Gene Clark - Ebbets Field, Denver, CO, 2-19-1975

Here's a FM broadcast concert by Gene Clark, formerly of the Byrds. This is one of very few excellent sounding live recordings of Clark from his 1970s heyday.

This concert has been officially released as "Silverado '75." I had that album for years, and I thought that was all these was. But it turns out that is a single album, and what I'm posting here is enough for a double album. So that's why I'm posting this, because there's more to offer than the what's on the official album.

At first, I thought Ebbets Field was some kind of sports field venue. But it actually was a small club fitting about 200 people that was named after an old baseball stadium in New York City. It was in operation from 1973 to 1977, and during that time, most or all of the concerts there were broadcast live on a local radio station. (In the future, I may make an effort to post more of these Ebbets Field concerts, because there are a lot of good ones, but I have too much on my plate right now.) So that's why we have the full performance, with just as high quality sound as the official album.

Clark actually performed an early show and a late show. I've combined all the unique songs from both, while making sure to include all the banter that he spoke. (He didn't speak much.) In case you're curious, these are the songs that got played twice:

Kansas City Southern
Set You Free This Time
She Darked the Sun
In the Pines
Silver Raven

"Train Leaves Here This Morning" is the first song of the second set, and it's all the second set after that. Although Clark performed with a small band, I felt the differences between the versions was so small that I didn't need both versions of the ones that were played twice. If you feel otherwise, you can easily find bootlegs with all the songs. 

Clark had a long, slow decline, due to hard living and drugs, ending by dying too young at the age of 46, in 1991. But in the mid-1970s, he still sounded great, and was writing excellent songs. Here's a good account of this portion of his career:

Gene Clark – The Byrd And The Best (Part 5 of 6) - PopDiggers 

From that, I learned the song "Daylight Line" was never done in the studio, so the best version of it is from this concert. A couple other songs, like "Long Black Veil" and "In the Pines," were cover versions.

This album is an hour and 22 minutes long.

01 talk (Gene Clark)
02 Long Black Veil (Gene Clark)
03 talk (Gene Clark)
04 Kansas City Southern (Gene Clark)
05 Spanish Guitar (Gene Clark)
06 Home Run King (Gene Clark)
07 Here without You (Gene Clark)
08 No Other (Gene Clark)
09 Daylight Line (Gene Clark)
10 talk (Gene Clark)
11 She Darked the Sun (Gene Clark)
12 Train Leaves Here This Morning (Gene Clark)
13 Life's Greatest Fool (Gene Clark)
14 Silver Raven (Gene Clark)
15 talk (Gene Clark)
16 In the Pines (Gene Clark)
17 The Radio Song (Gene Clark)
18 What Is Meant to Be (Gene Clark)
19 The Virgin (Gene Clark)
20 The True One (Gene Clark)
21 talk (Gene Clark)
22 Set You Free This Time (Gene Clark) 

https://pixeldrain.com/u/grM2SJfh

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/en/Fd9Mvhy34G2lGha/file

The cover image of Clark is from a concert at the Hammersmith Odeon, in London, at some point in 1975. All the photos I've seen of him from 1975 or thereabouts have him with a beard. The original was in black and white. But I colorized it with the help of the Kolorize program.

Gene Clark with John York: Folk City, New York City, 6-22-1984, Late Show

Back in March 2023, I posted a 1985 acoustic concert by Gene Clark. This is a 1984 acoustic concert by Gene Clark, and it's not terribly different. However, that 1985 one is an audience bootleg, whereas this is an excellent soundboard bootleg. The 1985 concert is significantly longer, but if you were to only listen to one, I'd recommend this one.

Clark is best known for being the main lead singer of the Byrds in the early years of that band (1964 to 1966). He released a lot of great music as a solo artist, but his solo career never took off commercially. It sounds like this concert was performed in front of a small audience at a club. That is exaggerated by the fact that the soundboard clearly recorded everything on stage but almost nothing from the audience, which happens with soundboards sometimes, so it sounds almost like there was no audience at all. I tried to boost the volume of the applause, but I could only do so much.

By 1984, Clark's music, while excellent, was out of step with current trends, dominated by New Wave and synths. So the main way he got people to come to his concerts was by playing up nostalgia for the Byrds. Thus, in this concert he was supported by John York, another former member of the Byrds. Clark and York were never members of the Byrds at the same time (York was a Byrd in 1968 and 1969), so it was an odd pairing. But York did a really nice job singing harmonies on most of the songs. He also sang a couple of songs he wrote, such as "You Only Love Cocaine." I thought they were pretty good, considering that he never even managed to put out a solo album until the 1990s, way after this concert.

Clark had a habit of repeatedly sabotaging his music career, starting with leaving the Byrds way too early in 1966. His solo careers remains severely underappreciated. If you haven't checked out his solo stuff yet, this is a good place to start, due to the sound quality and solid performance.

