December 3rd, 2007Roger McGuinn about giving away to talk music at Weber State
The founder of the legendary Byrds gives away his music for free and calls record labels ugly names.
That makes him an unusual, but engaging, guest lecturer for Weber State University music students and the rest of the community this week as part of the university’s ongoing lecture series.
Roger McGuinn, 65, who led the folk-rock supergroup Byrds from 1965-73, told The Salt Lake Tribune that he’s coming to the university to talk about his experiences as a musician in the 1960s and now. He said that while his lecture is geared toward music students (Weber State provides bachelor’s degrees in music, music performance and keyboard pedagogy, among other subjects), the speech will give fans insight on what’s important to him.
What’s important to him now is a project called the Folk Den. He’s been working on it for more than a decade. He has always been an admitted technology geek - he was an early proponent of the Moog synthesizer, and owned one of the first briefcase telephones. But now he uses technology in a way that commemorates the past.
McGuinn uploads his performance of a traditional folk song every month on the Web site www.ibiblio.org/jimmy/ folkden-wp. He allows people to download the songs for free and considers the archive a “public service.”
The folk songs McGuinn chooses to record and archive were in “jeopardy,” he said, of being forgotten and lost. He called it a project akin to preserving old buildings. His choices range from his June lark, the 16th-century ballad “King Kong Kitchie Kitchie Ki Me O,” to his October song, “The Ballad of the Boll Weevil,” a “fairly new folk song” that sharecroppers sang in the early 20th century.
McGuinn said the state of traditional folk music is “healthier than it was 12 years ago,” what with Bruce Springsteen releasing two albums of folk, and Billy Bragg and Wilco’s two albums of Woody Guthrie songs that Guthrie wrote when was no longer able to play the guitar, laying in a hospital bed dying of Huntington’s disease.
McGuinn said he’s happy about the rise of the Internet in the music world, because it allows musicians to show off their recordings easily.
“It’s good for artists, but not for the record labels,” he said.
And his message for aspiring musicians? “Hold onto your publishing,” he said.
McGuinn follows a line of past distinguished speakers at Weber State that has included “Napoleon Dynamite” star Jon Heder and Holocaust survivor Irene Katz, said Travis Clemens, assistant director of media relations at Weber State.
Jose Gomez, university coordinator of Student Involvement and Leadership, said McGuinn is a great catch as a speaker and performer.
“We want to maximize his stay with us,” Gomez said in an e-mail. “[We want] to bring in speakers
that have the knowledge or expertise that may enhance or challenge our student body.”
Future speakers include Jose-Luis Orozco in February. Luis-Orozco is an award-winning Mexico-born entertainer who writes children’s books and records children’s music.
As for McGuinn, he has had a long, varied career. After the Byrds disbanded, he embarked on a solo acoustic career focused on his folk roots. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1991 and is known for his unique Rickenbacker 12-string electric guitar and Byrds songs like “Mr. Tambourine Man,” “Turn! Turn! Turn!,” “So You Want to Be a Rock & Roll Star” and “Eight Miles High.”
Although the Byrds are perhaps best known for their interpretations of Bob Dylan songs, they actually beat Dylan to the punch in electrifying his music for the general public. In July 1965, at the Newport Folk Festival, Dylan shocked the folk community when he traded his acoustic guitar for an electric.
But it was earlier the same year that the Byrds reached No. 1 with an electric version of Dylan’s “Mr. Tambourine Man.” And it was McGuinn’s Rickenbacker that provided the famous jingle-jangle to the song.
McGuinn said his concerts at Weber State will be solo acoustic shows that will feature some old folk songs as well as Byrds favorites. He will be bringing his banjo and, of course, his Rickenbacker.
