Flashback, May 1965: The Byrds’ ‘Mr. Tambourine Man’ Starts Climbing the Charts

With lyrics taken from a sprawling, trippy Bob Dylan song and a jangling guitar sound like the Beatles, a recently assembled Southern California quintet, The Byrds, launched the folk-rock movement with “Mr. Tambourine Man,” which began its march up the pop charts in May 1965.

A month later the tune hit #1—the only Dylan-penned tune ever to do so—and, as the lead song and title track of their first album, turbocharging sales of that collection.

The term “folk rock” was coined specifically by journalist Eliot Siegel to account for what “Mr. Tambourine Man” sought to bring together: the depth and lyrical sophistication of folk music with the energy and backbeat of rock ‘n’ roll.

By the end of the summer of 1965, record companies couldn’t rush musicians fast enough into studios to capitalize on the new trend. (Tom Wilson was especially influential, producing an electrified version of Simon and Garfunkel’s “The Sound of Silence” that revived the duo’s partnership after their underperforming debut, Wednesday Morning, 3 A.M.)

The band—which formed only the year before when Chris Hillman and Michael Clarke joined Jim (later Roger) McGuinn, David Crosby, and Gene Clark of The Jet Set—came across the song via their producer and manager Jim Dickson, who had secured a rough demo by Dylan and Ramblin’ Jack Elliott from Dylan’s manager, Albert Grossman.

With Crosby particularly opposed to recording the song, it took strenuous convincing on the part of Dickson to bring the band around. In his 2020 memoir Time Between, Hillman remembered the producer’s clinching argument:

“You guys need to go for substance and depth. Make records you can be proud of—records that can hold up for all time. Are we making an artistic statement or just going for a quick buck?”

Dickson and the band had to figure out first, however, how to adapt this acoustic tune to the rock ‘n’ roll market:

*They switched from Dylan’s 2/4 time—more suitable for country/bluegrass—to a 4/4 groove;

*They added electric guitars, including McGuinn on a twelve-string Rickenbacker also used by the Searchers and the Beatles’ George Harrison;

*Though the Byrds played on the rest of the album recorded to follow up on the single, the only member to play an instrument on the single was McGuinn, as the famous session ensemble The Wrecking Crew were brought in for the breakthrough single;

*In place of Dylan’s idiosyncratic vocal, McGuinn aimed for a sweet spot between Dylan’s and John Lennon’s, with Clark and Crosby layering in background harmonies, with the result capturing “that angelic sound I’d heard when they were first becoming familiar with each other’s voices,” noted Hillman.

*With FM radio still a few years away, the group condensed Dylan’s four word- and image-heavy verses down to one, to accommodate AM stations’ time limits of 2½-3 minutes for singles.

Dylan, for one, was excited by the results of their three-hour January 20, 1965, studio session with the song, exclaiming “Wow, man, you can even dance to that!” So, too, was the preteen daughter of influential nightclub owner and talent agent Benny Shapiro, whose enthusiasm persuaded her father to talk it up with prominent figures in the music industry.

Eventually, the Byrds’ demo brought to the band’s door Columbia Records, which offered a deal for a couple of records that, if successful, would lead to an album. The company then assigned producer Terry Melcher (son of Doris Day) to work on the follow-ups.

With the success of “Mr. Tambourine Man,” Los Angeles became “the main spawning ground for folk rock,” according to a 1986 Rolling Stone article. Several groups followed in the vein that The Byrds opened, including The Turtles, We Five, The Lovin’ Spoonful, The Mamas and the Papas, Buffalo Springfield, and Spanky and Our Gang, to name just a few.

Ironically, The Byrds’ biggest impact may have registered on the songwriter whose work helped jumpstart their careers: Dylan. It wasn’t only that, according to critic David Fricke, the songwriter, “until then largely known as King Folk, suddenly had the ear of an enormous teenage pop constituency.”

Furthermore, hearing their version of “Mr. Tambourine Man” spurred him to record an electric side for his next LP, Bringing It All Back Home. Later in 1965, at the Newport Folk Festival, he would outrage folk purists by pursuing this experimentation more intensively.

