1966

I stopped at a fellow bloggers blog today, Sepp at Uncommon Squalor and he had posted a video by Roger McGuinn of a Bob Dylan song, It's All Right Ma. Roger who was originally Jim McGuinn was one of the writers of The Byrds. He was also a highly original musician and is still performing. He came out of a folk/bluegrass tradition and played an electric 12 string Rickenbacher guitar. The Byrds used a lot of folk guitar styling but with in a rock context it became something new. Of course, they became famous covering Dylan and Pete Seegar and re interprting the music as futuristic electric folk.

I keep thinking that 1966 was one of the most exciting years for pop music, the Beatles released Revolver, the Who were at their creative peak...bands like Arthur Lee's Love were creating music that was breaking the ruless.
People were exploring sound and I suppose it was even more interesting because it was still restrained style on the edge of psychedelic excess. The songs still had to fit the context of a 3 minute pop single.

A piece of music which still raises goosebumps is the Byrds, 8 Miles High. Roger McGuinn uses his 12 string guitar to bridge the ocean between bluegrass and John Coltrane via Ravi Shankar. The sleek harmonies and chiming guitar riffs hint of a sleek gleaming future that never was, but the poetry takes us back to the painful reality....

1966, the edge of a future....are we there yet?