This album is an hour and three minutes long.

01 talk (Gene Clark with John York)
02 It's All Over Now, Baby Blue (Gene Clark with John York)
03 Long Black Veil (Gene Clark with John York)
04 talk (Gene Clark with John York)
05 You Only Love Cocaine (Gene Clark with John York)
06 talk (Gene Clark with John York)
07 She Don't Care about Time (Gene Clark with John York)
08 talk (Gene Clark with John York)
09 Why Did You Leave (Gene Clark with John York)
10 talk (Gene Clark with John York)
11 Me and J.D. (Gene Clark with John York)
12 talk (Gene Clark with John York)
13 Chimes of Freedom (Gene Clark with John York)
14 Mr. Tambourine Man (Gene Clark with John York)
15 talk (Gene Clark with John York)
16 So You Want to Be a Rock 'n' Roll Star (Gene Clark with John York)
17 Full Circle Song (Gene Clark with John York)
18 talk (Gene Clark with John York)
19 Turn, Turn, Turn [To Everything There Is a Season] (Gene Clark with John York)
20 Will the Circle Be Unbroken (Gene Clark with John York)
21 Eight Miles High (Gene Clark with John York)
22 talk (Gene Clark with John York)
23 Knockin' on Heaven's Door (Gene Clark with John York)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/xwZVgivT

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/J3r361Vp3eyiiX9/file

The cover photo is a screenshot from a 1984 TV show. In February 2025, I updated the image somewhat with the Krea AI program.

Gene Clark - Dingwall's, London, Britain, 4-4-1985

Gene Clark was one of the founding members of the Byrds. For the band's first couple of years, he was their most prolific singer and songwriter, writing or co-writing great songs like "I'll Feel a Whole Lot Better" and "Eight Miles High." Unfortunately though, he quit in 1966. Then he had a long solo career before dying young in 1991. However, he never had any solo hits and his solo career tends to get ignored, even by many Byrds fans. I really need to post some of his solo material to try to bring it more attention. Here's a start.

Because Clark wasn't a big name as a solo artist, he didn't get bootlegged that often, and there are very few bootlegs with excellent sound quality. This is one of the best, but it's only an audience bootleg, not a soundboard. However, it's unusually good as far as audience boots go. I rather bother with those at all, but there are plenty of soundboards that actually sound worse than this. It's a long concert done in solo acoustic format, with lots of interesting song choices. Clark had ups and downs in his career, due to drug use, medical issues, and so on. But this was from a time when he was sounding very good.

Although this recording sounded very good, it had many, many problems. But I spent a lot of work fixing them, and I think I got most of them. One problem is that whoever was recording this often turned off their recording device between songs in order to save tape. Thankfully it didn't happen between every song, but many of them. As a result, the applause was sometimes cut off, or there was no time for any applause at all. A couple of songs had their beginnings cut off too, as the person probably was a bit slow hitting the record button again. I'm sure there is a lot of between song banter that was lost due to this.

Happily, there were enough instances of applause that did survive that allowed me to fix this. I was able to patch in cheering after one song to another song. I had to do tricks like that probably for a majority of the songs. But when you listen, hopefully the applause will sound totally normal and complete. I also boosted the lead vocals for some songs. I made so many changes like that that I only reserved adding "[Edit]" to the songs where I made even more significant edits on top of those.

One example of a more significant edit is "Satisfied Mind." Clark started the song, got through part of the first verse, but then realized one of the guitar strings was way off. So he stopped, fixed the string, then started again. Unfortunately when he started again, the taper was slow to resume recording. But as luck would have it, the aborted beginning and the missed part covered about the same amount. So I was able to merge the two takes into one that sounds complete. I got very lucky there. :)

A similar problem happened with "Knockin' on Heaven's Door" - the beginning is missing. In that case, I got lucky again, because the first verse was repeated near the end of the song. So I was able to patch in the first two lines, making it complete.

For "Eight Miles High," the first five seconds or so sounded out of key, no doubt due to tape distortion. Luckily, that was an instrumental part that was repeated later, so I was able to patch that up too. 

In the case of "One in a Hundred," there was a section in the middle where Clark forgot the chords, stopped the song, remembered, then started the song again. That annoyed me, so I was able to fix that section so it sounded like he never made the mistake. Unfortunately though, he forgot the lyrics later in the song and stopped it early. There was nothing I could do about that. There also were a couple other songs where he had notable trouble forgetting the lyrics or the chords. I kept those mistakes in. He was stretching out, taking requests and thus trying some songs he didn't remember that well.