Perhaps responding to criticism that they were too reliant on covers of Dylan and other songwriters—and by the outspoken Crosby’s urging that they (and especially he) should compose their own songs that would earn royalties—the Byrds, over the next few years, increased the original content of their LPs.

Not content with launching folk-rock, the group went on, through restless innovation and personnel changes, to pioneer, through their own compositions, other musical genres through the late Sixties: psychedelic rock (through “Eight Miles High,” an account of a disastrous trip to Britain that many interpreted as laden with drug references) and country rock (Sweetheart of the Radio, featuring Hillman’s friend Gram Parsons).

For years, I wished that The Byrds had recorded “Mr. Tambourine Man” beyond their abbreviated, AM-oriented version. Then, in 1990, I was delighted to find that the briefly reunited McGuinn, Crosby, and Hillman had included such a longer version at a Roy Orbison tribute concert featured on the group’s 1990 career-spanning 4-CD box, The Byrds. 

You can watch that performance—featuring a surprise appearance by Dylan himself—in this YouTube clip.

Quote of the Day (Bob Dylan, on a Village Bohemian of the Early Sixties)

“Chloe had red gold hair, hazel eyes, an illegible smile, face like a doll and an even better figure, fingernails painted black. She worked as a hat-check girl at the Egyptian Gardens, a belly-dancing dinner place on 8th Avenue; also posed as a model for Cavalier magazine. ‘I’ve always worked,’ she said….Chloe had her own primitive way of looking at things, always would say mad stuff that clicked in a cryptic way, told me once that I should wear eyeshadow because it keeps away the evil eye. I asked her whose evil eye and she said ‘Joe Blow’s or Joe Schmoe’s.’ According to her, Dracula ruled the world and he’s the son of Gutenberg, the guy who invented the printing press. Being an heir of the ’40s and ’50s cultures, this kind of talk was fine with me. Gutenberg could have been some guy who stepped out of a folk song, too.”—American singer-songwriter and Nobel Literature laureate Bob Dylan, Chronicles, Volume One (2004)

Quote of the Day (Bob Dylan, on Music and Time)

“[M]usic… is of a time but also timeless; a thing with which to make memories and the memory itself. Though we seldom consider it, music is built in time as surely as a sculptor or welder works in physical space. Music transcends time by living within it.”—American singer-songwriter—and Nobel Literature laureate—Bob Dylan, The Philosophy of Modern Song (2022)

This Day in Rock History (Stewart Becomes Solo Superstar with ‘Every Picture Tells a Story’)

May 28, 1971—The LP Every Picture Tells a Story primarily featured song covers, but it was a tune co-written by Rod Stewart—one that he considered leaving off the finished product—that propelled the 26-year-old to solo superstardom, after stints with the Hoochie Coochie Men, Steampacket, the Jeff Beck Group and The Faces.

As he had done with his solo studio album from the prior year, Gasoline Alley, Stewart included a composition by Bob Dylan, “Tomorrow is a Long Time,” on this new 10-song Mercury collection.

But the influence of Dylan may have been more strongly, if unconsciously, absorbed when the working-class son of a North London plumber let his creativity flow on what became the album’s monster hit, “Maggie May.” 

Recalling why he had reservations about including this song that he had recorded rapidly in the studio, Stewart remembered in his 2012 autobiography, Rod:

“It didn’t have a chorus. It just had these rambling verses. It didn’t really have a hook. How could you hope to have a hit single with a song that was all verse and no chorus and no hook? And it went on a bit: it was more than five minutes long, for God's sake, which was pretty much operatic by the standards of the pop single."

Perhaps he “should have known from listening to Bob Dylan,” Stewart reasoned, that “the lack of a catchy phrase in the middle,” not to mention a song exceeding the average length of a single, was not necessarily an impediment to significant radio time. (Indeed, see "Positively 4th Street" and “Subterranean Homesick Blues.”)

Nor was Stewart’s raspy voice an obstacle to success: Dylan’s vocals, likened to “a dog with his leg caught in barbed wire” by an unnamed Missouri folk singer cited by critic Nat Hentoff, had already proven that unconventional sounds could be tolerated if they were also expressive and evocative. Similarly, in the counterculture’s periodical bible, Rolling Stone, John Mendelsohn, reviewing the album, wrote that Stewart possessed “the most unique male voice in rock, a voice anyone could recognize instantly at five hundred paces through a Dixie cup….He’s got soul to spare.”

