Fifty years on, they mightn't sound quite so groundbreaking, but as Joe Boyd put it:
'Mr Tambourine Man' by The Byrds ... was a more spohisticated homage that fascinated Dylan by the way it opened for him a new vision of his own music. (White Bicycles p. 97)
McGuinn has said that his intention at the outset of the Byrds was not so much to combine folk and rock as to play the kind of music the Beatles were doing. Among him and like-minded peers, there was not so much a conscious attempt t absorn the British Invasion into their own music as to imitate the British Invasion itself. It was something like a parallel to America's entry into the space race, a panicked response to the realization that the Russians had pulled ahead with the launch of Sputnik while they weren't looking. (Richie Unterberger, Jingle Jangle Morning: Folk-Rock in the 1960s Location 2259)
1965-68 Iconic 1969-71 Interesting 1973 Inconsequential
File under: Groundbreakers
Discography: Studio albums; Live albums Compilations 1967-82 1983-2000 2001-Present
In the Music Library: Ballad of Easy Rider Fifth Dimension Mr Tambourine Man The Notorious Byrd Brothers
Turn! Turn! Turn! Younger Than Yesterday
Links: Official web site Twitter Facebook