“Dry your eyes and stand up straight Bugler’s got a place at the Pearly Gates Say goodbye sugar Oh, say goodbye” And so we come to the final year of Clarence White’s life and the eleventh and final (for now) chapter of my Adios Loungeography. I’ve put off this part of his bio for as […]
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The Byrds entered 1971 heading in opposite directions. As a live unit, there’s no question that the band was at its career apex. The Clarence White-Gene Parsons-Skip Battin rhythm section was massive. If anything, Roger McGuinn was the musical weak link, a disturbing trend that would replicate itself in the studio. I will diatribe later […]
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For Clarence White, 1969 began with the release of his first album as a member of The Byrds, Dr. Byrds & Mr. Hyde, and ended with the release of that album’s follow-up, Ballad Of Easy Rider. In between, the band played over 70 dates throughout the US, many of those gigs featuring multiple sets (early […]
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In July 1968, The Byrds played South Africa without Gram Parsons, who decided that shooting smack with Keith Richards was better than playing segregated Johannesburg, so he essentially fired himself. While GP’s political motives were as much expedient as heartfelt, to his credit he flew the coop on a tour that was by all […]
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“To have been a Renaissance Hillbilly in Hollywood in the 1960s would have been great for me. I could have hung out with Leo Fender, Buck Owens and Don Rich, Moon (Ralph Mooney), Merle (Haggard) and Roy Nichols. Gone to check out Wynn Stewart recording at Capitol or witnessed Johnny Cash, Joe Maphis, and Merle […]
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