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MUSICIANS ASSOCIATED WITH THE BYRDS
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Glen Campbell
Jesse Chambers
Jerry Cole
Ry Cooder
Jon Corneal
Elvis Costello
Country Gazette
Crowded House
Glen Campbell was on the Capital roster as a singer from the early '60s. His records attracted little attention in the first few years, but Campbell was in high demand as a session musician. He worked with acts as diverse as the Champs, Elvis Presley, and Frank Sinatra.
Campbell played guitar on most of the Beach Boys' work in the early '60s. After Brian Wilson's retirement from live performance in December of 1964, Campbell replaced him in the band for live performances. (In April '65, Campbell was replaced by Bruce Johnston, formerly of Bruce and Terry -- Terry being later Byrds producer Terry Melcher.)Later that year, Campbell had a minor hit with a cover of Donovan's "Universal Soldier," but with no follow-up success, Campbell continued to do session work, including some late '66 sessions for Gene Clark with the Gosdin Brothers (Columbia, 1967).Later in '67, Campbell had his breakthrough with a cover of John Hartford's "Gentle On My Mind." He followed this with a string of successful singles, among them "By the Time I Get to Phoenix," "Wichita Lineman," and "Galveston."In 1969, Campbell landed his own TV variety show, "The Glen Campbell Goodtime Hour," which ran for three years. Since then he has enjoyed intermittent success first in the pop market ("Rhinestone Cowboy" in the '70s) and later in the country charts ("Still Within the Sound of My Voice" in the '80s).There is a site devoted to Campbell (and to his TV show) called The Glen Campbell Good Time Site.Jesse Chambers
Jesse Chambers, guitarist in high school band the Legends with Gram Parsons, went on to play bass with and write songs for Ricky Skaggs.
Jerry Cole
Jerry Cole is another of the crack session players who made up Phil Spector's "Wrecking Crew." Cole played guitar on both sides of the "Mr. Tambourine Man" / "I Knew I'd Want You" single by the Byrds. He later played on Gene Clark with the Gosdin Brothers (Columbia, 1967).
Ry Cooder
Ry Cooder started his career as a slide guitarist in the blues-rock outfit the Rising Sons, which also featured Taj Mahal and future Byrd Kevin Kelley. Later he played on and helped arrange the first Captain Beefheart album, Safe as Milk (Buddah, 1967). Like the Byrds, he contributed to the soundtrack of the film Candy (1969). He also added some slide guitar to the Rolling Stones' Let It Bleed (London, 1969) (and, he would later argue, contributed the opening riff to "Honky Tonk Women").
For 25 years, virtuoso multi-instrumentalist Ry Cooder has released albums of eclectic, roots-based music, ranging from blues to Tex-Mex to Hawaiian slack guitar. The best of these is Chicken Skin Music (Reprise, 1976). There is a site from down under devoted to Ry Cooder.Jon Corneal
Jon Corneal was an old friend of Gram Parsons from Winter Haven, Florida. He was one of several drummers to have played with Parsons in his high school band, the Legends.
Corneal was doing sessions in Nashville when Parsons approached him about playing on the International Submarine Band's only album, Safe at Home (LHI, 1968).Corneal then played on the Byrds' Sweetheart of the Rodeo. He was one of several drummers to play on the first album by the Flying Burrito Brothers, The Gilded Palace of Sin (A&M, 1969). He was replaced shortly after the release of that album by ex-Byrd Michael Clarke. After leaving the Burritos, Corneal drummed on the second Dillard & Clark album, Through the Morning, Through the Night (A&M, 1969).Corneal also filled in for drummer N.D. Smart in the early days of Parsons's 1973 touring band, the Fallen Angels.Elvis Costello
Elvis Costello is surely the closest thing to Bob Dylan his generation of musicians has produced. For that reason alone it was perhaps inevitable that he would one day work with Roger McGuinn. McGuinn added his trademark sound to a cut on Costello's CD Spike (Warner Bros., 1989). Costello reciprocated in 1991 by giving McGuinn the song "You Bowed Down," which appeared, with backing vocals from EC, on Back from Rio (Arista, 1991). Costello's own version appeared on All This Useless Beauty (Warner Bros., 1996).
Costello has acknowledged the influence of the early Byrds on such tracks as "Red Shoes." His work also reflects the profound influence of Gram Parsons. Costello's country album, Almost Blue (Columbia, 1981) (recorded in Nashville with Billy Sherrill) includes the Parsons songs "Hot Burrito #1 (I'm Your Toy)" and "How Much I Lied," as well as Merle Haggard's "Tonight the Bottle Let Me Down," which the Flying Burrito Brothers covered on Sleepless Nights (A&M, 1976). The Parsons influence can be heard as early as "Radio Sweetheart," the B-side of Costello's very first single.Warner Brothers has an official Costello home page, but there is a great fan-created Elvis Costello site affiliated with a zine called the Elvis Costello Information Service.Country Gazette
Fiddler Byron Berline, guitarist Kenny Wertz and bassist Roger Bush founded bluegrass group Country Gazette in 1971. 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, an old classmate of Berline's from the University of Oklahoma, 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. Berline left in 1975 to form his own band, Sundance. Munde led Country Gazette for many years, though the band underwent many personnel shifts during that time. Crowded House
Kiwi songwriter and singer Neil Finn started Crowded House in 1986, after the demise of Split Enz, a pop-rock outfit from New Zealand led by Neil's brother Tim.
Unlike Split Enz, Crowded House enjoyed substantial success in the US, hitting #2 with their 1987 debut single, "Don't Dream It's Over." With Mitchell Froom producing, the band's first two albums did well for Neil Finn and his bandmates, Paul Hester and Nick Seymour. In 1988, Crowded House recorded three live tracks with Roger McGuinn. These tracks -- three Byrds covers -- were released under the name "Byrdhouse" as bonus tracks on the CD single "I Feel Possessed." After several more albums, the arrival and departure of Tim Finn, and a number of side projects and solo albums, Crowded House broke up in late '96. They live on in cyberspace at the Crowded House site.[Back to top.]
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