosby
David Van Cortlandt Crosby is an American guitarist, singer, and songwriter. In addition to his solo career, he was a founding member of three bands: The Byrds, Crosby, Stills & Nash , and CPR...
had spent time in New York's Greenwich Village
Greenwich Village
Greenwich Village, , , , .in New York often simply called "the Village", is a largely residential neighborhood on the west side of Lower Manhattan in New York City. A large majority of the district is home to upper middle class families...
as a folk singer and had also been a member of Les Baxter's Balladeers
Les Baxter
Les Baxter was an American musician and composer.Baxter studied piano at the Detroit Conservatory before moving to Los Angeles for further studies at Pepperdine College. Abandoning a concert career as a pianist, he turned to popular music as a singer...
. Chris Hillman
Chris Hillman
Christopher Hillman was one of the original members of The Byrds which in 1965 included Roger McGuinn, Gene Clark, David Crosby, and Michael Clarke....
's background was more oriented towards bluegrass music
Bluegrass music
Bluegrass music is a form of American roots music, and a sub-genre of country music. It has mixed roots in Scottish, English, Welsh and Irish traditional music...
than folk, having been a member of the Scottsville Squirrel Barkers, the Golden State Boys (who later renamed themselves The Hillmen
The Hillmen
The Hillmen were a southern Californian bluegrass group. Formed in 1962, the original line-up of the Golden State Boys consisted of Vern Gosdin on guitar and lead vocals, his brother Rex Gosdin on double bass, Hal Poindexter on guitar, and Don Parmley on banjo...
), and concurrently with his recruitment into The Byrds, The Green Grass Group. Drummer
Drummer
A drummer is a musician who is capable of playing drums, which includes but is not limited to a drum kit and accessory based hardware which includes an assortment of pedals and standing support mechanisms, marching percussion and/or any musical instrument that is struck within the context of a...
Michael Clarke
Michael Clarke (musician)
Michael Clarke , was an American musician, best known as the drummer for the 1960s rock group The Byrds from 1964 to 1967. He died in 1993, at age 47, from liver failure, a direct result of more than three decades of heavy alcohol consumption.-Biography:Clarke was born Michael James Dick in...
's musical pedigree was less auspicious, having played conga
Conga
The conga, or more properly the tumbadora, is a tall, narrow, single-headed Cuban drum with African antecedents. It is thought to be derived from the Makuta drums or similar drums associated with Afro-Cubans of Central African descent. A person who plays conga is called a conguero...
s in a semi-professional capacity in and around San Francisco and L.A. since leaving his home in Spokane, Washington at the age of 16.
McGuinn and Clark initially met at The Troubadour club in Los Angeles and soon formed a Peter and Gordon style duo, playing Beatles' covers, Beatlesque renditions of traditional folk songs, and some self-penned material. The duo soon added Crosby to the line-up and named themselves The Jet Set in mid-1964. Crosby introduced McGuinn and Clark to his associate Jim Dickson who had access to World Pacific Studios
Pacific Jazz Records
Pacific Jazz Records was a Los Angeles-based record label best known for releasing cool jazz or West coast jazz. It was founded by Richard Bock and drummer Roy Harte in 1952....
. Dickson was impressed enough by the trio to take on management duties for the group, utilizing World Pacific as a rehearsal studio and recording the band as they honed their craft and perfected their blend of pop
Pop music
Pop music is usually understood to be commercially recorded music, often oriented toward a youth market, usually consisting of relatively short, simple songs utilizing technological innovations to produce new variations on existing themes.- Definitions :David Hatch and Stephen Millward define pop...
and folk. Over the coming months Hillman and Clarke were recruited to The Jet Set on bass guitar
Bass guitar
The bass guitar is a stringed instrument played primarily with the fingers or thumb , or by using a pick....
and drums
Drum kit
A drum kit is a collection of drums, cymbals and often other percussion instruments, such as cowbells, wood blocks, triangles, chimes, or tambourines, arranged for convenient playing by a single person ....
respectively. During this period, Dickson managed to acquire an acetate disc
Acetate disc
An acetate disc, also known as a test acetate, dubplate , lacquer , transcription disc or instantaneous disc...
of "Mr. Tambourine Man", a song written by Bob Dylan that had not been released at that time. The Byrds were initially unimpressed with the song but they eventually warmed to it and began to rehearse and record demos
Demo (music)
A demo version or demo of a song is one recorded for reference rather than for release. A demo is a way for a musician to approximate their ideas on tape or disc, and provide an example of those ideas to record labels, producers or other artists...
of it at World Pacific.
After seeing The Beatles' film A Hard Day's Night
A Hard Day's Night (film)
A Hard Day's Night is a 1964 British black-and-white comedy film directed by Richard Lester and starring The Beatles—John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr—during the height of Beatlemania. It was written by Alun Owen and originally released by United Artists...
in August 1964, the band equipped themselves with similar instruments to The Beatles: a Rickenbacker
Rickenbacker
Rickenbacker International Corporation, also known as Rickenbacker, is an electric and bass guitar manufacturer based in Santa Ana, California...
12-string
Twelve string guitar
The twelve-string guitar is an acoustic or electric guitar with 12 strings in 6 courses, which produces a richer, more ringing tone than a standard six-string guitar...
for McGuinn, a Gretsch
Gretsch
The Gretsch Company was founded in 1883 by Friedrich Gretsch, a twenty-seven year old German immigrant recently arrived in the US. Friedrich Gretsch manufactured banjos, tambourines, and drums, until his death in 1895. His son, Fred, moved operations to Brooklyn, New York in 1916...
