He is single-handedly responsible for the extraordinary increase in acoustic flatpicking and fingerpicking guitar performance. His flatpicking style has no precedent in earlier country music history.” —Ralph Rinzler, the folklorist who “discovered” Doc Watson in 1960, in the New York Times Doc Watson, the trailblazing and beloved flatpicker from North Carolina, died yesterday at the […]
Read More
“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 […]
Read More
1972 was a bit of a transition year for Clarence White. Even though The Byrds were nominally a going concern, most of their touring commitments were completed by May, though they did several weekend runs later in the year. The main reason activity came to a halt was because Roger McGuinn was negotiating a […]
Read More
As 1966 came to a close, The Byrds were in the studio recording songs for Younger Than Yesterday. Chris Hillman, inspired by his recent session work with Letta Mbulu and Hugh Masekela, brought his first songwriting efforts to the studio. I don’t think there’s enough critical appreciation of Hillman’s artistic leap from Fifth Dimension to […]
Read More
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 […]
Read More