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MUSICIANS INFLUENCED BY THE BYRDS
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Elvis Costello
Crowded House
The Flatlanders
The Flamin' Groovies
Robyn Hitchcock
The Jayhawks
The Long Ryders
Nick Lowe
"So You Think You're In Love" CD single by Robyn Hitchcock. Courtesy A&M Records.
See Artists Covered by the Byrds.
Crowded House
See Associates of the Byrds.
The Flatlanders
The Flatlanders comprised Joe Ely, Butch Hancock and Jimmie Dale Gilmore. Their 1972 8-Track-only release, More A Legend Than a Band (Rounder, 1990) was reissued after all three of these songwriter/ musicians achieved cult status in the '80s.
The Flamin' Groovies
The Flamin' Groovies came out of San Francisco in the late '60s playing '50s rock and R&B and like-minded originals. In 1972, rockabilly fan Roy Loney left and Chris Wilson arrived. Wilson and head Groovy Cyril Jordan developed a new sound based on the sound of '60s groups the Beatles, the Rolling Stones and the Byrds. Once again, there were covers mixed in with like-minded originals. This incarnation of the band recorded three LPs for Sire, beginning with Shake Some Action (Sire, 1976). The title song, readily available on the (highly recommended) compilation Groovies' Greatest Grooves (Sire, 1989), shows how well the band had absorbed the Byrds' sound. The Groovies in turn helped popularize the sound with the power pop groups that followed.
The five Byrds covers recorded by the band are harder to find, but worth seeking out. The band's second Sire LP Now (Sire, 1978) has a nice version of "Feel A Whole Lot Better." The third, Jumpin' In the Night (Sire, 1979) sports three: "It Won't Be Wrong," "5D," and "Lady Friend." A French EP, The Gold Star Tapes (Skydog, 1984) is highlighted by another Clark song, "She Don't Care About Time." The Groovies were keepers of the jangle-pop flame during the '70s, and prompted many new wavers, power poppers, punks and French kids to dig past the familiar Byrds singles.For more on Cyril and the boys, see the Flamin' Groovies website.Robyn Hitchcock
Critics deconstructing the neo-psychedelic music of Robyn Hitchcock are quick (and correct) to point out the influence of John Lennon and Syd Barrett, but every bit as important to his weird and wonderful sound is the music of the Byrds, in particular the guitar technique of Roger McGuinn, which was in evidence as early as Underwater Moonlight (1980; reissued Ryko, 1992) by his band the Soft Boys.
Over the course of his career, Hitchcock covered "The Bells of Rhymney" (twice!), "Eight Miles High," and, with Peter Buck of R.E.M., "Wild Mountain Thyme." Buck claims that any resemblance between his own guitar playing and that of McGuinn is not so much due to an obsession with the Byrds as to Buck's love for the Soft Boys. Buck eventually played on many of Hitchcock's albums.Most of Hitchcock's large oeuvre is currently in print on Ryko, Rhino, A&M and now Warner Bros. The unfamiliar might want to start out with the new anthology Greatest Hits (A&M, 1996), which contains an acoustic version of "Eight Miles High" (originally found on the CD single, "So You Think You're In Love," pictured to the left). For more on this underappreciated genius, see the Robyn Hitchcock home page.The Jayhawks
See Associates of the Byrds.
The Long Ryders
The Long Ryders were the cowpunk divsion of the Paisley Underground, the loose-knit group of mid '80s L.A. bands who all owed something to the Byrds. Name-checking Gram Parsons a good decade before it became de rigeur to do so, and featuring guest vocals from Gene Clark, the Long Ryders wore that love on their sleeve on several releases for Frontier and Island. Ryder Sid Griffin eventually compiled a great collection of interviews and other writings about Parsons, Sid Griffin: A Music Biography.
Griffin later moved to the UK and formed the Coal Porters. Griffin's activities are charted on his official Sid Griffin homepage. There is also an official site for former Long Ryder Tom Stevens.Nick Lowe
After several years fronting the Byrds-influenced pub rock band Brinsley Schwarz, Nick Lowe emerged as the renaissance man of New Wave. He showed off his mastery of many styles of pop music on his debut album, Jesus of Cool (Radar, 1978), better known in the States as Pure Pop for Now People (Columbia, 1978). Lowe also produced albums for Elvis Costello, Graham Parker, and the Damned.
His second solo album, Labour of Lust (Columbia, 1979) produced his only U.S. hit, "Cruel to Be Kind," though he also made the charts with "Teacher, Teacher" by Rockpile, the band he formed with Dave Edmunds to back both Lowe and Edmunds on their solo LPs. Lowe had always dabbled in country music, and this trend continued after his 1979 marriage to Carlene Carter, which cemented a brief alliance between London and Nashville and made him perhaps the unlikeliest in-law in the First Family of Country Music. His step-father-in-law Johnny Cash recorded the Lowe compositions "Without Love" and "The Beast in Me."After his divorce from Carter in the mid '80s, Lowe backed John Hiatt on his breakthrough album, Bring the Family (A&M, 1987). With Hiatt, Ry Cooder, and Jim Keltner, Lowe then formed one-off supergroup Little Village. He has continued to issue solo work since then, though even his best work has been sadly neglected by the general public.There is a (Japanese?) website devoted to Nick Lowe, called Pure Pop for Connoiseur (sic).[Back to top.]
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