Tennessean for Clark (although Crosby commandeered it soon after) and Ludwig
Ludwig-Musser
Ludwig-Musser is a drum and percussion instrument manufacturer that is part of the Conn-Selmer division of Steinway Musical Instruments.The first product made by the Ludwig brothers, William and Theobaldner , was a bass drum pedal capable of playing faster beats than was typical of products of the...
drums for Clarke. The band were signed to Columbia Records on November 10, 1964 and finally changed their name to The Byrds over Thanksgiving
Thanksgiving (United States)
Thanksgiving, or Thanksgiving Day, is a holiday celebrated in the United States on the fourth Thursday in November. It has officially been an annual tradition since 1863, when, during the Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln proclaimed a national day of thanksgiving to be celebrated on Thursday,...
that year. The band, along with the group of L.A. session musician
Session musician
Session musicians are instrumental and vocal performers, musicians, who are available to work with others at live performances or recording sessions. Usually such musicians are not permanent members of a musical ensemble and often do not achieve fame in their own right as soloists or bandleaders...
s later known as The Wrecking Crew
The Wrecking Crew (music)
The Wrecking Crew was a nickname coined by the drummer Hal Blaine after the fact for a group of session musicians in Los Angeles, California, who earned wide acclaim in the 1960s. They backed dozens of popular singers, and were one of the most successful "groups" of studio musicians in music history...
, entered Columbia Recording Studios in Hollywood on January 20, 1965 to record the "Mr. Tambourine Man" single. The Byrds continued to record the Mr. Tambourine Man album without the help of session musicians from March 8 through to April 22, 1965.
Music
Mr. Tambourine Man opens with the Dylan-penned title track, which had been a huge international hit for the group and had initiated the folk rock boom of the mid-1960s. Due to producerRecord producer
A record producer is an individual working within the music industry, whose job is to oversee and manage the recording of an artist's music...
Terry Melcher
Terry Melcher
Terrence P. Melcher was an American musician and record producer, who was instrumental in shaping the sound of American West Coast rock music. His greatest contribution to the culture of the time was producing The Byrds' innovative hits "Mr Tambourine Man" and "Turn! Turn! Turn!" and his...
's lack of confidence in The Byrds' musicianship at the time, most of the band had been replaced by session musicians for the "Mr. Tambourine Man" single and its B-side
A-side and B-side
A-side and B-side originally referred to the two sides of gramophone records on which singles were released beginning in the 1950s. The terms have come to refer to the types of song conventionally placed on each side of the record, with the A-side being the featured song , while the B-side, or...
"I Knew I'd Want You", with only McGuinn being allowed to play on these tracks. The most distinctive features of The Byrds' rendition of "Mr. Tambourine Man" were the vocal harmonies
Vocal harmony
Vocal harmony is a style of vocal music in which a consonant note or notes are sung at the same time as a main melody in a predominantly homophonic texture. Vocal harmonies are used in many subgenres of European art music, including Classical choral music and opera and in the popular styles from...
of Clark, McGuinn and Crosby, as well as McGuinn's jangling twelve-string Rickenbacker guitar playing (which complemented the phrase "jingle jangle morning" found in the song's lyric
Lyrics
Lyrics are a set of words that make up a song. The writer of lyrics is a lyricist or lyrist. The meaning of lyrics can either be explicit or implicit. Some lyrics are abstract, almost unintelligible, and, in such cases, their explication emphasizes form, articulation, meter, and symmetry of...
). This combination of 12-string guitar and complex harmony work became the band's signature sound during their early period. Another notable element of the band's rendition of "Mr. Tambourine Man" was the melodic bass playing of session musician Larry Knechtel
Larry Knechtel
Lawrence William "Larry" Knechtel was an American keyboard player and bassist, best known for his work as a session musician with such artists as Simon & Garfunkel, Duane Eddy, The Beach Boys, The Mamas & the Papas, The Partridge Family, The Doors, and Elvis Presley, and as a member of the 1970s...
, standing in for The Byrds' bassist
Bassist
A bass player, or bassist is a musician who plays a bass instrument such as a double bass, bass guitar, keyboard bass or a low brass instrument such as a tuba or sousaphone. Different musical genres tend to be associated with one or more of these instruments...
, Chris Hillman.
Another Dylan cover, "All I Really Want to Do", was the first song to be recorded for the album following the "Mr. Tambourine Man" and "I Knew I'd Want You" session and it would go on to become the band's second single release. Producer Terry Melcher felt confident that the band's debut single would be, at the very least, a regional hit and so he brought The Byrds back into the studio on March 8, 1965 to record a follow-up. This March 8 recording session yielded the version of "All I Really Want to Do" that appears on the album but the song was later re-recorded on April 14 and it was this later take that graced the A-side
A-side and B-side
A-side and B-side originally referred to the two sides of gramophone records on which singles were released beginning in the 1950s. The terms have come to refer to the types of song conventionally placed on each side of the record, with the A-side being the featured song , while the B-side, or...
of The Byrds' second single.
Although the band's musicianship had improved since the recording of their debut single, it was assumed by both Columbia Records and the band's manager that the entire album would be recorded with session men providing the musical backing. However, the band had other ideas and insisted that they be allowed to perform the album's instrumental accompaniment themselves. Melcher felt satisfied that the group had polished their sound enough to be able to produce professional sounding backing tracks and thus, The Byrds were allowed to play on all of the remaining songs on the album without any help from outside musicians. However, a persistent myth about the album is that all of the playing on it was done by session musicians. This misconception is likely due to confusion between the "Mr. Tambourine Man" single and the album of the same name. Chris Hillman has noted that the contrast between the smoother, more polished sound of the two tracks featuring session musicians and the rawer sound of the rest of the album is quite noticeable.
For the most part, the Mr. Tambourine Man album consisted of two types of songs: band originals, primarily penned by Clark, the group's central songwriter during its first eighteen months of existence, and covers of modern folk songs, composed primarily by Bob Dylan. The Clark-penned songs included "Here Without You", a song detailing a bittersweet trip through the city in which every landmark and physical object reminds the singer of an absent lover, and "I Knew I'd Want You", a Beatlesque recountal of the first flushes of romance. Although "I Knew I'd Want You" had been recorded as the intended B-side of the band's debut single, it's interesting to note that had the band failed to secure permission to release "Mr. Tambourine Man" from Dylan and his manager Albert Grossman
Albert Grossman
Albert Bernard Grossman was an American entrepreneur and manager in the American folk music scene and rock and roll. He was most famous as the manager of Bob Dylan between 1962 and 1970.-Biography:...