Most of the songs are originals, but there are some exceptions, like "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue," "Gates of Eden," "The Bells of Rhymney," "Mr. Tambourine Man," and "Knockin' on Heaven's Door," all of them written by Bob Dylan, or in the case of "The Bells of Rhymney," closely associated with him. Other covers were: "Satisfied Mind," "In the Pines," "Fair and Tender Ladies," and "Long Black Veil."

This album is an hour and 52 minutes long.

01 Kansas City Southern (Gene Clark)
02 It's All Over Now, Baby Blue (Gene Clark)
03 talk (Gene Clark)
04 No Other (Gene Clark)
05 She Darked the Sun (Gene Clark)
06 talk (Gene Clark)
07 Here without You (Gene Clark)
08 Gates of Eden (Gene Clark)
09 The World Turns All Around Her (Gene Clark)
10 Silver Raven (Gene Clark)
11 talk (Gene Clark)
12 Spanish Guitar (Gene Clark)
13 talk (Gene Clark)
14 The Bells of Rhymney (Gene Clark)
15 Satisfied Mind [Edit] (Gene Clark)
16 Full Circle (Gene Clark)
17 American Dreamer (Gene Clark)
18 Why Did You Leave (Gene Clark)
19 Crazy Ladies (Gene Clark)
20 talk (Gene Clark)
21 Hear the Wind (Gene Clark)
22 In the Pines (Gene Clark)
23 talk (Gene Clark)
24 One in a Hundred [Edit] (Gene Clark)
25 talk (Gene Clark)
26 Gypsy Rider (Gene Clark)
27 talk (Gene Clark)
28 Rodeo Rider (Gene Clark)
29 I Don't Have You (Gene Clark)
30 talk (Gene Clark)
31 Fair and Tender Ladies (Gene Clark)
32 Mr. Tambourine Man (Gene Clark)
33 Eight Miles High [Edit] (Gene Clark)
34 Knockin' on Heaven's Door [Edit] (Gene Clark)
35 Long Black Veil (Gene Clark)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/mM66x7A5

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/nSWc83RTrjfFpGq/file

Because Clark's solo career wasn't very commercially successful, there are very few good photos of him from the 1980s. I wanted to use a photo of him in concert from 1985 or thereabouts, but couldn't find one. However, I found a good close up of his head from 1986, which is pretty close, so I used that. The original had some issues, such as the colors being too strong, but I made some adjustments in Photoshop. Then, in February 2025, I upgraded the image quality some with the Krea AI program.

The Byrds - The Boarding House, San Francisco, CA, 2-9-1978

David Crosby reunited with other key members of the Byrds for three acoustic concerts in the late 1970s. I've posted one of those concerts already, which took place at the Boarding House in San Francisco in December 1977. There's another one that took place at the Roxy in Los Angeles in early 1978. I don't know much about that, since it hasn't been bootlegged, but all four of the band's original singer-songwriters united there: Crosby, Roger McGuinn, Chris Hillman, and Gene Clark.

Finally, there's this concert, which also took place at the Boarding House in San Francisco, but in February 1978. Again, Crosby, McGuinn, Hillman, and Clark reunited on stage. We're lucky, because this concert was broadcast live on the local radio station KSAN, so this bootleg recording exists with professional sounding quality.

There are pluses and minuses of this concert compared to the December 1977 one at the Boatding House. In that one, Hillman wasn't there. So this is a fuller reunion. In fact, I could be wrong, but I think the only time after this that these four appeared on stage together was for their Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony in 1991. The earlier show was longer by about twenty minutes, and they did some great, lesser known songs that they didn't do here, such as "She Don't Care about Time," "Wild Mountain Thyme," and "Chimes of Freedom." So that one is definitely worth hearing. But the sound quality is better for this one, and the performance was more assured.

Just like the December 1977 show, the concert began with solo spots for most of the members. Crosby didn't do a solo spot, but Clark, McGuinn, and Hillman did two songs each. Hillman was assisted on vocals by a female singer, Kim O'Kelley, who had been singing with him in his solo concerts at the time.

There was a major sound quality issue with one of Clark's songs, however: "Release Me Girl." The acoustic guitar sounded great, but the vocals were all messed up. For nearly all of the song, the vocals were quiet and distant. I tried using the audio editing program X-Minus to boost them, but when I did they still sounded muffled and bad. Only near the very end of the song was an apparent problem with the microphone fixed, and Clark came through loud and clear. So instead, I used X-Minus to strip the vocals entirely from the song. Then I took the vocals from another concert around this time and patched that it, carefully matching the pitch and tempo and so forth. That one happened to have McGuinn joining in on backing vocals, so there's that bonus now, even though he didn't actually do that for this show. 

