McGuinn stood there after the song ended with a sly smile on his face, relishing and soaking in the moment. Merle Haggard’s “Sing Me Back Home”, was next and the band was met with thunderous applause, a far cry from the boos, heckles and tweets they received when they played that same song on the same stage some fifty years earlier. After entertaining the capacity audience with “Old John Robertson” and “Wasn’t Born to Follow”, both from The Notorious Byrd Brothers, they talked about playing the Grand Ole Opry for the first and only time when they were in town recording Sweetheart of The Rodeo. It was an incredible Ryman happening as Stuart acknowledged the moment with a call out to Clarence’s daughter who was in attendance. In one of those “I’m not crying, it’s dusty in here” moments it turns out that Marty was playing Clarence’s guitar. Marty had lived with Clarence’s brother Roland White (famed mandolinist who was also in attendance) and had a close connection with Clarence’s legacy and his family. Hillman was talking about writing his first song “Time Between” and bringing in guitarist Clarence White to play on it. Marty Stuart took lead vocals on “A Satisfied Mind”, the 1955 #1 hit by Porter Wagoner and I think it signaled this was more of a partnership with Hillman and McGuinn than just a supporting role. Since so many bands just take the stage and plow through whatever album they are commemorating it provided informative and sometimes comedic insight into to their creative process and made for a far more intimate setting than I expected. In between songs McGuinn and primarily Hillman would talk about what was going on with the band at the time and what went into the recording process. What I didn’t expect was the format the show would take. The first set consisted of songs from their catalog and built to the second set of material that would focus on Sweetheart of the Rodeo. The band was tight, the harmonies were spot on and you could see the joy on the faces of the performers. McGuinn and Hillman came out with Marty and the band – Chris Scruggs on bass, Kenny Vaughan on guitar and Harry Stinson on drums, and went right into the Dylan penned “My Back Pages” and the show was off and running.
I had high hopes and I can’t remember the last time I was this excited to go to a show.
Their superb musicianship and reverence for the genre made them the perfect accomplices for this undertaking. What made it even better is they were being backed by Marty Stuart and His Fabulous Superlatives, who, if you didn’t already know, is the baddest band in the land. That being said, I was beyond excited when I saw Roger McGuinn and Chris Hillman were touring to celebrate the 50 th anniversary of Sweetheart of the Rodeo. It is interesting how some albums need time to breathe and time for people to look past the moment to discover what many casually disregarded upon initial release. Instead it spent 10 weeks on the chart, hitting #77 and was notable for being the lowest charting album, at the time, for the band. The record that cemented their standing in this space was 1968’s Sweetheart of the Rodeo which upon release was not heralded as the genre influencing masterpiece it is hailed as today. Over the years I learned more about The Byrds and saw the impact their influence had on country rock, the new traditionalist movement as well as the alt-country uprising of the 90’s. I didn’t know anything about the band as I was nine years old but I was immediately taken by their harmonies, the intricacies of the melodies and how they seemed to effortlessly move into and out of various styles of music. In 1978 or so my relatives in Germany sent me a budget Byrds compilation lp.
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