, "I Knew I'd Want You" would've been issued as the group's first A-side.
A third song from the pen of Gene Clark featured on the album was "I'll Feel a Whole Lot Better", an upbeat number with pounding tambourine
Tambourine
The tambourine or marine is a musical instrument of the percussion family consisting of a frame, often of wood or plastic, with pairs of small metal jingles, called "zils". Classically the term tambourine denotes an instrument with a drumhead, though some variants may not have a head at all....
, jangling Rickenbacker and criss-crossing vocals from Clark on the lead and McGuinn and Crosby on backing vocals. The song bore a passing resemblance to The Searchers
The Searchers (band)
The Searchers are an English beat group, who emerged as part of the 1960s Merseybeat scene along with The Beatles, The Fourmost, The Merseybeats, The Swinging Blue Jeans, and Gerry & The Pacemakers....
' 1963 hit
Hit single
A hit single is a recorded song or instrumental released as a single that has become very popular. Although it is sometimes used to describe any widely-played or big-selling song, the term "hit" is usually reserved for a single that has appeared in an official music chart through repeated radio...
"Needles and Pins" and has, since its release, become a rock music
Rock music
Rock music is a genre of popular music that developed during and after the 1960s, particularly in the United Kingdom and the United States. It has its roots in 1940s and 1950s rock and roll, itself heavily influenced by rhythm and blues and country music...
standard
Standard (music)
In music, a standard is a tune or song of established popularity.-See also:* Blues standard* Jazz standard* Pop standard* Great American Songbook-Further reading:* Greatest Rock Standards, published by Hal Leonard ISBN 0793588391...
, inspiring a number of cover versions over the years. Two of the album's songs were co-written by Clark and McGuinn: "You Won't Have to Cry", which featured a lyric concerned with a woman who has been wronged in love, and "It's No Use", which anticipated the harder-edged, psychedelic
Psychedelic rock
Psychedelic rock is a style of rock music that is inspired or influenced by psychedelic culture and attempts to replicate and enhance the mind-altering experiences of psychedelic drugs. It emerged during the mid 1960s among folk rock and blues rock bands in United States and the United Kingdom...
sound that the band would begin to explore towards the end of 1965 and throughout 1966.
The abundance of Dylan material on the album, with three songs taken from the Another Side of Bob Dylan
Another Side of Bob Dylan
Another Side of Bob Dylan is the fourth studio album by American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan. It was released August 8, 1964 by Columbia Records....
album alone, led to accusations of the band being too reliant on his work. However, the Dylan covers, including "Chimes of Freedom
Chimes of Freedom
"Chimes of Freedom" is a song written and performed by Bob Dylan and featured on his 1964 album Another Side of Bob Dylan , produced by Tom Wilson. It was written in early 1964 and was influenced by the symbolist poetry of Arthur Rimbaud. The song depicts the feelings and thoughts of the singer...
", "All I Really Want to Do", and "Spanish Harlem Incident
Spanish Harlem Incident
"Spanish Harlem Incident" is a song written and performed by Bob Dylan and was released on his 1964 album, Another Side of Bob Dylan, on August 8, 1964 . The song has been described as a "a gorgeous vignette" by critics and been praised for its multilayered, poetic dimensions...
", in addition to the title track, remain among The Byrds' best-known and most enduring recordings. Another enduring cover included on the album was an expansive arrangement of Idris Davies
Idris Davies
Idris Davies was a Welsh poet. He was born in Rhymney, near Caerphilly in South Wales, the Welsh-speaking son of colliery chief winderman Evan Davies and his wife Elizabeth Ann. Davies became a poet, originally writing in Welsh, but later writing exclusively in English...
and Pete Seeger
Pete Seeger
Peter "Pete" Seeger is an American folk singer and was an iconic figure in the mid-twentieth century American folk music revival. A fixture on nationwide radio in the 1940s, he also had a string of hit records during the early 1950s as a member of The Weavers, most notably their recording of Lead...
's "The Bells of Rhymney
The Bells of Rhymney
"The Bells of Rhymney" is a song first recorded by folk singer Pete Seeger, using words written by Welsh poet Idris Davies. The lyrics to the song were drawn from part of Davies' poetic work Gwalia Deserta, which was first published in 1938...
", stressing the band's folk music
Folk music
Folk music is an English term encompassing both traditional folk music and contemporary folk music. The term originated in the 19th century. Traditional folk music has been defined in several ways: as music transmitted by mouth, as music of the lower classes, and as music with unknown composers....
roots. "The Bells of Rhymney" was a relative newcomer to the band's stage repertoire, having been worked up in March 1965, during The Byrds' residency at Ciro's
Ciro's
Ciro's was a nightclub in West Hollywood, California, at 8433 Sunset Boulevard, on the Sunset Strip, opened in January 1940, by entrepreneur William Wilkerson. Herman Hover took over management of Ciro's in 1942 until it closed its doors in 1957...
nightclub
Nightclub
A nightclub is an entertainment venue which usually operates late into the night...
on the Sunset Strip
Sunset Strip
The Sunset Strip is the name given to the mile-and-a-half stretch of Sunset Boulevard that passes through West Hollywood, California. It extends from West Hollywood's eastern border with Hollywood at Harper Avenue, to its western border with Beverly Hills at Sierra Drive...
. The song, which told the sorrowful tale of a coal mining
Coal mining
The goal of coal mining is to obtain coal from the ground. Coal is valued for its energy content, and since the 1880s has been widely used to generate electricity. Steel and cement industries use coal as a fuel for extraction of iron from iron ore and for cement production. In the United States,...
disaster in Wales, had originally been adapted by Pete Seeger from a lyric by the Welsh poet Idris Davies. During recording, the band paid special attention to their diction and pronunciation of the song's lyrics but in spite of this attention to detail, the band actually mispronounced the word "Rhymney" in their recording of the song. Although the song had a somewhat somber theme it became one of the band's most popular numbers during their residency at Ciro's. "The Bells of Rhymney" was also influential on The Beatles, particularly George Harrison
George Harrison
George Harrison, MBE was an English musician, guitarist, singer-songwriter, actor and film producer who achieved international fame as lead guitarist of The Beatles. Often referred to as "the quiet Beatle", Harrison became over time an admirer of Indian mysticism, and introduced it to the other...