The vast majority of this concert had all four of the Byrds on stage singing and playing together. Clark and McGuinn had been doing an acoustic tour together in late 1977, so they knew these songs and arrangements well. Hillman had joined that tour by this time, so he had gotten up to speed with them. However, like the previous Boarding House show, Crosby was flying by the seat of his pants, often singing harmonies on songs that the Byrds did only after he'd left the band in 1967, such as "Chestnut Mare," "You Ain't Goin' Nowhere," and "Knockin' on Heaven's Door," not to mention relatively new songs like "Crazy Ladies" and "Bye Bye Baby." Still, a fun time was had by all.

These reunion concerts led to three of the ex-Byrds forming the band "McGuinn, Clark and Hillman." They wrote some good new songs. Unfortunately, when they put out two albums, one called "McGuinn, Clark and Hillman" in 1979 and the other called "City" in 1980, they opted for a slick, contemporary sound that didn't suit them, even touching on disco at times. They deliberately stayed away from their 1960s Byrds sound, such as the distinctive use of the Richenbacher guitar by McGuinn. This was a big mistake. They sounded much better in concert.

As part of wanting a contemporary sound and moving away from the Byrds sound, they didn't want to get too involved with Crosby. When they recorded their first album "McGuinn, Clark and Hillman" in Miami, Crosby actually flew there from the West Coast with the idea of adding harmonies to one or more of the songs, only to have that rejected by the others. That led to more bad feelings, so there were no more reunions for a long time. The next time Crosby appeared on stage with McGuinn and Hillman would be in 1989, when the three of them did a few concerts as the Byrds as part of a legal battle to win the rights to the band's name from the band's original drummer, Michael Clarke. They did some other things together around that time, including some studio recordings, before petering out again around 1991.

It so happens that there aren't any really good bootleg recordings of those 1989 reunion shows. As a result, this show and the 1977 Boarding House show stand out as the best documents of Byrds reunion shows. They're all the more important because not many recordings has survived of the original Byrds on stage back in the 1960s when Crosby was still in the band.

This concert has been bootlegged many times, often with the name "Doin' Alright for Old People," based on a comment Clark made between songs. In recent years, due to European copyright law, different "grey market" versions of this have gone on sale. However, don't be fooled. Those are basically bootlegs, with none of the profits going to the actual artists. I imagine there are legal complications to getting the rights of all four band members, so this probably will never be officially released. Ditto with the 1977 reunion show. But at least we have the bootlegs.

This album is an hour and seven minutes long. By the way, for the 1977 show, I merged an early and late show together. This time, I don't know if there was just one show, or if only one was recorded. Either way, this is just one complete show this time.

01 Silver Raven (Gene Clark)
02 Release Me Girl [Edit] (Gene Clark & Roger McGuinn)
03 talk (Gene Clark & Roger McGuinn)
04 Bound to Fall (Chris Hillman & Kim O'Kelly)
05 It Doesn't Matter (Chris Hillman & Kim O'Kelly)
06 The Ballad of Easy Rider (Roger McGuinn)
07 Jolly Roger (Roger McGuinn)
08 talk (Byrds)
09 Chestnut Mare (Byrds)
10 Crazy Ladies (Byrds)
11 talk (Byrds)
12 Train Leaves Here This Morning (Byrds)
13 talk (Byrds)
14 Mr. Tambourine Man (Byrds)
15 talk (Byrds)
16 You Ain't Goin' Nowhere (Byrds)
17 talk (Byrds)
18 Turn, Turn, Turn [To Everything There Is a Season] (Byrds)
19 Knockin' on Heaven's Door (Byrds)
20 talk (Byrds)
21 Bye Bye Baby (Byrds)
22 So You Want to Be a Rock 'n' Roll Star (Byrds)
23 talk (Byrds)
24 Eight Miles High (Byrds)
25 talk (Byrds)
26 I'll Feel a Whole Lot Better (Byrds)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/qdyP1RJV

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/DruVk426eazcwY5/file

alternate:

https://www.upload.ee/files/15278258/TByrd_1978_TheBoardngHouseSanFrnciscoCA__2-9-1978_atse.zip.html

What I did to try to get an accurate, color photo is a bit complicated. I found one photo that showed all four Byrds here on stage at the Boarding House in the late 1970s. It had to be this exact show, because it had Hillman in it, and he wasn't there for the 1977 show. However, that photo was only in black and white, and the band members were spread out on stage, making it not a good one to use for the cover. I found another one in color with them wearing exact same clothes, so that one must also have been from this exact concert. However, by chance, that one didn't have Hillman in it. So I took another photo of Hillman from a different late 1970s concert and used Photoshop to add him in.

For the band name at the top, like I did with the 1977 show, I used the lettering from the band's 1973 reunion album "Byrds."

The Byrds - The Boarding House, San Francisco, CA, 12-8-1977

Here's a concert I'm particularly psyched to present, as part of commemorating the recent death of David Crosby (as I write this in January 2023). As far as I can tell, Crosby reunited on stage with other key members of the Byrds for only three concerts in the late 1970s. One of them, at the Roxy in Los Angeles, apparently hasn't been bootlegged at all. But very luckily, the other two have been bootlegged with excellent soundboard quality. I plan on posting both of them. Here's the first one that took place chronologically.

