One For The Road: Happy 70th Birthday, Roger McGuinn

By Samantha Abernethy in Arts & Entertainment on Jul 13, 2012 10:40PM

Not only is the Byrds frontman from Chicago, Roger McGuinn learned how to play the guitar and the banjo at the Old Town School of Folk Music. Today McGuinn turns 70 years old. So how did the kid from The Latin School become a folk rock pioneer? Here's a little about what McGuinn and The Byrds did to create whole genres of music.

If Elvis gave rock its dangerous edge and Dylan its poetic soul, McGuinn—as leader and guitar maestro of the Byrds—helped give rock both a heritage and a vocabulary. Coming from the folk tradition, McGuinn and the Byrds arrived on the scene at the right time. Dylan had already revived folk, bringing it to the masses with his rock persona. And even though he had experimented with combining folk and rock on Bringing It All Back Home, the two were still largely seen as separate entities. Enter McGuinn and the Byrds, who adapted and recorded Dylan’s “Mr. Tambourine Man” three months prior to his infamous electric set at the Newport Folk Festival. In doing so, the Byrds not only built a bridge between folk and rock, they also connected rock ‘n’ roll to a tradition of music that spanned across centuries rather than a mere decade.
More than this, though, the Byrds’ sound provided an indispensable template for every rock band that followed, one marked by infectious melodies, impeccable harmonies, and hooks reaching out of every song—even the experimental ones.

Read the whole piece with a Q&A with McGuinn at PopMatters.

Below Old Town School teachers perform "Turn, Turn, Turn" with alum McGuinn at the school's 50th anniversary celebration.

The Byrds' first single was their rendition of Bob Dylan's "Mr. Tambourine Man" in 1965.

This is a lesser-known Byrds tune, but it's my personal favorite. There is a weird floaty woman speaking at the beginning introducing them for this German TV performance.