It’s these experiments in texture that make The Notorious Byrd Brothers The Byrds’ best album. Closer ‘Space Odyssey’ is the most disparate. There’s also the band’s usual folk-rock, and other styles are explored – ‘Old John Robertson’ starts as jaunty country, but detours into a baroque string quartet. The Notorious Byrd Brothers splits the difference – psychedelia mingles with country touches like pedal steel. Why The Notorious Byrd Brothers is The Byrds’ Best Albumġ967 was the year of psychedelia, but albums like Dylan’s John Wesley Harding and The Band’s 1968 debut swung the pendulum back to an earthy, homespun feel. He also plays bass on ‘Old John Robertson’. Even though he was fired during the sessions, David Crosby’s also influential on the record – as well as contributing three songs, his rhythm guitar and vocals are on half of the songs. The Byrds had often recorded songs from outside songwriters, famously Bob Dylan, and this time two songs from the pen of Carole King and Gerry Goffin are covered. The Notorious Byrd Brothers was completed by the two remaining Byrds McGuinn and bassist Chris Hillman, using studio musicians to fill out the sound. Drummer Michael Clarke also left the band during the recording sessions, and much of the drumming on the album is from studio players Jim Gordon and Hal Blaine.

The breaking point was ‘Triad’, about a ménage à trois, a song that the other members considered too risque. Ace songwriter Gene Clark had already left the band, and David Crosby was fired in October 1967, during the sessions for The Notorious Byrd Brothers. With three talented singer-guitarists competing for attention in their original lineup, band relationships were competitive and strained.

The song launched the genre of folk-rock, influencing The Beatles’ 1965 album Rubber Soul, as well as later acts like Tom Petty and R.E.M.īy the time of their fifth album, 1968’s The Notorious Byrd Brothers, The Byrds were in turmoil. The song was a watershed moment in pop music – combining Dylan’s poetic, creative lyrics with Roger McGuinn’s chiming twelve string electric guitar. Californian folk-rock band The Byrds enjoyed immediate success in 1965 with their first single, a cover of Bob Dylan’s ‘Mr Tambourine Man’.

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