By 1977, the solo career of former Byrds member Roger McGuinn was losing steam. He resorted to going on an acoustic tour as a duo with former Byrds member Gene Clark. In early 1978, another former Byrds member, Chris Hillman, would join them and they would release a couple of albums as "McGuinn, Clark, and Hillman." At the time this concert took place, Hillman wasn't in the picture yet. 

But former Byrds member David Crosby was living in the San Francisco Bay Area at the time, so when the McGuinn and Clark tour came to town, McGuinn called Crosby and asked them to join them on stage. Crosby was a big star at that point, with the Crosby, Stills and Nash album "CSN" released earlier in the year and selling millions. So it's surprising that not only did Crosby join his former Byrds band mates on stage, he played most of both the early and late shows with them. All five original members of the Byrds had reunited for a studio album in 1973, simply called "Byrds." But Crosby, Clark, and McGuinn hadn't played on stage together since 1966 (when Clark quit the band).

Both the early and late shows were recorded with soundboard quality. However, there are pluses and minuses of both shows, and some different songs were played. So what I've done is combined the best parts of both shows, creating one ideal show that contains all of the songs from both. If you want to know which song is from which show, that info is in the comments field of the mp3 tags.

Generally speaking, I tried to use the late show song versions. The format of the show was that each band member played two or three of their songs in a solo acoustic format, then all three played together for the rest of the show. For the songs played together, Clark and McGuinn had been doing this tour together for some time, so they knew the songs well. But Crosby hadn't sung with the others on stage in a decade, and many of the songs they did were from AFTER the time he'd been fired from the Byrds in 1967! So he was flying by the seat of his pants much of the time, trying to come up with harmony vocals on the spot. I figure he did a better job of that in the late show, because he at least got a whack at the songs in the early show.

For the solo spots in the first portion of the show, I carefully combined songs from the early and late shows. For instance, Clark's "Release Me Girl" and "Train Leaves Here This Morning" are from the early show, and "Silver Raven" is from the late show. I didn't include his performance of "Denver or Wherever" because it was the one song in the whole bootleg where the sound was really messed up. (That's probably because it was the first song of the late show and some technical problems had to get worked out.) It seems that Crosby only did a solo spot for the late show. That's why he only has two solo songs, while Clark has three and McGuinn has four, since Clark and McGuinn played some different songs in each of their solo spots. 

For the main part of the show, with all three playing together, they generally did the same songs in roughly the same order. There were a few exceptions. For instance, "Wild Mountain Thyme" was only done in the early show, and "Little Mama" was only done in the late show. As I mentioned above, I generally used the late show versions. But a few of those were marred by a kind of crackling noise. So in those cases I used the early versions instead. Also, the first part of "Mr. Tambourine Man" had really bad sound quality on the vocals. But since that was just the chorus, I patched in the chorus from later in the song.

There's a lot of banter between songs. One can tell all three of them were having a great time. I used as much banter as possible, taking bits from the early show and adding them in to the late show banter. Hopefully, the end result sounds like one seamless whole.

I consider this a "must have" for any Byrds fan. It was a special and even historic evening. The three of them did songs they never did together before, like "Chestnut Mare," "You Ain't Goin' Nowhere," "Wild Mountain Thyme," and "Knockin' on Heaven's Door," as well as rare songs from their early Byrds days like "She Don't Care about Time" and "Chimes of Freedom" that they didn't even do in other reunion shows.

This album is an an hour and 33 minutes long. I plan on posting their 1978 Boarding House reunion show soon.

01 talk (Gene Clark)
02 Release Me Girl (Gene Clark)
03 Train Leaves Here This Morning (Gene Clark)
04 Silver Raven (Gene Clark)
05 talk (Gene Clark)
06 The Lee Shore (David Crosby)
07 talk (David Crosby)
08 Drive My Car (David Crosby)
09 talk (David Crosby)
10 Dreamland (Roger McGuinn)
11 talk (Roger McGuinn)
12 The Ballad of Easy Rider (Roger McGuinn)
13 Wasn't Born to Follow (Roger McGuinn)
14 talk (Roger McGuinn)
15 Jolly Roger (Roger McGuinn)
16 talk (Roger McGuinn)
17 Mr. Tambourine Man (Byrds)
18 Chestnut Mare (Byrds)
19 Crazy Ladies (Byrds)
20 talk (Byrds)
21 Turn, Turn, Turn [To Everything There Is a Season] (Byrds)
22 talk (Byrds)
23 I'll Feel a Whole Lot Better (Byrds)
24 She Don't Care about Time (Byrds)
25 talk (Byrds)
26 You Ain't Goin' Nowhere (Byrds)
27 talk (Byrds)
28 Wild Mountain Thyme (Byrds)
29 talk (Byrds)
30 Chimes of Freedom (Byrds)
31 talk (Byrds)
32 He Was a Friend of Mine (Byrds)
33 talk (Byrds)
34 My Back Pages (Byrds)
35 talk (Byrds)
36 Little Mama (Byrds)
37 Knockin' on Heaven's Door (Byrds)
38 talk (Byrds)
39 So You Want to Be a Rock 'n' Roll Star (Byrds)
40 talk (Byrds)
41 Eight Miles High (Byrds)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/kbhNKpPc

