Hey Rhody Interview: Musician Roger McGuinn

When you’re widely credited with helping to shape not one, not two, but three distinct subgenres of rock music, your place in music history is pretty well secured.

As a member of The Byrds, Roger McGuinn popularized the “jingle-jangle” 12-string guitar sound, he made folk-rock an AM (and later FM) radio staple, and he unwittingly created “Cosmic Americana” with the late Gram Parsons. As the closest thing to the leader of the band, McGuinn was at the center of the storm with The Byrds, briefly rivaling The Beatles in popularity, with chart-topping singles, grandma glasses, and cool psychedelic outfits that influenced hippie culture in the mid and late 60s.

I spoke to McGuinn recently as he prepared for a brief East Coast tour with a stop at Cranston’s Park Theatre on April 18. He told me that fans should expect a career-spanning show. It's autobiographical, kind of a one-man play,” says McGuinn. “I tell the story of how I got into music, listening to the radio, hearing Elvis. I got a guitar, and I went to school for folk music. I tell the story of all the things that have happened in my career.”

That career has included many iconic moments, such as playing at “Bobfest,” Bob Dylan’s 30th-anniversary concert at Madison Square Garden. “We did my arrangement of ‘My Back Pages,’ with George Harrison, Tom Petty, Eric Clapton, Neil Young, and Bob himself,” says McGuinn. “I was just thrilled to be part of that.”

His work with The Byrds made McGuinn a household name in the 1960s. Songs like “Mr. Tambourine Man,” “Eight Miles High,” and “Turn, Turn Turn,” topped the charts in the 1960’s, when the band was turning traditional folk music into chart-topping rock and roll. He explained how it all came about.

“I was working for Bobby Darin in the Brill Building in New York City, and my job was to listen to the radio and write songs like the ones that were already hits, and then The Beatles came out,” McGuinn explains. “I fell in love with them, and I'd always been into folk music, so when I first heard (Bob Dylan’s) ‘Mr. Tambourine Man,’ it was originally in a two-form, a folky kind of time. I transferred it to rock and roll, I put a Beatles beat to it, and the two things worked well together. Jim Dixon, our manager, said, ‘Do quality songs. Don't just do bubblegum. It's going to get you ahead.’ And I think that's the reason for it.”

McGuinn says his favorite Byrds albums include The Notorious Bird Brothers and Younger Than Yesterday. He’s also a fan of the country-rock masterpiece Sweetheart of the Rodeo. “It was kind of a sleeper,” he says. “It was a bomb when it came out, but after 40 or 50 years, it became very well respected, including by the Highwaymen -- Willie Nelson, Kris Kristofferson, and Johnny Cash, those guys.”

McGuinn regularly records new music on his internet-based platform, The Folk Den. “It's named after a room at the Troubadour (in Los Angeles) - the front room was a place where you could hang out all day,” he explains. “The Troubadour was a folk music venue at the time.  That's where I met (fellow Byrd) Gene Clark.”

He started the project in 1995, the early days of the Internet, before most folks had even heard of an MP3. “I was listening to a Smithsonian Folkways album of traditional songs. And it dawned on me that new folk singers were writing their own songs. They weren't doing the traditional songs like the old English-Irish ballads, the cowboy songs, the prison songs, and the blues, and all. So I thought I'd do something about it. I've always been a techie, and I learned how to record songs on a computer.”

Encouraged in part by producer Terry Melcher, McGuinn began recording at home using early digital tools. “He invited me to a Beach Boys session – it was one of the first albums done on Pro Tools. So I got my own system where I could record on a computer and put songs up for free download on the internet. I thought, what a great way to keep these songs alive – people get them for free, share them with their families and friends, and they'll keep them going.” 

More than three decades later, the Folk Den includes over 360 recordings, most of them traditional songs, with the occasional original mixed in. Fans attending the Park Theatre performance can expect to hear selections from that archive, along with Byrds classics and stories from a life spent at the forefront of American music. Click here to learn more.