Ingram Cecil Connor III, known professionally as Gram Parsons, was an American singer, songwriter, guitarist, and pianist. He recorded as a solo artist and with the International Submarine Band, the Byrds, and the Flying Burrito Brothers, popularizing what he called "Cosmic American Music", a hybrid of country, rhythm and blues, soul, folk, and rock.
James Roger McGuinn is an American musician, best known for being the frontman and leader of the Byrds. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame for his work with the Byrds. As a solo artist he has released 10 albums and collaborated with, among others, Bob Dylan, Tom Petty and Chris Hillman. The 12-string Rickenbacker guitar is his signature instrument.
The Byrds were an American rock band formed in Los Angeles, California, in 1964. The band underwent multiple lineup changes throughout its existence, with frontman Roger McGuinn remaining the sole consistent member. Although their time as one of the most popular groups in the world only lasted for a short period in the mid-1960s, the Byrds are considered by critics to be among the most influential rock acts of their era. Their signature blend of clear harmony singing and McGuinn's jangly 12-string Rickenbacker guitar was "absorbed into the vocabulary of rock" and has continued to be influential.
The Flying Burrito Brothers are an American country rock band best known for their influential 1969 debut album, The Gilded Palace of Sin. Although the group is perhaps best known for its connection to band founders Gram Parsons and Chris Hillman, the group underwent many personnel changes and has existed in various incarnations. Now officially known as The Burrito Brothers the band continues to perform and record new albums.
Al Perkins is an American guitarist known primarily for his steel guitar work. The Gibson guitar company called Perkins "the world's most influential Dobro player" and began producing an "Al Perkins Signature" Dobro in 2001—designed and autographed by Perkins.
Sweetheart of the Rodeo is the sixth album by American rock band the Byrds and was released in August 1968 on Columbia Records. Recorded with the addition of country rock pioneer Gram Parsons, it became the first album widely recognized as country rock as well as a seminal progressive country album, and represented a stylistic move away from the psychedelic rock of the band's previous LP, The Notorious Byrd Brothers. The Byrds had occasionally experimented with country music on their four previous albums, but Sweetheart of the Rodeo represented their fullest immersion into the genre up to that point in time. The album was responsible for bringing Parsons, who had joined the Byrds in February 1968 prior to the start of recording, to the attention of a mainstream rock audience for the first time. Thus, the album is an important chapter in Parsons' crusade to make country music fashionable for a young audience.
Harold Eugene Clark was an American singer-songwriter and founding member of the folk rock band the Byrds. He was the Byrds' principal songwriter between 1964 and early 1966, writing most of the band's best-known originals from this period, including "I'll Feel a Whole Lot Better", "She Don't Care About Time", "Eight Miles High" and "Set You Free This Time". Although he did not achieve commercial success as a solo artist, Clark was in the vanguard of popular music during much of his career, prefiguring developments in such disparate subgenres as psychedelic rock, baroque pop, newgrass, country rock, and alternative country. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1991 as a member of the Byrds.
Clarence White was an American bluegrass and country guitarist and singer. He is best known as a member of the bluegrass ensemble the Kentucky Colonels and the rock band the Byrds, as well as for being a pioneer of the musical genre of country rock during the late 1960s. White also worked extensively as a session musician, appearing on recordings by the Everly Brothers, Joe Cocker, Ricky Nelson, Pat Boone, the Monkees, Randy Newman, Gene Clark, Linda Ronstadt, Arlo Guthrie, and Jackson Browne among others.
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.
Bernard Matthew Leadon III is an American singer, musician, songwriter, and founding member of the Eagles, for which he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1998. Prior to the Eagles, he was a member of three country rock bands: Hearts & Flowers, Dillard & Clark, and the Flying Burrito Brothers. He is a multi-instrumentalist coming from a bluegrass background. He introduced elements of this music to a mainstream audience during his tenure with the Eagles.
The Byrds is a four-CD box set by the American rock band the Byrds. It features music that had previously been released between the mid-1960s and early 1970s, along with a number of previously unreleased tracks and some new recordings from 1990. The box set was issued on October 19, 1990, by Columbia/Legacy and reached number 151 on the Billboard albums chart.
The Essential Byrds is a comprehensive two-CD compilation album by the American rock band the Byrds. It was released in 2003 as part of Sony BMG's The Essential series. The Essential Byrds did not chart in the U.S. or the UK. A 3.0 edition of the compilation released in 2011 contains a third disc with six additional tracks: "Spanish Harlem Incident", "I Knew I'd Want You", "The World Turns All Around Her", "I See You", "Change Is Now", and "One Hundred Years from Now".
The Desert Rose Band was an American country rock band from Los Angeles, California, founded in 1985 by Chris Hillman, with Herb Pedersen and John Jorgenson. The original lineup included Bill Bryson on bass guitar, JayDee Maness on pedal steel guitar, and Steve Duncan on drums. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, the band charted several hit singles on the US Billboard Hot Country Singles & Tracks charts until disbanding in February 1994.
Burrito Deluxe is the second album by the country rock group the Flying Burrito Brothers, released in May 1970 on A&M Records, catalogue 4258. It is the last to feature Gram Parsons prior to his dismissal from the group. It contains the first issued version of the Mick Jagger/Keith Richards-written song "Wild Horses," released almost a year before the Rolling Stones' own take on it appeared on Sticky Fingers.
Nashville West was a short-lived American country rock quartet, that was briefly together in the late 1960s. The group comprised multi-instrumentalist Gene Parsons, guitarist Clarence White, singer-guitarist-fiddler Gib Guilbeau and bassist Wayne Moore. Parsons and White left the band to join The Byrds while Guilbeau and Parsons later joined the Flying Burrito Brothers.
There Is a Season is a four-CD and one DVD box set by the American rock band the Byrds that was released on September 26, 2006 by Columbia/Legacy. It comprises 99 tracks and includes material from every one of the band's twelve studio albums, presented in roughly chronological order. The bonus DVD features ten clips of the Byrds lip-synching their hits on television programs between 1965 and 1967. Upon release, the box set failed to reach the Billboard 200 chart or the UK Albums Chart. There Is a Season supplants the band's earlier box set, The Byrds, which was released in October 1990.
Herbert Joseph Pedersen is an American musician, guitarist, banjo player, singer-songwriter, and actor who has played a variety of musical styles over the past fifty years including country, bluegrass, progressive bluegrass, folk, folk rock, country rock, and has worked with numerous musicians in many different bands.
History of The Byrds is a double album compilation by the American rock band the Byrds and was released on May 18, 1973 by CBS Records. The compilation was released exclusively in Europe and the UK, peaking at number 47 on the UK Albums Chart, but it was also available in the United States as an import.
McGuinn, Clark & Hillman were an American rock group consisting of Roger McGuinn, Gene Clark, and Chris Hillman, who were all former members of the band the Byrds. The group formed in 1977 and was partly modeled after Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young and, to a lesser extent, the Eagles. They were reasonably successful commercially in the United States, with their debut album reaching number 39 on the Billboard Top LPs & Tapes chart and the single "Don't You Write Her Off" reaching number 33 on the Billboard Hot 100.
Chris Hillman is an American musician and songwriter. In addition to his solo albums and his recordings with the Byrds, the Flying Burrito Brothers, and the Desert Rose Band, he has been featured as a collaborator with and composer for many other artists.