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/v92ahZo9fXqa8VY/file 

The cover photo comes from one of the late 1970s reunion shows with Crosby, but which one? This shows Clark (left), Crosby (center), and McGuinn (right). It actually had Hillman in it too, but I cropped him out. I have another photo with all four of them on stage at the Boarding House. So that must be from a later reunion concert they did in that venue in 1978, since Hillman wasn't there on this night. Thus, by process of elimination, I'm pretty sure this photo comes from the other reunion show with all four of them, at the Roxy in Los Angeles. 

For the band name at the top, I used the same unusual lettering as what was on the cover of their 1973 reunion album.

I later used the Krea AI program to improve the image quality.

The Byrds - Live, 1965-1967

In my opinion, it's a tragedy that there is so little recorded of the Byrds playing in concert in the 1965 to 1967 commercial heyday, when they had all five original members. But "little" is not the same as "none," and this album gathers up the few live recordings from them that I've found.

The Byrds were extremely popular and influential during those years, with two number one hits and some other hits. As a result, they were shown on TV a lot. Unfortunately, most of the time, they simply lip-synced to their records. I think I've found all the cases where they actually played live on TV in those years, though in one case ("The Times They Are A-Changin'"), only the vocals were live, and the instrumental portion came from a backing track.

The good news is that there are so many songs performed live on TV. But in most cases, the recordings aren't that great. For instance, because the band was so popular, there's lots of screaming and cheering at the starts and ends of songs, and sometimes even in the middle. So please, if you listen to this album, be a little tolerant of the sound quality. Once again, we should be grateful there are these recordings at all.

Happily, there is one recording that is much better and cleaner. That's six songs that were recorded for a radio show in Sweden in 1967. These songs sound quite different because instead of the screaming and cheering with the other songs, there's no audience at all for those six. Also in contrast to the others, there's some talking from the band members before each song.

The album ends with three more songs from TV. Like the earlier ones, those have rougher sound quality.

By the way, I haven't included all the live performances from the original band, because I've skipped one key concert: the Monterey Pop Festival in 1967. The Byrds played a 22 minute-long set there that was recorded with great sound quality and has been officially released as part of a Monterey Pop box set. I haven't included that performance in part because it has been officially released, and I figured most fans who are into the Byrds will have that already. But also, by pure luck, there's almost no duplication of songs here, with only "Mr. Tambourine Man" being repeated. But if I included the seven Monterey Pop songs, literally every single one of those would be duplicates of songs here. Perhaps I could post that performance separately, if there is a demand for it.

Only one song featured here has been officially released. That's the performance of "Roll Over Beethoven" in the Swedish radio show. It appeared on the box set simply known as "The Byrds." However, I didn't use that version, since I wanted all the songs from the radio show to be from the same source. I would have used it if I thought it sounds better, but it sounds exactly the same as the bootleg version to my ears.

Oh, by the way, when putting this album together, I was pleasantly surprised to find that the Byrds did a version of Buddy Holly's "Not Fade Away." That's a song they didn't put on any album.

01 Not Fade Away (Byrds)
02 I'll Feel a Whole Lot Better (Byrds)
03 The Times They Are A-Changin' [Live Vocals Only] (Byrds)
04 Chimes of Freedom (Byrds)
05 Turn, Turn, Turn [To Everything There Is a Season] (Byrds)
06 The Bells of Rhymney (Byrds)
07 Mr. Tambourine Man (Byrds)
08 talk (Byrds)
09 Hey Joe (Byrds)
10 talk (Byrds)
11 My Back Pages (Byrds)
12 talk (Byrds)
13 Mr. Tambourine Man (Byrds)
14 talk (Byrds)
15 He Was a Friend of Mine (Byrds)
16 talk (Byrds)
17 So You Want to Be a Rock 'n' Roll Star (Byrds)
18 talk (Byrds)
19 Roll Over Beethoven (Byrds)
20 Renaissance Fair (Byrds)
21 Lady Friend (Byrds)
22 Have You Seen Her Face (Byrds)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16700744/TBYRDZ1965-1967_Lve_atse.zip.html

The cover art photo comes from an appearance on the "Ready Steady Go" TV show in 1965.

