07/13/2025
Happy 83rd birthday to singer, songwriter, and guitarist Roger McGuinn who was born James Joseph McGuinn III on this date July 13, 1942 in Chicago, IL.
In 1957, he enrolled as a student at Chicago's Old Town School of Folk Music, where he learned the five-string banjo and 12-string guitar. After graduation, McGuinn performed solo at various coffeehouses on the folk music circuit where he was hired as a sideman by the Limeliters, the Chad Mitchell Trio, and Judy Collins and other folk music artists in the same vein.
In 1962, after he ended his association with the Chad Mitchell Trio, McGuinn was hired by Bobby Darin as a backup guitarist and harmony singer. Darin opened T.M. Music in New York City's Brill Building, hiring McGuinn as a songwriter for $35 a week.
During 1963, just one year before he co-founded the Byrds in Los Angeles, McGuinn was working as a studio musician in New York, recording with Judy Collins and Simon & Garfunkel.
At the same time, he was hearing about the Beatles (whose first American appearances would come in February 1964) and wondering how Beatlemania might affect folk music. When he saw George Harrison play a 12-string Rickenbacker in the film "A Hard Days Night", it inspired McGuinn to buy the same instrument.
By the time Doug Weston gave McGuinn a job at The Troubadour nightclub in Los Angeles, he had begun to include Beatles' songs in his act. He gave rock style treatments to traditional folk tunes and thereby caught the attention of another folkie Beatles fan, Gene Clark, who joined forces with McGuinn in July 1964. Together they formed the beginning of what was to become the Byrds.
In 1968, McGuinn helped create the groundbreaking album "Sweetheart of the Rodeo", to which many attribute the rise in popularity of country rock. McGuinn originally conceived the album as a blend of rock, jazz, folk and other styles; but Gram Parsons's and Chris Hillman's bluegrass-western-country influences came to the forefront.
After the break-up of the Byrds, McGuinn released several solo albums throughout the 1970s. In 1973 he collaborated with Bob Dylan on songs for the sound track of the Sam Peckinpah movie "Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid" including "Knockin' on Heaven's Door". He toured with Bob Dylan in 1975 and 1976 as part of Dylan's Rolling Thunder R***e, cancelling a planned tour of his own in order to participate.
In 1977, McGuinn joined fellow ex-Byrds Gene Clark and Chris Hillman to form McGuinn, Clark & Hillman. The trio recorded an album with Capitol Records in 1979. McGuinn, Clark and Hillman's second release was to have been a full group effort entitled "City", but Clark's unreliability and drug problems resulted in the billing change on their next LP City to "Roger McGuinn and Chris Hillman, featuring Gene Clark".
Since 1981, McGuinn has regularly toured (primarily playing clubs and small theaters) as a solo singer-guitarist. In 2018 he embarked on a tour with Chris Hillman, a fellow original Byrd, backed by Marty Stuart and His Fabulous Superlatives, in commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the Byrds' Sweetheart of the Rodeo album, after which McGuinn returned to touring solo.
He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1991 for his work with the Byrds.