, who co-opted McGuinn's guitar riff
RIFF
The Resource Interchange File Format is a generic file container format for storing data in tagged chunks. It is primarily used to store multimedia such as sound and video, though it may also be used to store any arbitrary data....
and incorporated it into his own composition, "If I Needed Someone
If I Needed Someone
"If I Needed Someone" is a song written by George Harrison. Versions by The Beatles and by The Hollies appeared simultaneously, both being released in the United Kingdom on 3 December 1965. The Hollies version appeared on a single. Most of the Hollies previous singles had been big top ten hits...
", from the Rubber Soul
Rubber Soul
Rubber Soul is the sixth studio album by the English rock group The Beatles, released in December 1965. Produced by George Martin, Rubber Soul had been recorded in just over four weeks to make the Christmas market...
album.
The band also covered two non-folk songs on the album: "Don't Doubt Yourself, Babe" by Jackie DeShannon
Jackie DeShannon
Jackie DeShannon is an American singer-songwriter with a string of hit song credits from the 1960s onwards. She was one of the first female singer-songwriters of the rock 'n' roll period.- Life and early career :...
, an early supporter of the band, and Vera Lynn's
Vera Lynn
Dame Vera Lynn, DBE is an English singer-songwriter and actress whose musical recordings and performances were enormously popular during World War II. During the war she toured Egypt, India and Burma, giving outdoor concerts for the troops...
World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
era standard, "We'll Meet Again". The latter was given a very sardonic reading, influenced by the song's appearance in the final scene of Stanley Kubrick's
Stanley Kubrick
Stanley Kubrick was an American film director, writer, producer, and photographer who lived in England during most of the last four decades of his career...
movie Dr. Strangelove. This treatment of "We'll Meet Again", sequenced at the end of the album, began a tradition of closing The Byrds' albums with a tongue-in-cheek or unusual track, a policy that would be repeated on several subsequent LP
LP album
The LP, or long-playing microgroove record, is a format for phonograph records, an analog sound storage medium. Introduced by Columbia Records in 1948, it was soon adopted as a new standard by the entire record industry...
s.
Release and legacy
Mr. Tambourine Man was released on June 21, 1965 in the United States (catalogue item CL 2372 in monoMonaural
Monaural or monophonic sound reproduction is single-channel. Typically there is only one microphone, one loudspeaker, or channels are fed from a common signal path...
, CS 9172 in stereo
Stereophonic sound
The term Stereophonic, commonly called stereo, sound refers to any method of sound reproduction in which an attempt is made to create an illusion of directionality and audible perspective...
) and August 20, 1965 in the UK (catalogue item BPG 62571 in mono, SBPG 62571 in stereo). It peaked at #6 on the Billboard Top LPs chart, during a chart stay of 38 weeks, and reached #7 in the United Kingdom, spending a total of 12 weeks on the UK albums chart. The preceding single of the same name was released on April 12, 1965 in the U.S. and May 15, 1965 in the UK, reaching #1 on both the Billboard Hot 100 and the UK Singles Chart. A second single taken from the album, "All I Really Want to Do", peaked at #40 on the Billboard Hot 100 but fared better in the United Kingdom, where it reached #4. The album's distinctive fisheye lens
Fisheye lens
In photography, a fisheye lens is a wide-angle lens that takes in a broad, panoramic and hemispherical image. Originally developed for use in meteorology to study cloud formation and called "whole-sky lenses", fisheye lenses quickly became popular in general photography for their unique, distorted...
front cover photograph was taken by Barry Feinstein and has since become an acknowledged classic. The album's back cover featured liner notes, written in the form of an open letter to a friend, by Columbia Records' publicist
Publicist
A publicist is a person whose job is to generate and manage publicity for a public figure, especially a celebrity, a business, or for a work such as a book, film or album...
Billy James. In addition, the back cover also featured a black and white photograph, taken by Jim Dickson, of The Byrds on stage with Bob Dylan at Ciro's.
Upon release, critical reaction to the album was almost universally positive, with Billboard
Billboard (magazine)
Billboard is a weekly American magazine devoted to the music industry, and is one of the oldest trade magazines in the world. It maintains several internationally recognized music charts that track the most popular songs and albums in various categories on a weekly basis...
magazine noting "the group has successfully combined folk material with pop-dance beat arrangements. Pete Seeger's "The Bells Of Rhymney" is a prime example of the new interpretations of folklore." In its July 1965 issue, Time
Time (magazine)
Time is an American news magazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong...
magazine praised the album by stating "To make folk music the music of today's folk, this quintet has blended Beatle beats with Leadbelly
Leadbelly
Huddie William Ledbetter was an iconic American folk and blues musician, notable for his strong vocals, his virtuosity on the twelve-string guitar, and the songbook of folk standards he introduced....
laments, created a halfway school of folk-rock that scores at the cash box if not with the folk purists." In the UK, the NME
NME
The New Musical Express is a popular music publication in the United Kingdom, published weekly since March 1952. It started as a music newspaper, and gradually moved toward a magazine format during the 1980s, changing from newsprint in 1998. It was the first British paper to include a singles...
described the band and its debut album by commenting "They look like a rock group but are really a fine folk unit. They play their stringed instruments with great skill and invention against the rock-steady drumming. Their voices merge well...As the first group to bridge the gap between beat and folk, they deserve to be winners." The UK publication Music Echo was also enthusiastic about the album's contents, concluding that the record was "an album which easily lives up to the promise of their great knock-out singles." However, not all reviews of the album were positive: Record Mirror in the UK awarded the album two stars out of five, deriding it as "The same nothingy vocals, the same jangly guitar, the same plodding beat on almost every track. The Byrds really must try to get some different sounds." In more recent years Richie Unterberger
Richie Unterberger
Richie Unterberger is a US author and journalist whose focus is popular music and travel writing.-Life and writing:Having worked as a DJ at WXPN in Philadelphia, he started reviewing records for Op magazine in 1983...
