One of the most innovative and influential musicians in rock history is celebrating a birthday today: Roger McGuinn, frontman and founding member of the Byrds, is now 84 years old.
Born on July 13, 1942, McGuinn helped to launch the folk rock genre when he convinced the other members of the Byrds to record an electric cover of Bob Dylan's "Mr. Tambourine Man." Though the song was met with controversy among folk purists when it was released in 1965, the Byrd's version of "Mr. Tambourine Man" went all the way to #1 on the Billboard Hot 100, thanks in no small part to the revolutionary jingle jangle of McGuinn's Rickenbacker 12-string guitar.
“I still didn't know what an electric 12-string was, but when the Beatles released ‘A Hard Day's Night,’ I had to find out how they were getting that sound,” McGuinn told Guitar Player. “So we made a reconnaissance run to a movie theater that was showing A Hard Day's Night and took notes."
“Ringo [Starr] had Ludwig drums and John had that little Rickenbacker 325," McGuinn continued. "George [Harrison] played a Gretsch most of the time, but he also had a Rickenbacker 360, which looked like a six-string, until he turned sideways and you could see six extra tuning pegs emerging from behind the headstock, like a classical guitar. Once I realized what it was, I traded in my Gibson acoustic 12 and bought a Rickenbacker 360/12."
McGuinn went on to say that he "practiced eight hours a day on that Rick,” developing his signature, pioneering style, which ended up having a major impact on countless musicians to come (from Tom Petty to Peter Buck to Mike Campbell and beyond).
"I'll never forget hearing 'Mr. Tambourine Man' for the first time on the radio — the feeling of that Rickenbacker 12-string guitar and those incredible harmonies," Petty wrote for a Rolling Stone article which ranked the Byrds at #45 on a list of the '100 Greatest Artists of All Time.' "Roger McGuinn told me he took that guitar sound from A Hard Day's Night, but McGuinn was a banjo player, and he played the Rickenbacker in this rolling, fingerpicking style — no one had really tried it before."
"All of folk rock — for lack of a better term — descends directly from the music the Byrds made," Petty continued. "They were certainly the first to introduce any sort of country element into rock music. As if all that wasn't enough, the Byrds spurred on a good degree of Bob Dylan's popularity, too. And not to be too shallow, but they also were just the best-dressed band around. They had those great clothes and hairdos. That counted for something even then."
Speaking of Dylan, McGuinn's post-Byrds solo career would include plenty of collaborations with the iconic musician, including the soundtrack of the Sam Peckinpah's 1973 movie Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid. He also joined Dylan in 1975 and 1976 as part the legendary Rolling Thunder Revue.
"I first met Dylan in the early days of The Byrds," McGuinn told Classic Rock in 2009.
"He really hadn’t changed by the time he asked me to do the Rolling Thunder tour with him," McGuinn continued. "He was often a visitor at my house in Malibu. He liked the house a lot and wanted to rent it from me. One time we were up there and he said: 'I wanna do something different, man.' When I asked what he meant, he said: 'I dunno, maybe something like a circus.' Six months later I was in New York and bumped into him in the Village. That’s when he invited me to go on the tour. He wanted to revive the spirit of Greenwich Village with Rolling Thunder. It was like a travelling artists’ colony. There were about 300 people on the road with him."
While McGuinn's long (and still-going) career would continue to evolve, even taking a Gram Parsons-influenced detour into country music, his most lasting legacy will always be the music he created with the Byrds. As Petty wrote, "Those original Byrds really changed the world in that short time they were together."
Related: Why Bob Dylan Regrets Writing This Song: 'I Must Have Been a Real Schmuck'
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