The alt album Byrds series goes farther along...

Now that we enter the true purple period of the Byrds twilight years, it's storytime with Uncle OBG once again, who tells you how things could've gone down way back in the early 1970s...

The year is 1971. The place is L.A. The Byrds have convened during a short break in their immense touring schedule to begin recording their tenth studio album. The sessions did not go as well as for the predecessor. Several Byrds members were distracted, going through divorces. And producer Terry Melcher, a veteran working with the band - having produced their first two albums and the two most recent ones - was in a state of turmoil and torment as well. About two third through the recordings, Terry Melcher, citing 'exhaustion' checks himself into a mental health facility, after years of wine, women and drugs amplified rather than soothed down his (justified) paranoia that the Manson family really was after him when they went on their murder spree. With the sessions unfinished and the Byrds scheduled to go right back on the road, the Byrds strike a deal with Columbia Records: They promise to go back into the studio as soon as possible to finish the album. In the meantime, Columbia gets to pick from the completed Melcher material to issue a stop gap single, but "Glory Glory" b/w "I Want To Grow Up To Be A Politician" doesn't trouble the charts in any way. When the Byrds reconvene in the studio and listen back to the Melcher material, they decide to go in a less elaborate direction and rather try to put the simpler, earthier sound they have on the road on the record. Columbia execs insist that for more commercial viability at least 40% of the album has to come from the Melcher sessions and has to be left with his production intact. The Byrds agree and otherwise proceed to cut the rest of the songs for what will become Farther Along in the summer, with the hybrid album hitting shelves in late 1971... 

Well, things didn't quite go down like this, of course, as Melcher poured on the overdubs on the Byrdmaniax tracks while the band had hit the road again and most of the band - but especially the traditionalist axis of Gene Parsons and Clarence White - were flabbergasted when they heard the results. And their decision to quickly record a more appropriate follow-up later in London in unseemly haste - basic tracking and recording was done in just five days, with most songs written or finished to be written within the same short time frame - was an overreaction to the arch pop excesses of Byrdmaniax. 

But it might have been better if they had gone down like that, as today's alt album easily covers the most problematic stretch in Byrds history. Byrdmaniax is pretty much as awful as everyone says it is. Weak songs and a ridiculously overblown production make for a terrible mix, with the lowest amount of keepers of any Byrds album, which is reflected in my choise of only including five of its tracks in my version of Farther Along. However, and I explained why in my intro to the Byrds alt album series, I love the original Farther Along, so I really only threw off the bad stuff which basically comes down to their super-dull cover of "So Fine" and Gene Parsons' misguided roadie comedy song "B.B. Class Road". "Bristol Steam Convention Blues" is fine, but surplus to requirements since the superior "Green Apple Quick Step" is included. "Precious Kate" was right on the cut line, but some typically lovely guitar playing from Clarence White had it come down on the right side of that line.  

One of the biggest disappointments of the last two CBS Byrds albums is how little Gene Parsons contributed. After having secret or not-so-secret highlights on Ballad Of Easy Rider ("Gunga Din") and (Untitled)/Phoenix ("Yesterday's Train") he had no songs on Byrdmaniax and the two songs he had on the original Farther Along were far from his best. He deserves to be present on this Byrds album that represents the end of his tenure, but I edited "Get Down Your Line" down and shaved off the 'groovy' (or: annoying) ending pretty drastically. Surprisingly, considering his increasing reputation for including wacky novelty songs ill-fitting for the Byrds, Skip Battin gets three songs on my version of Farther Along, the two superior ballads from the two albums, as well as "America's Great National Pastime", which was the last single the CBS band would issue. Johnny Rogan, in his standard work on the Byrds, Timeless Flight Revisited, reserved his biggest scorn for that song, hyperbolically calling its inclusion "inexcusable" and "the severest loss of musical identity the Byrds ever suffered". Dude, what? I think Byrdmaniax's "Tunnel Of Love", a shameless Fats Domino rip-off and seeming Battin solo outing, would qualify as having nothing whatsoever to do with the Byrds sound, whereas "Pastime"'s sound can be somewhat placed in the band's country rock canon. Plus, you know, novelty song or not, the track is endlessly catchy and does have some funny lines. 

McGuinn gets some of the highlights here: Even in compromised form (i.e. heavily overdubbed with a female choir), "I Trust" is an underrated song from the time frame, as is the slighly psychedelic "Antique Sandy" with his doubled lead vocals. "Tiffany Queen" isn't a great song per se, but it's a pretty kick-ass opener and, as "Pale Blue" reminds us, McGuinn always had a hand with ballads.

The real hero, though, is Clarence White this time around, singing Jackson Browne's "Jamaica Say You Will", a song he brought to the group, and while Melcher's orchestral overdubs drown out a bunch of the Byrds, notably Gene Parsons, whose drum skills Melcher found severely lacking, the swirling orchestration makes for a good listen either way. White's cover of Larry Murray's "Bugler", is one of the best recordings of the twilight years Byrds and the clear highlight of any version of Farther Along. Speaking of: The title song, an old hymn brought back into the consciousness of the L.A. country rockers by The Flying Burrito Brothers, is another highlight - just a beautiful way to ride out the career of the CBS Byrds. "Farther Along we'll know more about it...farther along we'll understand why...".

So, the OBG version of Farther Along tries to wring a satisfying album from two not satisfying ones. For the cover art I wanted something that recalled the sepia simpleness of Farther Along's original cover, so I used the image originally used for their second Greatest Hits compilation. The Byrds might not have been at their absolute best in 1971, but a lot of this music is much better than you might think, and the OBG version of Farther Along hopefully proves that...

PS: The run of the CBS Byrds might be over, but the alt album series of The Byrds is not. Coming up: A better version of the 'classic line-up' reunion for Asylum Records...