, writing for the Allmusic website, has called the album "One of the greatest debuts in the history of rock, Mr. Tambourine Man was nothing less than a significant step in the evolution of rock & roll itself, demonstrating that intelligent lyrical content could be wedded to compelling electric guitar riffs and a solid backbeat."
The "Mr. Tambourine Man" single instantly established the band on both sides of the Atlantic, introducing the new genre of folk rock and challenging the dominance of The Beatles and the rest of the British Invasion. At roughly the same time that their debut single peaked at #1 on the Billboard charts, the U.S. music press began using the term "folk rock" to describe the band's blend of beat music
Beat music
Beat music, British beat, or Merseybeat is a pop and rock music genre that developed in the United Kingdom in the early 1960s. Beat music is a fusion of rock and roll, doo wop, skiffle, R&B and soul...
and folk. In the months following the release of the Mr. Tambourine Man album and its attendant singles, many acts imitated this hybrid of a British Invasion beat, jangly guitar playing and poetic or socially conscious lyrics. The roots of this sound were to be found in the American folk music revival
American folk music revival
The American folk music revival was a phenomenon in the United States that began during the 1940s and peaked in popularity in the mid-1960s. Its roots went earlier, and performers like Josh White, Burl Ives, Woody Guthrie, Lead Belly, Richard Dyer-Bennett, Oscar Brand, Jean Ritchie, John Jacob...
of the early 1960s, The Animals
The Animals
The Animals were an English music group of the 1960s formed in Newcastle upon Tyne during the early part of the decade, and later relocated to London...
' recording of "The House of the Rising Sun
The House of the Rising Sun
"The House of the Rising Sun" is a folk song from the United States. Also called "House of the Rising Sun" or occasionally "Rising Sun Blues", it tells of a life gone wrong in New Orleans...
", the folk-influenced songwriting of The Beau Brummels
The Beau Brummels
The Beau Brummels were an American rock band. Formed in San Francisco in 1964, the band's original lineup included Sal Valentino , Ron Elliott , Ron Meagher , Declan Mulligan , and John Petersen...
, and the twelve-string guitar jangle of The Searchers and The Beatles. However, it was The Byrds who first melded these disparate elements into a unified whole. The Byrds' influence can be heard in many recordings released by American acts in late 1965 and 1966, including The Turtles
The Turtles
The Turtles are an American rock group led by vocalists Howard Kaylan and Mark Volman. The band became notable for several Top 40 hits beginning with its cover version of Bob Dylan's "It Ain't Me Babe" in 1965...
, Simon & Garfunkel, The Lovin' Spoonful
The Lovin' Spoonful
The Lovin' Spoonful is an American pop rock band of the 1960s, named to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2000. When asked about his band, leader John Sebastian said it sounded like a combination of "Mississippi John Hurt and Chuck Berry," prompting his friend, Fritz Richmond, to suggest the name...
, Barry McGuire
Barry McGuire
Barry McGuire is an American singer-songwriter best known for the hit song "Eve of Destruction", and later as a pioneering singer and songwriter of Contemporary Christian Music.-Early life:...
, The Mamas & the Papas
The Mamas & the Papas
The Mamas & the Papas were a Canadian/American vocal group of the 1960s . The group recorded and performed from 1965 to 1968 with a short reunion in 1971, releasing five albums and 11 Top 40 hit singles...
, Jefferson Airplane
Jefferson Airplane
Jefferson Airplane was an American rock band formed in San Francisco in 1965. A pioneer of the psychedelic rock movement, Jefferson Airplane was the first band from the San Francisco scene to achieve mainstream commercial and critical success....
, We Five
We Five
We Five was a 1960s folk rock musical group based in San Francisco, California. Their best-known hit was their 1965 remake of Ian and Sylvia's "You Were on My Mind", which reached #1 on the Cashbox chart, #3 on the Billboard Hot 100, and #1 on the Adult Contemporary chart...
, Love
Love (band)
Love was an American rock group of the late 1960s and early 1970s. They were led by singer/songwriter Arthur Lee and lead guitarist Johnny Echols...
, and Sonny & Cher
Sonny & Cher
Sonny & Cher were an American pop music duo, actors, singers and entertainers made up of husband-and-wife team Sonny and Cher Bono in the 1960s and 1970s. The couple started their career in the mid-1960s as R&B backing singers for record producer Phil Spector....
. The Byrds' folk rock sound, as heard on Mr. Tambourine Man, has continued to be influential on many bands, including Big Star
Big Star
Big Star was an American rock band formed in Memphis, Tennessee, in 1971 by Alex Chilton, Chris Bell, Jody Stephens and Andy Hummel. The group broke up in 1974, but reorganized with a new line-up nearly 20 years later...
, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
Tom Petty And The Heartbreakers are an American rock band from Gainesville, Florida. They were formed in 1976 by Tom Petty , Mike Campbell , Benmont Tench , , Ron Blair and Stan Lynch...
, R.E.M.
R.E.M.
R.E.M. was an American rock band formed in Athens, Georgia, in 1980 by singer Michael Stipe, guitarist Peter Buck, bassist Mike Mills and drummer Bill Berry. One of the first popular alternative rock bands, R.E.M. gained early attention due to Buck's ringing, arpeggiated guitar style and Stipe's...
, The Church
The Church (band)
The Church is an Australian rock band formed in Sydney in 1980. Initially associated with new wave and the neo-psychedelic sound of the mid 1980s, their music later became more reminiscent of progressive rock, featuring long instrumental jams and complex guitar interplay...
