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MUSICIANS ASSOCIATED WITH THE BYRDS
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Tom Brumley
Bill Bryson
Bob Buchanan
Buffalo Springfield
James Burton
Roger Bush
Before joining the Desert Rose Band in 1992, steel guitarist Tom Brumley played with both Buck Owens (in the Buckaroos) and Rick Nelson (in the Stone Canyon Band). The Academy of Country Music named Brumley best steel guitarist in 1966 for his work with the Buckaroos.
Bill Bryson
Bassist Bill Bryson had a long background in bluegrass before joining the Desert Rose Band. From 1974 to 1976 he played with the Bluegrass Cardinals; from '76 to '78, he played with Country Gazette. After leaving DRB, Bryson formed the Laurel Canyon Ramblers with Herb Pedersen, Billy Ray Lathum, and Kenny Blackwell. The band has set up an official Laurel Canyon Ramblers site.
Bob Buchanan
Gram Parsons met folksinger Bob Buchanan through their mutual friend, folk heavyweight Fred Neil. Buchanan had been a member of the New Christy Minstrels. After the fission of the original International Submarine Band, Buchanan joined, playing rhythm guitar on their LP Safe at Home (LHI, 1968). Buchanan co-wrote "Hickory Wind" with Parsons during a train trip from Florida to LA.
Buffalo Springfield
Buffalo Springfield was one of the best contemporaneous bands to build on the Byrds' innovations. Stephen Stills and Richie Furay came from the Au Go Go Singers, a 10-person New York commercial folk combo in the mold of the New Christy Minstrels. Neil Young and Bruce Palmer were in the Mynah Birds together with Jerry Edmonton and Goldie McJohn, later of Steppenwolf, and as vocalist, none other than future funkateer Rick James!
Young and Palmer drove to LA in Young's hearse to find Stills, whom they had met in Canada. Having failed to find him, they were about to head for San Francisco when Stills and Furay saw a hearse with Ontario plates and recognized it as Young's. They decided to form a band and found their name on the side of a steamroller.These four added drummer Dewey Martin, who had played with the Dillards, and recorded a great debut, Buffalo Springfield (Atco, 1967). Stills and Young each wrote about half the songs; they both sang, as did Furay. Stills's brilliant single, "For What It's Worth," about the Sunset Strip Riots, was added to subsequent pressings when it made #7 on the US charts.With Bruce Palmer deported, the band began a second album with Ken Koblun and then Jim Fielder on bass. That album, Stampede, was never released -- at least, not officially; instead, they issued Buffalo Springfield Again (Atlantic, 1967), another strong showing. Young was quitting and rejoining on a regular basis, and band relations were strained. David Crosby ended up substituting for an absent Young at the Monterey Pop Festival, foreshadowing his future work with Stills and foreshortening his tenure with the Byrds. Engineer Jim Messina became the band's bassist, and when the group dissolved in May of '68, he assembled the posthumous release, Last Time Around (Atco, 1968).Stills went on to Crosby Stills & Nash; Furay and Messina formed Poco; and Neil Young began his brilliant and idiosyncratic career solo, with Crazy Horse, and with Crosby Stills Nash & Young.James Burton
James Burton is a master of both country and rock guitar. His first session was "Susie-Q" with Dale Hawkins in 1957. In short order he became the right-hand man to Rick Nelson, adding brilliant lead guitar work to Nelson's records and some good-natured clowning to his television performances on Ozzie and Harriet. Burton played on Nelson's records from "Stood Up" in early 1958 to his early attempts at country rock in 1967.
Burton also became the lead guitarist for the Shindogs, the houseband of the TV dance show Shindig. Other Shindogs included Delaney Bramlett and Glen D. Hardin. Around this same time, Burton began a fruitful career as a session musician for artists as diverse as rockers Buffalo Springfield, folky Judy Collins, and country greats Merle Haggard and Buck Owens, with whom Burton helped define the Bakersfield sound.In 1969, Burton joined Elvis Presley's TCB Band. From '69 to Presley's death in '77, Burton performed on all of the King's musical work -- in the studio, on stage, and in movies. In between his commitments to Elvis Presley, Burton found time to play on both Gram Parsons solo LPs, GP (Reprise, 1973) and Grievous Angel (Reprise, 1974). This led directly to a stint with Emmylou Harris and the Hot Band on her first two albums, Pieces of the Sky (Reprise, 1975) and Elite Hotel (Reprise, 1976). After Presley's death, Burton worked with John Denver and Jerry Lee Lewis. He also played with Chris Hillman on Desert Rose (Sugar Hill, 1984) and with Elvis Costello on King of America (Columbia, 1986).Roger Bush
Roger Bush gained fame as a bassist but started as a Travis-picking guitarist and banjo player. A native of El Monte, California, Bush met the Country Boys at a club in Pomona in 1960. When Eric White, Jr., left the band to spend more time with his family in 1961, Roland White and Leroy Mack taught Bush to play upright bass. That group soon changed its name to the Kentucky Colonels, and Bush stayed with them until they disbanded in 1965.
With Bart Haney and Clarence White, Bush was briefly part of a short-lived country group called Trio in 1966.Bush joined the Dillard & Clark Expedition in 1970, after their second (and final) album. When Gene Clark left that aggregation and it became the Doug Dillard Expedition, Bush stayed on as bassist. Later Bush formed Country Gazette with fiddler Byron Berline and guitarist Kenny Wertz. Almost immediately, Country Gazette was subsumed into the Chris Hillman/Rick Roberts version of the Flying Burrito Brothers, with whom Berline, Bush and Wertz toured in 1971 and '72; these three appeared on the album Last of the Red Hot Burritos (A&M, 1971). Banjo player Alan Munde joined for a tour of Europe in 1971, and the four resumed playing as Country Gazette in 1972, recording Traitor in Our Midst (United Artists, 1972). Wertz soon left, to be replaced on guitar by Roland White, brother of Clarence White and like Clarence and Roger Bush, a former Kentucky Colonel. Bush stayed with the band through 1975. [Back to top.]
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