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Roger McGuinn (born James Joseph McGuinn III on July 13, 1942 in Chicago, Illinois) is an American singer-songwriter and guitarist. McGuinn is best known for being the lead singer on many of the Byrds' hit records and lead guitarist of the Byrds, the pioneering folk-rock band of the 1960s contributing much to the band's unique sound.

Music career

McGuinn's parents, James and Dorothy, were involved in journalism and public relations, and during his childhood, they penned a bestseller titled Parents Can't Win. He became interested in music after hearing Elvis Presley's "Heartbreak Hotel," and asked his parents to buy him a guitar. In 1957 he enrolled as a student at Chicago's Old Town School of Folk Music, where he mastered the five-string banjo and continued to hone his guitar skills. After graduation, McGuinn performed solo at various coffeehouses on the folk music circuit where he was discovered and hired as a sideman by folk groups such as the Limeliters, the Chad Mitchell Trio, and Judy Collins as well as playing guitar and singing backup harmony for Bobby Darin. Soon after, he moved to the West Coast, winding up in Los Angeles, where he eventually met the future members of the Byrds.

During his time with the Byrds, McGuinn developed two innovative and highly influential styles of electric guitar playing: the so-called "jingle-jangle"--generating ringing arpeggios based on banjo fingerpicking styles he learned while at the Old Town School--and a merging of saxophonist John Coltrane's free-jazz atonalities (harmolodics) with the drone of the Indian sitar, a style of playing first heard on the Byrds' 1966 single "Eight Miles High".

While tracking the Byrds' first single, "Mr. Tambourine Man," at Columbia studios, McGuinn discovered a key ingredient of his signature sound. "The 'Rick' by itself is kind of thuddy," he details. "It doesn't ring. But if you add a compressor, you get that long sustain. To be honest, I found this by accident. The engineer, Ray Gerhardt, would run compressors on everything to protect his precious equipment from loud rock and roll . He compressed the heck out of my 12-string, and it sounded so great we decided to use two tube compressors Teletronix LA-2As in series, and then go directly into the board. That's how I got my 'jingle-jangle' tone. It's really squashed down, but it jumps out from the radio. With compression, I found I could hold a note for three or four seconds, and sound more like a wind instrument. Later, this led me to emulate John Coltrane's saxophone on 'Eight Miles High.' Without compression, I couldn't have sustained the riff's first note."

"I practiced eight hours a day on that 'Rick'," he continues, "I really worked it. In those days, acoustic 12s had wide necks and thick strings that were spaced pretty far apart, so they were hard to play. But the Rick's slim neck and low action let me explore jazz and blues scales up and down the fretboard, and incorporate more hammer-ons and pull-offs into my solos. I also translated some of my banjo picking techniques to the 12-string. By combining a flatpick with metal fingerpicks on my middle and ring fingers, I discovered I could instantly switch from fast single-note runs to banjo rolls and get the best of both worlds."

In 1968 he was involved in the groundbreaking Byrds album Sweetheart of the Rodeo, to which many attribute the rise in popularity of country rock. After the break-up of the Byrds, McGuinn released several solo albums, and later toured with Bob Dylan during his 1975 and 1976 "Rolling Thunder Revue" and opened for Dylan and Tom Petty in 1987. He currently tours as a solo artist.

Roger McGuinn has used the World Wide Web to continue the folk tradition since November 1995 by recording a different folk song each month on his Folk Den site. The songs are made available from his web site and a selection (with guest vocalists) was released on CD as Treasures from the Folk Den. In November 2005 McGuinn released a four-CD box set containing one hundred of his favorite songs from the Folk Den.

