Roger McGuinn

• 1. A List of Ten Names

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  Roger McGuinn was born James Joseph McGuinn III on the 13th of July 1942, and he chose his first name from a list of ten. When he started with the Byrds, he went by Jim, a name he thought too plain. In 1965 he became involved with Subud, a spiritual association, and began practicing the latihan, an exercise in quieting the mind. In 1967 Subud's founder, Bapak, advised him to change his name. Bapak said a new name would better "vibrate with the universe," and he sent McGuinn the letter R. McGuinn was asked to send back ten names that began with it. He was fascinated by airplanes, gadgets and science fiction, so he offered Rocket, Retro and Ramjet among others. Roger was the only real name in the bunch. It is also a word used in two-way radio and aviation signalling. Bapak chose it, and McGuinn officially changed his middle name from Joseph to Roger. The man who made that odd choice went on to lead the Byrds. How did a Chicago boy who learned banjo at a folk school end up with one of the most recognizable guitar sounds of his era? What did an accident in a recording studio have to do with it? And what did the Byrds' biggest hits actually pay the men who made them?

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• 2. Early Years

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  Elvis Presley's "Heartbreak Hotel" is the song that first pulled McGuinn toward music, and he still plays it in his autobiographical live shows. He was born and raised in Chicago, Illinois. His parents worked in journalism and public relations, and together they wrote a bestseller called Parents Can't Win. His mother, Dorothy Irene, was the daughter of an engineer named Louis Heyn. McGuinn attended the Latin School of Chicago. After hearing Presley, he asked his parents to buy him a guitar. Johnny Cash, Carl Perkins, Gene Vincent and the Everly Brothers soon joined Presley among his influences.

  In 1957 he enrolled at Chicago's Old Town School of Folk Music. There he learned the five-string banjo and the 12-string guitar. After he finished, he played solo in coffeehouses on the folk circuit. Established acts took notice, and the Limeliters, the Chad Mitchell Trio and Judy Collins all hired him as a sideman.

  In 1962 he ended his association with the Chad Mitchell Trio, and Bobby Darin hired him as a backup guitarist and harmony singer. Darin wanted a folk roots element in his act because folk was a growing field. Darin also opened T.M. Music in New York City's Brill Building and employed McGuinn there as a songwriter for $35 a week. About a year and a half later, Darin became ill and retired from singing.

  In 1963 McGuinn was a studio musician in New York, recording with Judy Collins and with Simon & Garfunkel. He kept hearing about the Beatles, whose first American appearances were due in February 1964. He wondered how Beatlemania might affect folk music. Then he saw George Harrison playing a 12-string Rickenbacker in the film A Hard Day's Night, and he bought the same instrument.

  Doug Weston later gave him a job at The Troubadour nightclub in Los Angeles. By then McGuinn was slipping Beatles songs into his act and giving traditional folk tunes a rock treatment. That caught the ear of another folk singer who loved the Beatles, Gene Clark. Clark joined forces with McGuinn in July 1964, and the two began building what became the Byrds.

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• 3. The Jingle-Jangle Secret

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  At Columbia studios, while the Byrds were recording their first single, "Mr. Tambourine Man," McGuinn learned why his Rickenbacker sounded flat. By his own account, the guitar by itself was "kind of thuddy." In his words, "It doesn't ring." The fix came by accident. The engineer, Ray Gerhardt, ran compressors on everything to protect his equipment from loud rock and roll. He squashed McGuinn's 12-string so hard that everyone loved the result. They chained two tube compressors in series, likely Teletronix LA-2As, and sent the guitar straight into the board.

  McGuinn described the result this way: "It's really squashed down, but it jumps out from the radio." With compression he could hold a note for three or four seconds, so the guitar began to sound more like a wind instrument. That quality gave him an idea for the Byrds' song "Eight Miles High," where he imitated the saxophonist John Coltrane. In his words, "Without compression, I couldn't have sustained the riff's first note."

