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Twin Town High (vol. 8) |
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Roger McGuinn
Wednesday 23 October @ 09:40:41 |
 by P.J. Morel
Roger McGuinn has achieved an odd sort of fame. He’s a guitar hero who’s rarely played solos. He’s also a brilliant songwriter, though his fame was eclipsed by that of his fellow band members. Perhaps most remarkably, in the mid ’60s McGuinn helped create one of the defining sounds of 20th pop music, though no one seems to have known it till the ’80s. For over 40 years now, the man and his jangly 12-string guitar sound have been a powerful stealth influence in the world of pop music.
Born James McGuinn (he changed his name to Roger during a hippy-era flirtation with the Subud religion), the young guitarist played in folk groups from his teen years. He met up with the boys who would become the Byrds in LA in 1964. As is often noted, the musical ambition of the group was to combine the evocative lyricism of Bob Dylan with the precocious pop sensibilities of the British invasion—a synthesis that’s easy to hear on the Byrd’s first recording, “Mr. Tambourine Man.” But the Byrds’ sound easily went beyond that, their soaring harmonies and the studied counterpoint of McGuinn’s guitar imparting a stately and almost religious air to their folk-pop. (McGuinn has described the guitar figure that opens “Mr. Tambourine Man” as his naïve attempt to write something “Bach-like,” and you can hear some of that quasi-baroque sensibility in a lot of his playing.)
McGuinn went on to help lay the foundations of country rock with the help of Graham Parsons and a later incarnation of the Byrds. And of course, he produced the excellent sprawling, angular guitar solo on “Eight Miles High,” one of the few (the only?) great psychedelic songs of the era.
All of which netted McGuinn relatively little notice at the time—especially in light of the noteworthy (and notorious) post-Byrds careers of bandmates Parsons and David Crosby. But by the early ’80s, when McGuinn’s musical career was in the doldrums, his legacy began to take shape with the homage paid him by influential young bands like REM.
McGuinn rediscovered his love of song craft in the late ’80s, and now regularly performs solo shows full of Byrds hits and folk standards. He’s in town next week performing a benefit show for Simpson Housing Services, a local housing charity that focuses on the needs of homeless children.
Roger McGuinn plays at the Ted Mann Concert Hall on the University of Minnesota campus Fri., Nov. 1. 8 p.m. $28.50. All-ages. 2128 4th St. S., Mpls. 612-624-2345.
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