The Byrds - She Don't Care about Time - Non-Album Tracks (1965-1967)

Since I've started posting some albums by the Byrds, here's another one. To me, the Byrds from 1965 to 1967 were at their peak, and they recorded some of my favorite music ever. This album gathers up all the stray tracks from that time, so of course the music here is great. ;)

There are a couple of incidental tracks here, especially instrumentals, but there are some classic songs too. So overall, this album is just as solid as the other albums the Byrds released in those years. There are a few A- or B-sides, but for the most part, these songs weren't released until archival releases many years later.

Note that I'm keeping to my usual policy of avoiding alternate versions of songs officially released elsewhere. So, for instance, I'm not including either of the alternate versions of "Why," even though those versions are interesting and popular. Probably some point down the line I'll post an album just of interesting alternates like that one.

Back in 2018, I made a couple of mash-ups of Byrd songs. With "Bound to Fall," I paired an instrumental version lacking vocals with the vocals from Byrds bassist Chris Hillman some years later. With "Stranger in a Strange Land," a song by David Crosby, I had an instrumental version by the Byrds, but no known version of the Byrds or Crosby ever singing it. However, I did find a version of the song by folk duo Blackburn and Snow, and I merged that with the Byrds instrumental.

For this album, I'm including the mash-up of "Bound to Fall" at the end, since it's all the Byrds, even though it is a mash-up. But "Stranger in a Strange Land" mixes the Byrds with another artist, so that arguably isn't the Byrds anymore. Thus, I'm including that, but only as an optional bonus track.

01 She Has a Way (Byrds)
02 You and Me [Instrumental] (Byrds)
03 The Day Walk [Never Before] (Byrds)
04 She Don't Care about Time [Single Version] (Byrds)
05 It's All Over Now, Baby Blue (Byrds)
06 I Know My Rider [I Know You Rider] (Byrds)
07 Psychodrama City (Byrds)
08 If I Hang Around [Acoustic Demo] (Byrds)
09 Roll Over Beethoven (Byrds)
10 Lady Friend (Byrds)
11 Don't Make Waves (Byrds)
12 Flight 713 [Instrumental] (Byrds)
13 It Happens Each Day (Byrds)
14 Triad (Byrds)
15 Moog Raga [Instrumental] (Byrds)
16 Bound to Fall [Mash-Up Mix] (Byrds)

Stranger in a Strange Land [Mash-Up Mix] (Blackburn & Snow with the Byrds)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16700739/TBYRDZ1965-1967_SheDntCreabutTime_atse.zip.html

I made the cover using a photo of the five original Byrds. I'm not sure what year it comes from, but I'd guess around 1966.

The Byrds - Acoustic Sessions - Non-Album Acoustic Tracks (1964)

The Byrds recorded a lot of songs in 1964, before they hit it big, and before they even were calling themselves "the Byrds." These recordings have been packaged in many ways, usually with "Preflyte" in the title. I decided to split them into two, with the full-band versions on one album and the acoustic versions on the other. As you can tell from the album title, this is the acoustic album.

With this album, I'm not worrying if I repeat some songs from the other 1964 album, or from later Byrds albums, because the fact that they're acoustic versions makes them sufficiently different and interesting. There are a few songs that would appear on the 1965 "Mr. Tambourine Man" album - "Here Without You," "I Knew I'd Want You," "You Won't Have to Cry," and "Mr. Tambourine Man."

But what really fascinates me is that the song "Everybody's Been Burned" is also included here. That song wouldn't be released by the Byrds until the 1967 "Younger than Yesterday" album. Yet this version is basically exactly the same, minus the instrumentation to flesh it out. The song is written by Byrd member David Crosby, so clearly he had songwriting skills years before it has generally been realized.

Also, the first song here is actually still unreleased, and is a Crosby solo performance dating back to 1962 or even 1961! His vocals sound great even back then. I wonder if that's an original song too.

Speaking of Crosby, some of the other songs are actually Crosby solo performances too. Plus, there are a bunch of solo performances by Gene Clark, who was the main singer and songwriter in the Byrds at the time. Rather than having a big bunch of Crosby songs in a row, and then another bunch of Clark's, I've tried to scatter both throughout the album, to give it more variety.

Oh, one of those Clark solo songs is rather odd if you listen to the lyrics: "All for Him." In it, Clark sings about another man he's fallen in love with. No, Clark wasn't secretly bisexual or the like. It turns out this was a demo for a song he wrote that was intended for a female singer.

One more note. There's one more song, another solo Clark song, that I failed to include: "I'd Feel Better." That's because I consider it such a poor song that I can't even bear to add it as a bonus track. The lyrics are simple and trite and the melody nothing special. I'm mentioning it in case you're a die-hard completist, in which case please track it down elsewhere.

