Ballad of Easy Rider is the eighth album by the American rock band the Byrds and was released in November 1969 on Columbia Records. The album was named after the song "Ballad of Easy Rider", which had been written by the Byrds' guitarist and singer, Roger McGuinn (with help from Bob Dylan), as the theme song for the 1969 film, Easy Rider. The title was also chosen in an attempt to capitalize on the commercial success of the film, although the majority of the music on the album had no connection with it. Nonetheless, the association with Easy Rider heightened the Byrds' public profile and resulted in Ballad of Easy Rider becoming the band's highest charting album for two years in the U.S. The title track was released as a preceding single in October 1969, achieving moderate success on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. A second single taken from the album, "Jesus Is Just Alright", was released in December 1969, but only managed to reach number 97 on the Billboard Hot 100. Upon release, Ballad of Easy Rider was met with mixed reviews, but is today regarded as one of the band's stronger albums from the latter half of their career.
Background and Easy Rider film
Recording sessions for Ballad of Easy Rider were produced by Terry Melcher, who had also worked as the Byrds' producer during 1965, on their Mr. Tambourine Man and Turn! Turn! Turn! albums. Melcher was happy to accept the band's invitation to produce the album, but his one stipulation was that he would also take on management duties for the Byrds, not wishing for a repeat of the conflict he had experienced with Jim Dickson, the group's original manager, in 1965.
In early 1969, the script writer and leading actor of Easy Rider, Peter Fonda, asked Bob Dylan to compose a theme song for the film. Dylan declined, but as a consolation he offered the lines, "The river flows, it flows to the sea/Wherever that river goes, that's where I want to be/Flow, river, flow"—which he hurriedly scribbled onto a napkin, telling Fonda to "give that to McGuinn." In 2000, McGuinn recounted to Jud Cost the story of how Dylan disowned credit for the song: "I got a call from Dylan at three o'clock in the morning going 'What's this? I don't want this credit. Take it off. Another possible reason for Dylan insisting that his name be removed from the song's credits may have been a suspicion that his name was being exploited to boost the film's credibility. The version of the song found on the soundtrack album and used in the film is a completely different recording to the one released by the Byrds. The rest of the Byrds had begun to doubt York's commitment and so a consensus was reached among the other three members that York should be fired.
Music
The album opens with the McGuinn and Dylan penned title track, which is performed at a substantially quicker tempo than McGuinn's solo version from the Easy Rider soundtrack. Among these non-original songs was a cover of Dylan's "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue", which the band had attempted to record twice before in June and August 1965, during the sessions for their second album, Turn! Turn! Turn!. These earlier recordings had gone unreleased at the time and McGuinn decided to revisit the composition in 1969, slowing down the tempo and radically altering the arrangement to fashion a more somber and serious version than those recorded in 1965. The Byrds' 1969 rendition of "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue" was released as the B-side of the "Jesus Is Just Alright" single.
The album also featured the John York composition "Fido", a song written about a stray dog that the bass player had encountered in a Kansas City hotel room while on tour. A third song about a dog, "Bugler", would appear on the band's 1971 album, Farther Along. "Fido" is notable for featuring a drum solo, the only example of such a solo on any of the Byrds' studio albums.
Release and reception
Ballad of Easy Rider was released on November 10, 1969 in the United States (catalogue item CS 9942) and January 16, 1970 in the United Kingdom (catalogue item S 63795). To emphasize the connection between the album and Easy Rider, the back cover of the LP featured liner notes written by Fonda. The reverse was true in the United Kingdom, however, where the album reached number 41 on the UK Albums Chart, while Dr. Byrds & Mr. Hyde had reached number 15. Columbia Records was eager to capitalize on this newfound popularity and launched an advertising campaign for the Ballad of Easy Rider album, proclaiming "The movie gave you the facts, the Ballad interprets them." Todd Selbert, writing in Jazz & Pop magazine, was more positive, describing the album as "Pretty good Byrds—their best effort since the stunning The Notorious Byrd Brothers."
The Byrds
- Roger McGuinn – guitar, vocals; Moog synthesizer and banjo on 1997 bonus track "Fiddler a Dram (Moog Experiment)"
- Clarence White – lead guitar, vocals
- John York – electric bass, vocals
- Gene Parsons – drums, guitar, banjo, vocals
Additional personnel
- Byron Berline – fiddle on "Tulsa County Blue" (and on 1997 bonus track "Mae Jean Goes to Hollywood")
- Glen D. Hardin – organ on "Gunga Din"
- Terry Melcher – backing vocal on "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue"
- string section on "Ballad Of Easy Rider" and "Jesus Is Just Alright"
Release history
{|class="wikitable" border="1"
|-
!Date
!Label
!Format
!Country
!Catalog
!Notes
|-
|November 10, 1969
|Columbia
|align="center"|LP
|align="center"|US
|CS 9942
|Original release.
|-
|January 16, 1970
|CBS
|align="center"|LP
|align="center"|UK
|S 63795
|Original release.
|-
|1982
|Embassy
|align="center"|LP
|align="center"|UK
|EMB 31956
|
|-
|1989
|Columbia
|align="center"|CD
|align="center"|US
|CK 9942
|Original CD release.
|-
|rowspan="2"|March 25, 1997
|rowspan="2"|Columbia/Legacy
|rowspan="2" align="center"|CD
|align="center"|US
|CK 65114
|rowspan="2"|Reissue containing seven bonus tracks and the remastered stereo album.
|-
|align="center"|UK
|COL 486754
|-
|2003
|Sony
|align="center"|CD
|align="center"|Japan
|MHCP-102
|Reissue containing seven bonus tracks and the remastered album in a replica LP sleeve.
|-
|}
References
Bibliography
- Rogan, Johnny, The Byrds: Timeless Flight Revisited, Rogan House, 1998,
- Hjort, Christopher, So You Want To Be A Rock 'n' Roll Star: The Byrds Day-By-Day (1965-1973), Jawbone Press, 2008, .