I got the bright idea to re-do ”Notorious Byrds Brothers”. The thought was to take this very un-Byrdlike sounding record and do it as if it were “Younger Than Yesterday.” Very quickly we realized that there wasn’t much to that plan. “Get to you”, the first song we recorded is really the only one that fits that model. For the rest of them we tried to re-imagine them if possible or at least add something different.
For instance, McGuinn lifted the melody of an old sea shanty to write his science fiction piece “Space Odyssey”. We decided to do it as an old sea shanty. Crosby borrowed heavily from Dave Brubeck’s “Take Five” for “Tribal Gathering”; we did it in 4/4 time, but we based the structure on the 5/4 bass line. Several songs are very near the original arrangements though.
In the end, I’m not sure what we accomplished. Byrd’s fans may get the joke, and some of these arrangements are good recordings on their own. Listening may make you want to go back and re-hear the original masterpiece. That would be some measure of success I guess.
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