To Stewart’s surprise and delight, then, an American DJ (“allegedly in Cleveland, Ohio”) went with playing “Maggie May” rather than the designated single, a cover of Tim Hardin’s “Reason to Believe.” It peaked at #1 on the Billboard U.S. singles chart in early October 1971.

I wonder, though, if there might have been another reason for Stewart’s initial hesitancy about releasing “Maggie May?” I was surprised to learn from Rod that, when recording the vocals on his own compositions, he has sometimes felt so vulnerable over revealing his feelings that he has the studio emptied out “of everyone except the engineer—the producer at a push.”

There could hardly be a more personal song than “Maggie May,” his semi-autobiographical memory of losing virginity at age 15 in the summer of 1961 at the Bealieu Jazz Festival to “an older (and larger) woman” who propositioned him in the beer tent.

It’s hard to believe that the randy rooster who has undoubtedly scored with the ladies in virtually every stop on his world tours could feel this way. But who are we to argue?

The album also conveyed Stewart’s bone-deep appreciation for blues, soul and folk. Produced by Stewart himself, it exhibited a raw, go-for-it quality that crackles with energy, especially on the title track, the singer’s episodic tale of careening across Europe as a teenager and what he learned from the opposite sex—a kind of Tom Jones for the age of rock ‘n’ roll.

“That whole album was done in 10 days, two weeks, about as long as it takes to get a drum sound right nowadays," Stewart recalled in an interview for Mojo Magazine in 1995. He trusted his backup musicians—guitarist Ron Wood, pianist Pete Sears, and fiddler Dick Powell—and they delivered to a man, perhaps none more so than acoustic guitarist Martin Quittenton, who not only co-wrote “Maggie May” with Stewart but contributed its memorable, and ultimately exhilarating, mandolin sound.

In the years since, Stewart has sometimes been maddeningly unmindful of his gifts, whether through roosterish posturing on “Hot Legs” and “Do Ya Think I’m Sexy?” or his early-millennium ill-advised turn towards “The Great American Songbook.”

But Every Picture Tells a Story demonstrates why fans on both sides of the Atlantic embraced him so ardently near the beginning of his journey. Or, as he put it in his ruminating 2012 song, “Can’t Stop Me Now”:

I stood up straight and sang for the record-company man, my enthusiasm filled the room
I was young and I was keen with that devil in my stream as I hollered out an old blues tune.

Quote of the Day (Bob Dylan, Looking Ahead to 80 and the Need to ‘Do the Impossible’)

“If I’m here at eighty, I’ll be doing the same thing I’m doing now. This is all I want to do – it’s all I can do . . . I think I’ve always aimed my songs at people who I imagined – maybe falsely so – had the same experiences that I’ve had, who have kind of been through what I’d been through. But I guess a lot of people just haven’t.

“See, I’ve always been just about being an individual, with an individual point of view. If I’ve been about anything, it’s probably that, and to let some people know that it’s possible to do the impossible.

“And that’s really all. If I’ve ever had anything to tell anybody, it’s that you can do the impossible. Anything is possible. And that’s it. No more.”—American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan quoted in Mikal Gilmore, “Bob Dylan at Fifty,” Rolling Stone, May 30, 1991

Bob Dylan may have spoken of being 80 in this interview with Mikal Gilmore, but there surely must have been times when he wondered if he would make it, especially with the brush with mortality that produced his 1997 CD, Time Out of Mind.

Many of us who have listened to the composer of “Forever Young” find it hard to imagine him at such a stage in his life. A poet of the counterculture for nearly as long as baby boomers can remember, he has seen that fringe movement transform into part of the cultural mainstream.

Too bad that Dylan couldn't have paused more often in the “Never-Ending Tour” of live appearances that has ruined his voice to such an extent that it has often hopelessly garbled the delivery of his own lyrics.

But then again, Dylan’s always been about overturning expectations. No sooner had he been labeled “the voice of his generation” than he began to experiment with one genre after another, often trying fans’ patience and loyalty.

