What if Crosby hadn't gotten booted from the Byrds?

Hmmm, I come to the forum and there's no Byrds or Byrds-related threads on the first few pages. So, here:

What if McGuinn and Hillman could've exercised the almost superhuman patience to constructively deal with Crosby during the Notorious sessions, maybe even figure out a way to respectfully work togther.

Would they Byrds have gotten jazzier? More overtly counter-cultural? Would the career boost they got from 'Easy Rider' resonated more as the Crosby-Mcguinn archetypes would've been more apparent?

I doubt they would've headed down those country roads. Though a band including Clarence White and Crosby could be interesting indeed. Even Steven Hawking could not conceive of Crosby and Gram Parsons in the same band.

 

So much for Sweetheart of the Rodeo, which to me wouldn't be such a bad thing. Probably would have lasted two more albums then the group would have imploded. Crosby and McGuinns's politics would have gotten in the way. I don't think they could really coexist in the same band. David had some great songs that didn't make 5 D and YTY. He would of eventually walked anyway IMO.

 

I think the look McGuinn gave Crosby during the latter's Kennedy assassination lecture from the stage at Monterey in Monterey Pop said it all. Now, if Gene Clark had stayed...that's the one I find more intriguing.

 

I respect David Crosby as a musician, but I think his departure from the Byrds was inevitable and for the best.

 

I didn't know that Bing Crosby was in the Byrds?!?

 

Then he joined Crosby, Stills, Nash and (Bob) Hope to record the Road to Marrakesh.

 

Crosby would have quit if he had not been kicked out. Look at what the others were writing in 1968 (not much) and look at what Crosby was writing in 1968 ("Kids And Dogs", "Games", "Guinnevere", "Laughing", "The Wall Song", etc....). Either the Byrds would have become Crosby's group, or he would have had to quit.

 

Listening to "Mind Gardens" on YTY the other day. I can see why he was booted. When David was bad he was really bad....

 

just can't imagine the byrds doing "almost cut my hair" or "deja vu".

 

Went to a post-earthquake benefit at the Cow Palace, San Francisco. Must have been late 1989/early 1990. Lots of vintage acts in the lineup, including Steve Miller and Jesse Colin Young. Midway through the concert, Bob Hope shows up and does his USO shtick for this decidly "alt' crowd, which eats it up anyway. As Hope is walking offstage Graham Nash shouts out "No Hope without Crosby!!!" just as Crosby, Stills and Nash take over the stage. FWIW, they sounded wonderful, with tighter harmony singing than I've ever heard from the group on record.

Oh yeah, original post and all that—with his massive ego and self-destructive bent, David Crosby would have been booted from the Byrds anyway. The real tragedy was losing Gene Clark, the best songwriter of the group.

 

McGuinn and Hillman did seem to be in a dry spell in early 1968 (contributing no new material to Sweetheart of the Rodeo) but by the second half of the year McGuinn had written a large batch of songs that would end up on Dr. Byrds, and Hillman had co-written the great material for the first Flying Burrito Brothers album. In the latter case we don't really know what Hillman would have come up with if he'd been writing alone and hadn't hooked up with Parsons, but certainly some of those ideas would have emerged in some form.

I'm not familiar enough with Crosby's post-Byrds work to say whether his stuff was better than that, but even if it was unquestionably better McGuinn would not have allowed the Byrds to become "his" group. We can look at the Byrds' second album sessions, where Gene Clark had excellent material left on the shelf in favor of tepid McGuinn-sung covers and a weak McGuinn/Crosby song, to get a sense of what would have happened to Crosby if he'd stayed. He would have been allotted his 3-4 songs per album tops. So you're right, he probably would have quit.

Certainly if he'd stayed there would have been no country direction, and they would have had to hire a different drummer than Kevin Kelley. As much as I love the original Byrds' work (and Notorious in particular), I find it hard to imagine things could have worked out better than they did if the band had stayed together.

 

...but Crosby did get booted. Case closed.

It would have been interesting if The Notorious Byrd Brothers had hit #1 on the charts instead of #47. I wonder if McGuinn and Hillman would have asked Crosby and even Michael Clarke to rejoin them. Instead they knew the Byrds were dead and it was time to play cowboy instead.

 

I don't think Gene Clark was booted, I think he leapt out while Eight Miles High.

Real weird theory—Pynchon's Paranoids [faux Rock Band, circa 1964, L.A.] in The Crying of Lot 49 are the Byrds [World Pacific Demo Era] lightly fictionalized.

 

Yet The Notorious Byrd Brothers is probably the best album The Byrds ever released.

 

1968 was probably Crosby's most prolific year as a songwriter. He never wrote more songs in a single year, than in 1968. Those songs lasted him through 1972.

Which is exactly why Crosby would have quit. He had too many songs to be contained in the Byrds. The volume of original songs of high quality would have been overwhelming. Not only was Crosby writing a lot, but he was peaking. In contrast, the others seemed to be at a low point.

 

It was probably for the best that Crosby was booted from the Byrds. His ego was way too big at the time, and he was no longer just the harmony singer. I think Monterey was the last straw for McGuinn. Crosby was obviously acting as "frontman", which I'm sure McGuinn didn't like. Crosby was also getting some great tunes cut from albums like "Lady Friend" & "It Happens Each Day". Why they put out "Mind Gardens", I'll never know. "Triad" shows that they were obviously moving in different directions. I think they could have made another good album with Crosby after NBB, but I think a break was inevitable. I'm glad The Byrds continued without him, because I love SOTR, but I think McGuinn held on to the name a couple years too long. I suppose it was hard to let go of it. Ironically, I always thought Crosby's songs on Graham Nash/David Crosby (1972), would have sounded great as Byrds songs. Unfortunately, the album recorded right after it (Byrds) failed to meet expectations.

 

You never really know. "Teach Your Children" is pretty much a country song. Crosby had no problem singing on that. Also, Clarence White played on a few Byrds tracks that Crosby sang on. And Crosby also sings the high harmony on the Burritos "Do Right Woman", which makes the song IMO, so I could see him singing with Parsons. Being in a band for a long period of time is another story. Chris Hillman couldn't do it with GP either.

 

If he wouldn't have gotten the boot, then he would have been on the album cover, and the horse's **** would not have been on it.

 

I can get you close, thanks to SCTV.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mGedI5C3yW0

 

Thanks for the laugh, very funny

 

I think that was the original poster's intent. Not that Crosby had any problems with country (or country-influenced music) but that Crosby and Parsons' personalities would not have been able to coexist in the same band. Both were egomaniacs who craved the limelight and had difficulty compromising. Plus, Parsons once stole Crosby's girlfriend...

 

if crosbly didn't get booted then there would've been no crosby stills nash (and young)

 

Testify brother. That clunker stands out like a sore thumb on an otherwise excellent album.