  The tone alone was not enough, and he put in the hours. "I practiced eight hours a day on that 'Ric,'" he said. Acoustic 12-strings of the day had wide necks and thick, widely spaced strings that were hard to play. The Rickenbacker's slim neck and low action let him run jazz and blues scales up and down the fretboard. He also worked in more hammer-ons and pull-offs.

  He carried banjo technique over to the guitar as well. He combined a flat pick with metal finger picks on his middle and ring fingers. That let him switch instantly between fast single-note runs and banjo rolls. The result was two influential styles. The first, called jingle-jangle, used ringing arpeggios based on his banjo fingerpicking and shaped folk rock. The second merged Coltrane's free-jazz atonality with a hint of sitar droning. It was first heard on the Byrds' 1966 single "Eight Miles High" and influenced psychedelic rock.

  He built a third sound on a seven-string guitar with a doubled G-string, the second one tuned an octave higher. The C. F. Martin guitar company later released the HD7 Roger McGuinn Signature Edition. It claims to capture his jingle-jangle tone while staying as easy to play as a six-string.

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• 4. The Byrds' Chart Run

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  "Turn! Turn! Turn!" became the Byrds' second Number One success in late 1965, after "Mr. Tambourine Man" earlier that year. Pete Seeger wrote the song, and its lyrics come from Ecclesiastes in the Old Testament.

  The following year, "Eight Miles High" peaked at no. 14 on the U.S. charts. It achieved enduring classic status even though it faced a U.S. radio ban over an alleged reference to recreational drug use. In 1967 the group slid further down the charts. "So You Want to Be a Rock 'n' Roll Star" peaked at no. 29. "My Back Pages," another Bob Dylan cover, came out later that year and became their last top 40 hit.

  The year 1968 brought Sweetheart of the Rodeo, an album that many credit with the rise of country rock. McGuinn helped create it and had first imagined a blend of rock, jazz, folk and other styles. Instead, the bluegrass-western-country influences of Gram Parsons and Chris Hillman came to the forefront.

  In 1969 McGuinn's solo version of "Ballad of Easy Rider" appeared in the film Easy Rider. A full-band version became the title track of the album released later that year. McGuinn also sang a cover of Dylan's "It's Alright, Ma (I'm Only Bleeding)" for the soundtrack.

  The 1970 album Untitled stretched "Eight Miles High" to 16 minutes. All four members took extended solos in the jam-band style popular at the time. In 1991 the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inducted McGuinn as a member of the Byrds.

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• 5. Dylan and Thunderbyrd

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  In 1972 McGuinn played electric 12-string on one track, "Captain Video," on Skip Battin's self-titled solo album. After the Byrds broke up, he released several solo albums through the 1970s. His 1973 album Roger McGuinn reached no. 137 on the U.S. chart, and Peace on You in 1974 reached no. 92. Roger McGuinn & Band followed in 1975 at no. 165.

  In 1973 he worked with Bob Dylan on songs for Sam Peckinpah's film Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid. Those songs included "Knockin' on Heaven's Door." In 1975 and 1976 McGuinn toured with Dylan on the Rolling Thunder Revue. He cancelled a planned tour of his own in order to go. Late in 1975 he played guitar on "Ride the Water" for Bo Diddley's all-star album The 20th Anniversary of Rock 'n' Roll.

  In 1976 he made the album Cardiff Rose, working with Mick Ronson. A year later he released an LP called Thunderbyrd, which was also the name of his band at the time. Its members included Rick Vito, who later played with John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers and with Fleetwood Mac. Charlie Harrison, a future bassist for Poco, was in the lineup, and the drummer was Greg Thomas.

  Thunderbyrd did not last long, because later in 1977 McGuinn joined two fellow former Byrds, Gene Clark and Chris Hillman.