On July 11, 2000, McGuinn testified before in a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on downloading music from the Internet that artists do not always receive the royalties that (non-Internet based) record companies state in contracts, and that to date, The Byrds had not received any royalties for their biggest hits, "Mr. Tamborine Man" and "Turn, Turn, Turn"—they only received advances, which were split five ways and amounted to just "a few thousand dollars" per bandmember. He also stated that he was receiving 50 percent royalties from MP3.com.http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0007/11/se.01.html

Religious faith and name changes

In 1965, McGuinn was initiated into the Subud religious sect, and practiced latihan, a meditation in which he opened himself up to receiving spiritual guidance. McGuinn changed his name in 1967 after his guru told him it would better "vibrate with the universe." The guru sent Jim the letter "R" and asked him to send back ten names starting with that letter. Owing to a fascination with airplanes, gadgets and science fiction, he sent names like "Rocket," "Retro," "Ramjet," and "Roger," the latter a term used in signalling protocol over two-way radios, military and civil aviation. Roger was the only "real" name in the bunch and the guru picked it. While using the name Roger professionally from that time on, McGuinn only officially changed his middle name from Joseph to Roger.

In 1977 McGuinn become a born-again Christian.

Discography

Roger McGuinn, 1973

  1. I'm So Restles
  2. My New Woman
  3. Lost My Drivin' Wheel
  4. Draggin'
  5. Time Cube
  6. Bag Full Of Money
  7. Hanoi Hannah
  8. Stone
  9. Heave Away
  10. M'Linda
  11. The Water Is Wide
  12. Jamaica, Say You Will
  13. John, John (previously unissued)

Peace on You, 1974

  1. Peace On You
  2. Without You
  3. Going To The Country
  4. (Please Not) One More Time
  5. Same Old Sound
  6. Do What You Want To Do
  7. Together
  8. Better Change
  9. Gate Of Horn
  10. The Lady
  11. Rock & Roll Time

Roger McGuinn and Band, 1975

  1. Somebody Loves You
  2. Knockin' on Heaven's Door
  3. Bull Dog
  4. Painted Lady
  5. Lover of the Bayou
  6. Lisa
  7. Circle Song
  8. So Long
  9. Easy Does It
  10. Born to Rock and Roll
  11. Wasn’t Born To Follow (live)
  12. Chestnut Mare (live)

Cardiff Rose, 1976

  1. Take Me Away
  2. Jolly Roger
  3. Rock and Roll Time
  4. Friend
  5. Partners in Crime
  6. Up to Me
  7. Round Table
  8. Pretty Polly
  9. Dreamland
  10. Soul Love (demo recording)
  11. Dreamland (live)

Thunderbyrd, 1977

  1. All Night Long
  2. It's Gone
  3. Dixie Highway
  4. American Girl
  5. We Can Do It All Over Again
  6. Why Baby Why
  7. I'm Not Lonely Anymore
  8. Golden Loom
  9. Russian Hill

Back from Rio, 1990

  1. Someone To Love
  2. Car Phone
  3. You Bowed Down
  4. Suddenly Blue
  5. The Trees Are All Gone
  6. King Of The Hill
  7. Without Your Love
  8. The Time Has Come
  9. Your Love Is A Gold Mine
  10. If We Never Meet Again

Born to Rock & Roll, 1992

  1. I'm So Restlessten
  2. My New Woman
  3. Draggin'
  4. The Water Is Wide
  5. Same Old Sound
  6. Bag Full Of Money
  7. Gate of Horn
  8. Peace On You
  9. Lover Of The Bayou
  10. Stone (The Lord Loves A Rolling Stone)
  11. Lisa
  12. Take Me Away
  13. Jolly Roger
  14. Friend
  15. Dreamland
  16. Dixie Highway
  17. American Girl
  18. Up To Me
  19. Russian Hill
  20. Born To Rock And Roll

  • Live from Mars, 1996
  • McGuinn's Folk Den (4 volumes), 2000
  • Treasures from the Folk Den, 2001
  • Back to New York, 2002
  • Live from Electric Lady Land, 2002
  • Limited Edition, 2004
  • The Folk Den Project, 2005

Recently, McGuinn performed a 3-set show in Irvington, New York's Town Hall Theater.

References

External links

1942 births | Living people | American rock guitarists | Guitarists | Singer-songwriters | Songwriters

Roger McGuinn | Roger McGuinn | Roger McGuinn | Roger McGuinn

 

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