01 It's Been Raining (David Crosby)
02 Why Can't I Have Her Back Again (Gene Clark)
03 All for Him (Gene Clark)
04 You Showed Me [Acoustic Demo] (Byrds)
05 I Knew I'd Want You [Acoustic Demo] (Byrds)
06 If There's No Love (Gene Clark)
07 You Won't Have to Cry [Acoustic Demo] (Byrds)
08 Tomorrow Is a Long Ways Away [Acoustic Demo] (Byrds)
09 The Way I Am (Gene Clark)
10 Everybody's Been Burned (David Crosby)
11 That Girl (Gene Clark)
12 Mr. Tambourine Man [Acoustic Demo] (Byrds)
13 I'm Just a Young Man (David Crosby)
14 The Only Girl I Adore [Demo] (Byrds)
15 A Worried Heart (Gene Clark)
16 Brotherhood of the Blues (David Crosby)
17 She's the Kind of Girl (Gene Clark)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16700648/TBYRDZ1964_AcustcSessons_atse.zip.html

Originally, I made the album cover using a 1965 black and white photo of the band that shows them holding acoustic instruments. I figured it fits well with the acoustic theme. But over a year later, I looked at it again and was displeased at the lack of color. So I picked a different photo of them from 1965, but this one in color. Then, in 2023, using superior new computer technology (the program Palette), I colorized that pic too.

Here is the original photo, colorized, in case you prefer it. For both versions, I added the appropriate record company logo and stereo logo.

The Byrds - You Showed Me - Non-Album Tracks (1964)

I think the Byrds are one of the great 1960s musical acts. And yet I've only posted two songs of theirs here, both of which are mash-ups I've made. It's high time I post more from them, so I'm starting here.

This is my version of the "Preflyte" sessions from 1964. In short, the Byrds didn't release an album until 1965, "Mr. Tambourine Man." But it turned out they did a lot of recording in 1964, before they got any widespread attention at all. (They didn't call themselves "The Byrds" yet, going by "The Jet Set" or "The Beefeaters. But for simplicity's sake, I'm calling them the Byrds, since it's the exact same five people.)

In 1969, an album from these sessions called "Preflyte" was released, and it did well both commercially and critically. In fact, it was just about the first archival rock release. But that was just the start, because these sessions got repackaged several times, with different songs each time: "In the Beginning," "The Preflyte Sessions," and "Preflyte Plus."

I decided to make two albums out of all this material. One would be the best album the Byrds could have released, without using any of the songs they put on their later albums. (There are about four of those.) This is that album. The other collects the best of all of the acoustic versions of the songs. I'll post that shortly.

It turns out that, in addition to the Byrds doing some recording in 1964, Byrds member David Crosby did some recording with a full band too. There are four good songs, but they only feature Crosby singing. Rather than putting them all together at the end, I've scattered them throughout the album.

I also found two instrumentals from 1964 by Byrds bassist Chris Hillman, done with a bluegrass group he was briefly in, called the Hillmen. These songs have Hillman showing his instrumental prowess playing mandolin, not bass. I've added them in too.

The result is a mere 33 minute long album, but that's fine because that was a typical album length in those days. I think this album would have caused many to sit up and take notice in 1964, because the classic Byrds sound and songwriting was already in full bloom.

I really don't like the name "Preflyte," because this imagines an album that could have been released in 1964, and obviously the name "Preflyte" only makes sense in retrospect. The obvious hit single is the song "You Showed Me." In 1968, the Turtles covered it and had a big hit with it, even though it had a 1964 sound that was totally out of step with musical trends in 1968. Surely then it would have been a hit in 1964, if it had been properly promoted. The usual thing to do was name the album after the hit, so that's what I'm doing here (even though it's an imagined hit).

01 You Showed Me (Byrds)
02 The Airport Song (Byrds)
03 Come Back, Baby (David Crosby)
04 Tomorrow Is a Long Ways Away (Byrds)
05 Boston (Byrds)
06 The Reason Why (Byrds)
07 Willie Jean (David Crosby)
08 For Me Again (Byrds)
09 Wheel Hoss [Instrumental] (Hillmen)
10 Let's Get Together (David Crosby)
11 You Movin' (Byrds)
12 Don't Be Long [It Won't Be Wrong] (Byrds)
13 Please, Let Me Love You (Byrds)
14 Jack of Diamonds (David Crosby)
15 Blue Grass Chopper [Instrumental] (Hillmen)

https://www.upload.ee/files/17362744/TBYRDZ1964YuShowdMe_atse.zip.html

alternate:

https://pixeldrain.com/u/DE3QqJi4

For the album cover, I took a photo from the artwork of one of the Preflyte releases. Then I added the text and the same record company and stereo logos found on the next Byrds album. I upgraded it with the Krea AI program.