THE BYRDS' MR TAMBOURINE MAN @ 60

It starts so slightly but it sounds like a wave. A jangling riff rings, joined by a bass that slides up the neck, a tambourine shakes and as the drums rattle in the sound is overwhelmed by harmonies so pure and filled with light that they sound like they were singing in Florence in the 16th century. A clue to the source material comes in after the chorus as Jim McGuinn (also playing the Rickenbacker 12 string) enters with his best Dylan voice. A single verse from the many in the original is sung before the chorus re-enters with its brilliance and Bach style symmetry is evoked before the opening riff and bass slide play unto the fade. What had been an aching ode to a wandering life of discovery and daily adventure became as tightly packaged as a tin of beans and as remote from the legumes in the pods. It was like a tv commercial of a Dylan song. Dylan loved it. You could dance to it. It's meteoric chart performance brought him income he didn't have to work for. If Dylan's original was poetic and poignant, this one was all teen marketing, playing back the tasty bits with extra sugar in bite size form. Also, it's completely beautiful as music and sounds so much of its time that the charm and exquisite textures reach across decades to delight anyone who hears it. 

It got me in the mid '70s when I was foraging around for '60s sounds because the radio was almost entirely crud. It was on a compilation record from the middle of that decade. There were all sorts of stuff on the sides but The Byrd doing Mr Tambourine Man soared out past the crackles and surface hiss and filled the room. So, I liked the Byrds.

It was halfway through the following decade when I found my own copy. Like The Kinks, The Byrds back catalogue was slow to make it through to reissues. I snapped this one up as soon as I found a reprint in a shop. I was surprised when I got it home and put it on.

After the title track opens the album we plunge straight into the Gene Clark original Feel a Whole Lot Better with its hyped up 12 string riff lifted from The Searchers' Needles and Pins. It's a good contrast within a limited pallet that makes the album feel like it is going places. A slight change in tempo brings the pace down for the cool of Dylan's Spanish Harlem Incident. Again, the band shift the song into the teen market with a constant jangling guitar and bright harmonies. You Won't have to Cry is a Clark/McGuinn co-write and follows a more Beatlesque path, adding enough distinction to warrant its strident presentation.

It's Here Without You that stops the traffic, though. The minor key riff and tight harmonies move with a sombre purpose that suggest (without remotely sounding like) Gregorian chant. The middle eight breaks out within the arrangement of harmony forward vocals, ending on a major interval before returning to the quiet pain of the verse melody in a shift that still sends shivers. It's a small masterpiece that would inform a strand of melancholic songs that the band would excel in despite the overall leanings (and record company) pushing them toward happier sounds. When Gene Clark left a few albums on, he took songs like this away and the remaining writers in the band had to follow the template.

The Bells of Rhymney is a soaring rendition of a Welsh folk song, revived by Pete Seeger and taken into the celestium of folk rock greatness. This arrangement has the honour of inspiring George Harrison (who had inspired McGuinn to take up the 12 string Rickenbacker) to pinch it with a little modification for one of his songs on Rubber Soul, If I Needed Someone. The final moments are a wordless vocal climb against the 12 string flow, an ascension.

Side two starts with Dylan's All I Really Want to Do and, while it feels more perfunctory than Mr Tambourine Man, it yet keeps the band in touch with what was making them famous. Another sombre Gene Clark number I Knew I'd Want You dispenses with the band's now signature initial riff, plunging straight into the band with vocal harmonies. The rise at the end of the middle eight when David Crosby climbs in falsetto over the unison vocals of McGuinn and Clark is pure shimmering joy.

Jackie De Shannon's Don't Doubt Yourself, Babe follows with a kind of Bo Diddley jangle and perky folk rock that ends up sounding like the Byrds doing a school trip singalong. Chimes of Freedom is another Dylan workout and joins All I Really Want to Do in the band's second-tier Bob covers. We'll Meet Again is the kind of thing the Byrds would try on the next album with their goofy cover of Oh Susannah, an awkward attempt at making an old standard into a groovy beat band rocker. It falls flat on its face. It's not as embarrassing as Oh Susannah but if it ever worked, the effectiveness was locked in a dark room back in 1965.

That said, this is one of the most indicative debut albums of its era, not only presaging the next three LPs in character and tone but reaching beyond the band's abandonment of the cute kings-of-jingle-jangle role as they explored deeper expression. For me, hearing it after a few others, I was surprised to find out how playable it was. The only really icky moment is the final track and that's not a difficult skip. Their sound is one of its decade's central points of gravity, influencing all other rock bands at some point, even the one they took their inspiration from. The title track and Clark number I Knew I'd Want You were backed by the Wrecking Crew with McGuinn on his signature 12 string and the three vocalists at the mic. The rest, however, is all the band that took it on tour.

To listen to this LP is to engage with a rare moment when a group that formed from an idea of what a rock band was coincided with the ideas of an A&R department of a record company. From the bright and joyous electric 12 that lifts all the songs to the cathedral like harmonies (Clark and McGuinn in unison and Crosby descanting) were a source point that not even The Beatles quite found (they repaid the good turn on Rain which, in the best style, didn't copy The Byrds, just showed their influence). All the tiny details gathered in a happy weave that proved stronger than the simple sum of parts and conquered the ears and sensibilities of a generation. Do yourself a favour.