Dr. Byrds & Mr. Hyde

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Dr. Byrds & Mr. Hyde
Dr. Byrds & Mr. Hyde cover
Studio album by The Byrds
Released 3 February 1969
Recorded 7 October–4 December 1968
Genre Country rock
Length 34:54
Label Columbia/Legacy
Producer Bob Johnston
Professional reviews
The Byrds chronology
Sweetheart of the Rodeo
(1968)		 Dr. Byrds & Mr. Hyde
(1969)		 Ballad of Easy Rider
(1969)

Dr. Byrds & Mr. Hyde is the seventh album from the country-rock group The Byrds, released in February of 1969 on Columbia Records, catalogue item CS 9755 in stereo. It peaked at #153 on the Billboard Top Pop Albums chart, but did make it to #15 in the United Kingdom. A single released ahead of the album, "Bad Night at the Whiskey" backed with "Drug Store Truck Drivin' Man," did not chart. A single from the same sessions released after the album, a cover of Bob Dylan's "Lay Lady Lay," peaked at #132 on the Billboard Hot 100. It was the lowest charting album of the band's career, edging out the later Farther Along by one place.

Contents

[edit] Background

In the aftermath of the defection of Gram Parsons, a major player and linchpin on Sweetheart of the Rodeo, leader and sole remaining original Byrd Roger McGuinn found himself needing to re-form the group from scratch following the departures of the remaining Sweetheart bandmembers. Drummer Kevin Kelly followed Parsons almost immediately, and to replace both, Clarence White became the band's new guitarist, and Gene Parsons (no relation to Gram), took over the drum seat. Original quintet member Chris Hillman departed in September 1968 to form The Flying Burrito Brothers with Gram; John York, a session musician who had toured with the Mamas and the Papas, was quickly hired as bassist. The new line-up gave the band a formidable one-two punch of guitarists in McGuinn and White, such instrumental flash not a featured component of the band's previous incarnations.

After three albums with Gary Usher, Bob Dylan's producer since 1965 Bob Johnston was brought on board for his one and only Byrds album.

[edit] Recording, release, and reception

Seven tracks intended for Dr. Byrds & Mr. Hyde were recorded in October of 1968. Included in the programme was "Nashville West", a Parsons-White tune that had formerly been the theme song of a separate country-rock group with that name, as well as "Your Gentle Ways of Loving Me", which Parsons and Nashville West singer Gib Guilbeau had released as a single in 1967. A song written by Roger with Gram before his departure, "Drug Store Truck Drivin' Man," was also included; the song subsequently appeared on the Woodstock soundtrack in a version by Joan Baez with lyrics altered to refer to then-California governor Ronald Reagan. A November 1968 acetate version of the LP, containing the initial seven-track programme, in more or less the eventual track order, was sold on eBay in 2004. At this point the album was to have included "Stanley's Song", a slight, rather repetitive country shuffle with a melody similar to the Disney song "It's a Small World After All". That track was shelved before completion (a guitar solo was never overdubbed), and only six tracks remained for the new LP.

The Byrds returned to the studio in December to record a version of Bob Dylan and The Band's "This Wheel's On Fire", and to revisit two songs that had been written for the 1968 film Candy. "Child of the Universe", cowritten with soundtrack composer Dave Grusin, was used in the film, but the McGuinn-York title track on Dr. Byrds was rejected. A jam-session version of the blues standard "Baby What You Want Me to Do" was also cut, in a medley with an excerpt of the previous Dylan-authored Byrds hit, "My Back Pages." At this point the album's sequence was established.

The album's title, and the back cover photo sequence of the band either in 'jet-man' flight suits or in cowboy garb on horses, announced the schizophrenic nature of the material. Psychedelic rock such as "Bad Night at the Whiskey," the Candy songs, and especially the opener "This Wheel's on Fire," sat alongside the rest of the album, which is more along the lines of Bakersfield-style country-rock of the period. Dr. Byrds and Mr. Hyde was released in February, 1969, to almost universally terrible or indifferent reviews. There were some dissenters: the famed rock critic Robert Christgau, reviewing the album in a mostly laudatory 1969 article, declared it "first-rate Byrds, a high recommendation" [1].

Dr. Byrds & Mr. Hyde was remixed and remastered at 20-bit resolution as part of the Columbia/Legacy Byrds series, reissued in an expanded form on March 25, 1997. Included among the bonus tracks is their cover of Lay Lady Lay subsequently issued as a single, only without the female backing chorus that had appeared on that single.

[edit] Miscellany

  • This is the only Byrds album on which Roger McGuinn is the sole lead vocalist.
  • Despite containing only ten tracks, this is the Byrds' longest single album, at about thirty-five minutes. Only the two-LP release (Untitled) is longer. (In fact, the studio disc of Untitled alone is longer than any other Byrds album.)
  • Although all of the '90s Byrds reissues were remixed to some extent - mostly because the much-used first-generation master tapes were either missing or unusable, necessitating a return to the multi-track masters - Dr Byrds received by far the most invasive remix, with much of producer Bob Johnston's controversial reverb removed or toned down.

[edit] Personnel

[edit] Track listing

  1. "This Wheel's on Fire" (Bob Dylan/Rick Danko) – 4:44
  2. "Old Blue" (Arr. & Adap. Roger McGuinn) – 3:21
  3. "Your Gentle Way of Loving Me" (G. Paxton/F. Guilbeau) – 2:35
  4. "Child of the Universe" (D. Grusin/Roger McGuinn) – 3:15
  5. "Nashville West" (Gene Parsons/Clarence White) – 2:29
  6. "Drug Store Truck Drivin' Man" (Roger McGuinn/Gram Parsons) – 2:37
  7. "King Apathy III" (Roger McGuinn) – 3:00
  8. "Candy" (Roger McGuinn/John York) – 3:38
  9. "Bad Night at the Whiskey" (Roger McGuinn/J. Richards) – 3:23
  10. "Medley: My Back Pages/B.J. Blues/Baby What You Want Me to Do" (Bob Dylan/Roger McGuinn/John York/Gene Parsons/Jimmy Reed) – 4:08

[edit] 1997 CD reissue Bonus Tracks

  1. "Stanley’s Song" (Roger McGuinn/Hippard) – 3:12
  2. "Lay Lady Lay" [Alternate Version](Bob Dylan) – 3:18
  3. "This Wheel’s on Fire" [Version One] (Bob Dylan/Rick Danko) – 3:53
  4. "Medley: My Back Pages/B.J. Blues/Baby What You Want Me To Do" [Alternate Version — Take 1] (Bob Dylan/Roger McGuinn/John York/Gene Parsons/Jimmy Reed) – 4:18
  5. "Nashville West" [Alternate Version — Nashville Recording] (Gene Parsons/Clarence White) – 2:05

[edit] Singles

  1. "Bad Night at the Whiskey" b/w "Drug Store Truck Drivin' Man" (Columbia 44746) 7 January 1969
  2. "Lay Lady Lay" b/w "Old Blue" (Columbia 44868) 2 May 1969

[edit] Sources

  • Dr. Byrds & Mr. Hyde CD booklet essay, David Fricke, c.1997.
  • AllMusicGuide.com
  • "Top Pop Albums 1955-2001", Joel Whitburn, c.2002.
v • d • e
The Byrds
Roger McGuinn | Chris Hillman | David Crosby | Gene Clark | Michael Clarke | Gram Parsons | Kevin Kelley | Clarence White | Gene Parsons | John York | Skip Battin | John Guerin | Joe Lala | Jimmi Seiter
Studio albums
Live albums
Compilations
Box Sets