, The Long Ryders
The Long Ryders
The Long Ryders are an American alternative country and Paisley Underground band, principally active between 1983 and 1987, and which reformed in 2004 to do a reunion tour...
, The Smiths
The Smiths
The Smiths were an English alternative rock band, formed in Manchester in 1982. Based on the song writing partnership of Morrissey and Johnny Marr , the band also included Andy Rourke and Mike Joyce...
, The Bangles
The Bangles
The Bangles are an American all-female band that originated in the early 1980s, scoring several hit singles during the decade.-Formation and early years :...
, The Stone Roses
The Stone Roses
The Stone Roses are an English alternative rock band formed in Manchester in 1983. They were one of the pioneering groups of the Madchester movement that was active during the late 1980s and early 1990s...
, Teenage Fanclub
Teenage Fanclub
Teenage Fanclub are an alternative rock band from Bellshill, Scotland. The band is composed of Norman Blake , Raymond McGinley , Gerard Love and Francis MacDonald , with songwriting duties shared equally among Blake, McGinley and Love...
, The Bluetones
The Bluetones
The Bluetones were an English indie rock band, formed in Hounslow, Greater London, in 1993. The band's members were Mark Morriss on vocals, Adam Devlin on guitar, Scott Morriss on bass guitar, and Eds Chesters on drums. A fifth member, Richard Payne, came on board between 1998 and 2002...
, and Delays
Delays
Delays are an English indie band formed in Southampton, consisting of brothers Greg and Aaron Gilbert, Colin Fox and Rowly. The band's sound combines guitar and synths and features Greg Gilbert's distinctive falsetto lead vocals...
amongst others.
Mr. Tambourine Man was remastered at 20-bit
Bit
A bit is the basic unit of information in computing and telecommunications; it is the amount of information stored by a digital device or other physical system that exists in one of two possible distinct states...
resolution and partially remix
Remix
A remix is an alternative version of a recorded song, made from an original version. This term is also used for any alterations of media other than song ....
ed as part of the Columbia/Legacy
Legacy Recordings
Legacy Recordings is Sony Music Entertainment's catalog division. It was founded in 1990 by CBS Records under the leadership of Jerry Shulman, Richard Bauer, Gary Pacheco and Amy Herot to handle reissues of recordings from the vast catalogues of Columbia Records, Epic Records and associated...
Byrds series. It was reissued in an expanded form on April 30, 1996, with six bonus tracks, including three alternate versions of songs found on the original album, the outtakes "She Has a Way" and "You and Me", and the single version of "All I Really Want to Do".
The album was selected by Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone is a US-based magazine devoted to music, liberal politics, and popular culture that is published every two weeks. Rolling Stone was founded in San Francisco in 1967 by Jann Wenner and music critic Ralph J...
magazine as #232 on their list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.
Side 1
- "Mr. Tambourine ManMr. Tambourine Man"Mr. Tambourine Man" is a song written and performed by Bob Dylan, which was released on his 1965 album Bringing It All Back Home. The Byrds also recorded a version of the song that was released as their first single on Columbia Records, reaching number 1 on both the Billboard Hot 100 chart and...
" (Bob DylanBob DylanBob Dylan is an American singer-songwriter, musician, poet, film director and painter. He has been a major and profoundly influential figure in popular music and culture for five decades. Much of his most celebrated work dates from the 1960s when he was an informal chronicler and a seemingly...
) – 2:29 - "I'll Feel a Whole Lot Better" (Gene ClarkGene ClarkGene Clark, born Harold Eugene Clark was an American singer-songwriter, and one of the founding members of the folk-rock group The Byrds....
) – 2:32 - "Spanish Harlem IncidentSpanish Harlem Incident"Spanish Harlem Incident" is a song written and performed by Bob Dylan and was released on his 1964 album, Another Side of Bob Dylan, on August 8, 1964 . The song has been described as a "a gorgeous vignette" by critics and been praised for its multilayered, poetic dimensions...
" (Bob Dylan) – 1:57 - "You Won't Have to Cry" (Gene Clark, Jim McGuinnRoger McGuinnJames Roger McGuinn is an American singer-songwriter and guitarist. He is best known for being the lead singer and lead guitarist on many of The Byrds' records...
) – 2:08 - "Here Without You" (Gene Clark) – 2:36
- "The Bells of RhymneyThe Bells of Rhymney"The Bells of Rhymney" is a song first recorded by folk singer Pete Seeger, using words written by Welsh poet Idris Davies. The lyrics to the song were drawn from part of Davies' poetic work Gwalia Deserta, which was first published in 1938...
" (Idris DaviesIdris DaviesIdris Davies was a Welsh poet. He was born in Rhymney, near Caerphilly in South Wales, the Welsh-speaking son of colliery chief winderman Evan Davies and his wife Elizabeth Ann. Davies became a poet, originally writing in Welsh, but later writing exclusively in English...
, Pete SeegerPete SeegerPeter "Pete" Seeger is an American folk singer and was an iconic figure in the mid-twentieth century American folk music revival. A fixture on nationwide radio in the 1940s, he also had a string of hit records during the early 1950s as a member of The Weavers, most notably their recording of Lead...
) – 3:30
Side 2
- "All I Really Want to Do" (Bob Dylan) – 2:04
- "I Knew I'd Want You" (Gene Clark) – 2:14
- "It's No Use" (Gene Clark, Jim McGuinn) – 2:23
- "Don't Doubt Yourself, Babe" (Jackie DeShannonJackie DeShannonJackie DeShannon is an American singer-songwriter with a string of hit song credits from the 1960s onwards. She was one of the first female singer-songwriters of the rock 'n' roll period.- Life and early career :...
) – 2:54 - "Chimes of FreedomChimes of Freedom"Chimes of Freedom" is a song written and performed by Bob Dylan and featured on his 1964 album Another Side of Bob Dylan , produced by Tom Wilson. It was written in early 1964 and was influenced by the symbolist poetry of Arthur Rimbaud. The song depicts the feelings and thoughts of the singer...