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• 6. Trio, Comeback, and Touring

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  The trio of McGuinn, Clark and Hillman recorded an album with Capitol Records in 1979. They appeared repeatedly on The Midnight Special, playing both new songs and Byrds hits. McGuinn's "Don't You Write Her Off" reached no. 33 in April 1979. Some listeners believe slick production and disco rhythms did the group no favors. The record still sold well enough to earn a follow-up.

  That second release was supposed to be a full group effort called "City." But Gene Clark's unreliability and drug problems changed the plan. The album City came out billed as Roger McGuinn and Chris Hillman, featuring Gene Clark. A duo album, McGuinn - Hillman, followed in 1981.

  Since 1981 McGuinn has toured regularly as a solo singer-guitarist, mostly in clubs and small theaters. In 1987 he opened for Dylan and Tom Petty and also played Farm Aid. He then spent a decade without a recording contract. In 1991 he returned with the solo album Back from Rio, which reached no. 44 on the U.S. chart. It included the hit single "King of the Hill," which he wrote with Petty, who also sang on it. His live band for the comeback featured John Jorgenson, George Hawkins and Stan Lynch.

  That same year he appeared on Willie Nile's album Places I Have Never Been. He also took part in the Guitar Legends concerts in Seville, Spain, as part of Expo '92 Seville. In 1992 he performed at the 30th Anniversary Concert for Bob Dylan, alongside George Harrison, Eric Clapton, Neil Young, Tom Petty and G.E. Smith.

  In 2018 he toured with Chris Hillman, backed by Marty Stuart and His Fabulous Superlatives. The tour marked the 50th anniversary of Sweetheart of the Rodeo. McGuinn then returned to solo touring. His solo album that year was Sweet Memories, and Merry Christmas followed in 2020.

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• 7. Folk Den and Royalties

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  In November 1995 McGuinn began recording a different folk song every month for his Folk Den website. He did it to carry the folk tradition onto the Internet. Visitors could get the songs from his Web site. In 1999 and 2000 he released the first four volumes of McGuinn's Folk Den as MP3.com downloads and CDs. A selection with guest vocalists came out as the CD Treasures from the Folk Den. That album earned a Grammy Award nomination in 2002 for Best Traditional Folk Album. In November 2005 he released a four-CD box set of one hundred of his favorite Folk Den songs.

  On the 11th of July 2000, McGuinn testified at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing about music downloaded from the Internet. He argued that downloading meant artists did not always receive the royalties that record companies promised in contracts. As evidence, he said the Byrds had received no royalties for their greatest successes, "Mr. Tambourine Man" and "Turn, Turn, Turn." They had received only advances. Those were split five ways and came to "a few thousand dollars" per band member. He also told the committee that he was receiving 50 percent royalties from MP3.com.

  McGuinn also plays in the Rock Bottom Remainders, a band of published writers who double as musicians. They perform to raise money for literacy charities. In July 2013 he co-authored an interactive ebook with the rest of the group, titled Hard Listening.

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• 8. Marriages, Faith, and Politics

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  McGuinn married Susan Bedrick in 1963, but the marriage was later annulled. From December 1966 to November 1971 he was married to Dolores DeLeon, who also followed Subud. She changed her name to Ianthe in 1967 and went back to her original name after their marriage ended. They had two sons, the filmmaker Patrick McGuinn and Henry McGuinn.

  Immediately after that divorce, McGuinn married Linda Gilbert in November 1971. That marriage also ended in divorce, in June 1975.

  In 1977 McGuinn left Subud. That same year he met Camilla, who is now his wife and business manager. They married in April 1978, and since then the couple have practiced evangelical Christianity.

  McGuinn is a registered member of the Republican Party. In 2015 he donated $2,000 to Ben Carson's presidential campaign. He refused to endorse Donald Trump, saying, "I don't like Trump." He is a longtime advocate of solar energy. In 2016 he opposed Florida Amendment 1, an initiative about the solar energy industry. He endorsed Florida Amendment 2, a medical marijuana legalization initiative, the same year.

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