For all of these sometimes whiplash-inducing changes in tone, Dylan has remained, Gilmore wrote in Night Beat: A Shadow History of Rock ‘n’ Roll (1998), “a man who isn’t aiming to change the world so much as he’s simply trying to find a way to abide all the heartbreaks and disillusion that result from living in a morally centerless time.”

Spiritual Quote of the Day (Bob Dylan, on How the Gospel ‘Can Give You Courage’)

“[G]ospel news is exemplary. It can give you courage. You can pace your life accordingly, or try to, anyway. And you can do it with honor and principles. There are theories of truth in gospel but to most people it’s unimportant. Their lives are lived out too fast. Too many bad influences. Sex and politics and murder is the way to go if you want to get people’s attention. It excites us, that’s our problem.”—American singer-songwriter—and Nobel Literature laureate—Bob Dylan quoted in Douglas Brinkley, “Still Painting His Masterpieces,” The New York Times, June 14, 2020

Quote of the Day (Bob Dylan, on Elvis Presley’s Top Lip)

“wonder why elvis presley only smiles with his top lip? think about it kid, but dont ask your surgeon.”—American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan, Tarantula (1971)

Video of the Day: George Harrison, ‘Absolutely Sweet Marie,’ From the ‘Bobfest’

At Madison Square Garden 25 years ago today, a galaxy of rock ‘n’ roll, rhythm and blues, country, and folk music stars gathered for what one of them, Neil Young, termed “The Bobfest”—a tribute to Bob Dylan on the 30^th anniversary of his recording career.

While the most unusual performers might have been The Clancy Brothers, Tommy Makem, and Robbie O'Connell on  "When the Ship Comes In" (“Hello, you never thought you'd hear Dylan with an Irish accent, did you?” they joked) and the most ferocious one Neil Young on "All Along the Watchtower," my favorite was George Harrison, on “Absolutely Sweet Marie.” 

Sadly, this YouTube clip does not feature Chrissie Hynde’s ecstatic introduction of the “guitar hero” (“Let me give you a little clue: hallelujah, hare Krishna, yeah yeah yeah!”), because that was on his prior song at the show, “If Not for You.”

The ex-Beatle’s aversion to live performing had kept him off the stage for most of the last 18 years, and he had given what turned out to be his last full-length concert in the U.K. the prior spring, so it was natural that, even for a song he had recorded successfully yours ago like “If Not for You,” he might have played a big tentatively.

But “Absolutely Sweet Marie,” one of Dylan’s most humorous songs (“Well, anybody can be just like me, obviously/But then, now again, not too many can be like you, fortunately”), loosened Harrison up considerably, and I can swear he’s having fun with Dylan’s—how shall I say it?—distinctive emphases of words (“all these promises you left for me”). (Harrison, reputedly “the quiet Beatle,” may also have been the one with the slyest sense of humor.)

It’s easy to overlook “Absolutely Sweet Marie” on the teeming double-album Dylan masterpiece Blonde on Blonde, which made all the more welcome Harrison’s spotlight on the tune. It’s impossible not to get caught up in Harrison’s infectious appreciation of the tune. Certainly G.E. Smith, the musical director of the show, did, as he unleashed a fun guitar solo, trading licks with one of the rock ‘n’ roll masters of the instrument.

I’m not sure why Harrison wore this violet jacket during his appearance. If it was meant to attract attention, it was unnecessary. His terrific performance took care of that, with no other visual aids needed.

Song Lyric of the Day (Bob Dylan, on a Windy, Rainy Night)

“The wind howls like a hammer

The night blows cold and rainy

My love she's like some raven

At my window with a broken wing.”— Bob Dylan, “Love Minus Zero, No Limit,” from his Bringing It All Back Home LP (1965)

Song Lyric of the Day (Bob Dylan, on the Dangers of ‘Too Much Of Nothing’)

“Now, too much of nothing

Can make a man feel ill at ease

One man’s temper might rise

While another man’s temper might freeze.”—Bob Dylan, “Too Much Of Nothing,” performed by Dylan and The Band from his LP The Basement Tapes (1975)

(Photo of Dylan by Lisa Law. ©Lisa Law, from her Web site “Flashing on the Sixties”)