" (Bob Dylan) – 3:51 - "We'll Meet AgainWe'll Meet Again"We'll Meet Again" is a 1939 song made famous by British singer Vera Lynn, and it also may refer to:* We'll Meet Again , a musical starring Lynn that includes the song...
" (Ross Parker, Hughie Charles) – 2:07
1996 CD reissue bonus tracks
- "She Has a Way" (Gene Clark) – 2:25
- "I'll Feel a Whole Lot Better" [Alternate Version] (Gene Clark) – 2:28
- "It's No Use" [Alternate Version] (Gene Clark, Jim McGuinn) – 2:24
- "You Won't Have to Cry" [Alternate Version] (Gene Clark, Jim McGuinn) – 2:07
- "All I Really Want to Do" [Single Version] (Bob Dylan) – 2:02
- "You and Me" [Instrumental] (David CrosbyDavid CrosbyDavid Van Cortlandt Crosby is an American guitarist, singer, and songwriter. In addition to his solo career, he was a founding member of three bands: The Byrds, Crosby, Stills & Nash , and CPR...
, Gene Clark, Jim McGuinn) – 2:11
Singles
- "Mr. Tambourine Man" b/w "I Knew I'd Want You" (Columbia 43271) April 12, 1965 (US #1, UK #1)
- "All I Really Want to Do" b/w "I'll Feel a Whole Lot Better" (Columbia 43332) June 14, 1965 (US #40, UK #4)
Personnel
NOTE: Sources for this section are as follows:The Byrds
- Jim McGuinnRoger McGuinnJames Roger McGuinn is an American singer-songwriter and guitarist. He is best known for being the lead singer and lead guitarist on many of The Byrds' records...
- lead guitarLead guitarLead guitar is a guitar part which plays melody lines, instrumental fill passages, guitar solos, and occasionally, some riffs within a song structure...
, vocals - Gene ClarkGene ClarkGene Clark, born Harold Eugene Clark was an American singer-songwriter, and one of the founding members of the folk-rock group The Byrds....
- rhythm guitarRhythm guitarRhythm guitar is a technique and rôle that performs a combination of two functions: to provide all or part of the rhythmic pulse in conjunction with singers or other instruments; and to provide all or part of the harmony, ie. the chords, where a chord is a group of notes played together...
, tambourineTambourineThe tambourine or marine is a musical instrument of the percussion family consisting of a frame, often of wood or plastic, with pairs of small metal jingles, called "zils". Classically the term tambourine denotes an instrument with a drumhead, though some variants may not have a head at all....
, vocals - David CrosbyDavid CrosbyDavid Van Cortlandt Crosby is an American guitarist, singer, and songwriter. In addition to his solo career, he was a founding member of three bands: The Byrds, Crosby, Stills & Nash , and CPR...
- rhythm guitar, vocals - Chris HillmanChris HillmanChristopher Hillman was one of the original members of The Byrds which in 1965 included Roger McGuinn, Gene Clark, David Crosby, and Michael Clarke....
- electric bassBass guitarThe bass guitar is a stringed instrument played primarily with the fingers or thumb , or by using a pick.... - Michael ClarkeMichael Clarke (musician)Michael Clarke , was an American musician, best known as the drummer for the 1960s rock group The Byrds from 1964 to 1967. He died in 1993, at age 47, from liver failure, a direct result of more than three decades of heavy alcohol consumption.-Biography:Clarke was born Michael James Dick in...
- drumsDrum kitA drum kit is a collection of drums, cymbals and often other percussion instruments, such as cowbells, wood blocks, triangles, chimes, or tambourines, arranged for convenient playing by a single person ....
Additional Personnel
- Bill Pittman, Jerry Cole - rhythm guitar (tracks 1, 8)
- Larry KnechtelLarry KnechtelLawrence William "Larry" Knechtel was an American keyboard player and bassist, best known for his work as a session musician with such artists as Simon & Garfunkel, Duane Eddy, The Beach Boys, The Mamas & the Papas, The Partridge Family, The Doors, and Elvis Presley, and as a member of the 1970s...
- electric bass (tracks 1, 8) - Leon RussellLeon RussellClaude Russell Bridges , known professionally as Leon Russell, is an American musician and songwriter, who has recorded as a session musician, sideman, and maintained a solo career in music....
- electric pianoElectric pianoAn electric piano is an electric musical instrument.Electric pianos produce sounds mechanically and the sounds are turned into electrical signals by pickups. Unlike a synthesizer, the electric piano is not an electronic instrument, but electro-mechanical. The earliest electric pianos were invented...
(tracks 1, 8) - Hal BlaineHal BlaineHal Blaine is an American drummer and session musician. He is most known for his work with the Wrecking Crew in California. Blaine played on numerous hits by popular groups, including Elvis Presley, John Denver, the Ronettes, Simon & Garfunkel, the Carpenters, the Beach Boys, Nancy Sinatra, and...
- drums (tracks 1, 8)
Release history
| Date | Label | Format | Country | Catalog | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| June 21, 1965 | Columbia Columbia Records Columbia Records is an American record label, owned by Japan's Sony Music Entertainment, operating under the Columbia Music Group with Aware Records. It was founded in 1888, evolving from an earlier enterprise, the American Graphophone Company — successor to the Volta Graphophone Company... |
LP LP album The LP, or long-playing microgroove record, is a format for phonograph records, an analog sound storage medium. Introduced by Columbia Records in 1948, it was soon adopted as a new standard by the entire record industry... |
US | CL 2372 | Original mono Monaural Monaural or monophonic sound reproduction is single-channel. Typically there is only one microphone, one loudspeaker, or channels are fed from a common signal path... release. |
| CS 9172 | Original stereo Stereophonic sound The term Stereophonic, commonly called stereo, sound refers to any method of sound reproduction in which an attempt is made to create an illusion of directionality and audible perspective... release. |
||||
| August 20, 1965 | CBS Columbia Records Columbia Records is an American record label, owned by Japan's Sony Music Entertainment, operating under the Columbia Music Group with Aware Records. It was founded in 1888, evolving from an earlier enterprise, the American Graphophone Company — successor to the Volta Graphophone Company... |
LP | UK | BPG 62571 | Original mono release. |
| SBPG 62571 | Original stereo release. | ||||
| 1970 | Columbia | LP | US | 465566 1 | |
| 1974 | Embassy Embassy Records Embassy Records was originally a UK budget record label that produced cover versions of current hit songs that were sold exclusively in Woolworths shops at a cheaper price than the original recordings. As such, Embassy can be seen as the UK equivalent of U.S. labels such as Hit and Bell Records... |
LP | UK | EMB 31057 | |
| 1974 | CBS/Embassy | LP | UK | S 31503 | |
| 1975 | CBS | LP | UK | S 33645 | Double album stereo reissue with Turn! Turn! Turn! Turn! Turn! Turn! (album) Turn! Turn! Turn! is the second album by the folk rock band The Byrds and was released in December 1965 on Columbia Records . Like its predecessor, Mr. Tambourine Man, the album epitomized the folk rock genre and continued the band's successful mix of vocal harmony and jangly twelve-string... |
| 1987 | Columbia | CD Compact Disc The Compact Disc is an optical disc used to store digital data. It was originally developed to store and playback sound recordings exclusively, but later expanded to encompass data storage , write-once audio and data storage , rewritable media , Video Compact Discs , Super Video Compact Discs ,... |
US | CK 9172 | Original CD release. |
| 1989 | CBS | CD | Europe | 465566 2 | |
| 1993 | Columbia | CD | UK | COL 468015 | |
| April 30, 1996 | Columbia/Legacy Legacy Recordings Legacy Recordings is Sony Music Entertainment's catalog division. It was founded in 1990 by CBS Records under the leadership of Jerry Shulman, Richard Bauer, Gary Pacheco and Amy Herot to handle reissues of recordings from the vast catalogues of Columbia Records, Epic Records and associated... |
CD | US | CK 64845 | Partially remixed stereo album plus six bonus tracks. |
| May 6, 1996 | UK | COL 483705 | |||
| 1999 | Simply Vinyl | LP | UK | SVLP 0032 | Reissue of the partially remixed stereo album. |
| 2003 | Sony Sony Music Entertainment Sony Music Entertainment ' is the second-largest global recorded music company of the "big four" record companies and is controlled by Sony Corporation of America, the United States subsidiary of Japan's Sony Corporation.... |
CD | Japan | MHCP-66 | Reissue containing six bonus tracks and the partially remixed stereo album in a replica LP sleeve. |
| 2004 | Sony/BMG | CD | UK | 4837055003 | The Vinyl Classics reissue containing six bonus tracks and the partially remixed stereo album. |
| February 7, 2006 | Columbia/Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab is a company known as an innovator in the production of audiophile-quality sound recordings. All releases are advertised as being produced from the first-generation analog master recordings, and using proprietary technology, which MFSL claims allows for improved sound... |
SACD Super Audio CD Super Audio CD is a high-resolution, read-only optical disc for audio storage. Sony and Philips Electronics jointly developed the technology, and publicized it in 1999. It is designated as the Scarlet Book standard. Sony and Philips previously collaborated to define the Compact Disc standard... (Hybrid) |
US | UDSACD 2014 | Reissue of the Mono album plus stereo bonus tracks. |
| February 21, 2006 | Sundazed Sundazed Records Sundazed Records is a record label based in Coxsackie, in the Catskills of New York. It specializes in obscure and rare recordings from the 1950s to the 1970s.Label founders Bob Irwin and his wife Mary started the label in 1989... |
LP | US | LP 5197 | Reissue of the original mono release. |
| February 10, 2009 | Sony/Columbia | CD | US | 743323 | 2 CD Double album A double album is an audio album which spans two units of the primary medium in which it is sold, typically records and compact discs.... reissue with Sweetheart of the Rodeo Sweetheart of the Rodeo Sweetheart of the Rodeo is the sixth album by American rock band The Byrds and was released on August 30, 1968 on Columbia Records... , containing six bonus tracks and the partially remixed stereo album. |
Remix information
Mr. Tambourine Man was one of four Byrds albums that were partially remixed as part of their re-release on ColumbiaColumbia Records
Columbia Records is an American record label, owned by Japan's Sony Music Entertainment, operating under the Columbia Music Group with Aware Records. It was founded in 1888, evolving from an earlier enterprise, the American Graphophone Company — successor to the Volta Graphophone Company...
/Legacy
Legacy Recordings
Legacy Recordings is Sony Music Entertainment's catalog division. It was founded in 1990 by CBS Records under the leadership of Jerry Shulman, Richard Bauer, Gary Pacheco and Amy Herot to handle reissues of recordings from the vast catalogues of Columbia Records, Epic Records and associated...
. The reason for the remix was explained by Bob Irwin (who produced these re-issues for compact disc) during an interview:
He further stated:
Irwin's assertions that no liberties were taken have been proven false in many instances. There is a short section of "Chimes of Freedom" that exists in the stereo remix that didn't appear in the original mix. The song "Mr. Tambourine Man" appears in a radically different, super-wide stereo remix, whereas the original stereo mix was so narrow as to almost be mono. The fades are different on almost every song as well.
Many fans enjoy the remixed album because it's very close to the original mix in most cases and offers noticeably better sound quality. However, there are also a lot of fans who dismiss the remix as revisionist history
Historical revisionism (negationism)
Historical revisionism is either the legitimate scholastic re-examination of existing knowledge about a historical event, or the illegitimate distortion of the historical record such that certain events appear in a more or less favourable light. For the former, i.e. the academic pursuit, see...
and prefer to listen to the original mix on vinyl
Gramophone record
A gramophone record, commonly known as a phonograph record , vinyl record , or colloquially, a record, is an analog sound storage medium consisting of a flat disc with an inscribed, modulated spiral groove...
or on the pre-1996 CD releases.