Byrds Co-Founders Roger Mcguinn And Chris Hillman Along With Marty Stuart Announce Sweetheart Of The Rodeo 50th Anniversary Live Record Store Day Friday Music Limited Edition (2,500) Translucent Gold Vinyl 2 LP Release
Roger Mcguinn, Chris Hillman, Marty Stuart And His Fabulous Superlatives Celebrate The 50th Anniversary Of Sweetheart Of The Rodeo, 24-song Live Album Recorded During 23-city, 27-show 2018 50th Anniversary Sweetheart Of The Rodeo Tour.
âan unalloyed joy to see McGuinn and Hillman resurrect this piece of their legacy. âSweetheart of the Rodeoâ was meant to be heard and not merely revered.â
-The Washington Post
â âSweetheart of the Rodeoâ sounds pure and unfiltered, as resonant and lived-in as it did back in 1968âŠ. Age has
brought a timely resonance to these tunes, something that wasnât quite possible when the guys singing were still in their 20s.â
-Dallas Observer
In 2018, Byrds co-founders Roger McGuinn and Chris Hillman teamed up with country star Marty Stuart and His Fabulous Superlatives for a 50th anniversary salute to the Byrdsâ watershed 1968 album Sweetheart of the Rodeo, a work that helped usher in the whole genre of country-rock music. Today, the musicians announce the release of Roger McGuinn, Chris Hillman, With Marty Stuart And His Fabulous Superlatives Celebrate The 50 th Anniversary Of Sweetheart Of The Rodeo Friday Music set for April 20, Record Store Day 2024, as a limited edition 2 LP Translucent Gold Vinyl of 2,500 pressings, featured in a stunning gatefold cover. The album includes 24 tracks, selected from various stops on the 23-city, 27-show tour by Stuartâs audio engineer and the albumâs producer, Mick Conley, and mastered for vinyl release by long time Byrds re-issue producer Joe Reagoso.
Over the decades, Sweetheart of The Rodeo has become widely recognized as a flashpoint in the emergence of country-rock music, and for helping lay down a template for what eventually would be known as Americana music, that invigorating amalgam of rock, country, blues, folk and gospel music. Rolling Stone placed it No. 120 on its ranking of the 500 greatest albums of all time.
âI love the songs and playing with wonderful musicians,â McGuinn says. âI loved playing with Marty and the Superlatives, and Chris too. Itâs a great band to play with, and they are pros. This is the best sounding Byrdsâ record ever made! It was a privilege to work this band.â
âIt was one of the best toursâif not THE bestâI was ever on in 60 years of being in music. Every night was exciting,â Hillman says. âI couldn’t think of anybody else to do that presentation with other than Marty and the Superlatives,â which also includes bassist/steel guitarist Chris Scruggs, guitarist Kenny Vaughan and drummer Harry Stinson. âListening to this live recording puts me right back on stage with Roger, Marty, Kenny, Harry and Chris,” Hillman adds.
Stuart echoed these sentiments. âEverybody won,â he said recently. âThat’s my thought: As a band, we got to be the Byrds, and Roger and Chris got to be Roger and Chris without having to put up with anything that had to do with band life, and the audience saw things and heard things that they never thought they’d ever see again or have never heard or seen before, right?â
Beyond the joys of the musical performances, the âSweetheart 50th â tour treated audiences to something of a master class in the evolution of country rock. The album includes songs written and recorded well before Sweetheart to show the musical road that led to the album. These include Hillmanâs early country-rock song âTime Between,â Bob Dylanâs âMy Back Pages,â and Porter Wagonerâs 1955 country classic âSatisfied Mind.â Also included is âOld John Robertsonâ the folk-country ballad Hillman and McGuinn collaborated on.
The second part of the evening and the album are devoted to the Sweetheart songs, all of which McGuinn, Hillman, Stuart and the Superlatives played using the original arrangements, although not in the original albumâs sequence. That portion of the show did, however, start with the same song that opens the album, âYou Ainât Going Nowhere.â McGuinn credits his wife, Camilla, for the structure and script of the narrative used at each show.
One of the impressive things about Sweetheart was the diversity of the material: from two previously unreleased Dylan songsââYou Ainât Going Nowhereâ and âNothing Was Deliveredââand Woody Guthrieâs classic fable of social injustice, âPretty Boy Floyd,â to Haggardâs sobering country ballad âLife in Prison,â the Louvin Brothersâ country gospel tune âI Like the Christian Life,â Parsonâs timeless contributionsââHickory Windâ and âOne Hundred Years From Now,â both sung here by Hillman–and Memphis musician William Bellâs soulful slice of romantic longing, âYou Donât Miss Your Water.â The differences between the versions the Byrds laid down 50 years earlier and what McGuinn, Hillman, Stuart and the Superlatives put forth from the stages are both significant and subtle.
Following the ovations the six musicians typically received, they returned nightly for an encore segment that included two more Byrdsâ classics: âSo You Want to Be a Rock ânâ Roll Starâ and âTurn! Turn! Turn! On the final night of the tour, however, on a cool mid-December night in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., they added the tourâs only live performance of âEight Miles High,â which, fortunately, was recorded and is included here.
âAny intimations of mortality went unspoken,â Chris Willman wrote for Variety in his review of the first L.A. âSweetheartâ concert in 2018, âbut it was ⊠that much more moving that McGuinn and Hillman are here to do this in their 70s⊠and to do it so well, after showing no particular urgency about reliving their past in intervening decades. âTo everything there is a season,â he concluded, âbut the Americana movement they had such a huge part in kickstarting hasnât really been off-season since. Bully for them for acceding to a characteristically gentle victory lap.â
Roger McGuinn, Chris Hillman, With Marty Stuart And His Fabulous Superlatives Celebrate The 50 th Anniversary Of Sweetheart Of The Rodeo (FRM-42024) Track listing
Side A
1. My Back Pages
2. A Satisfied Mind
3. Mr. Spaceman
4. Time Between
5. Old John Robertson
6. Wasn’t Born to Follow
Side B
7. Sing Me Back Home
8. Drug Store Truck Drivin' Man
9. Mr. Tambourine Man
10. You Ain’t Goin' Nowhere
11. Pretty Boy Floyd
12. Hickory Wind
Side C
13. Life In Prison
14. One Hundred Years From Now
15. Nothing Was Delivered
16. Blue Canadian Rockies
17. The Christian Life
18. You’re Still on My Mind
Side B
19. You Don’t Miss Your Water
20. I Am a Pilgrim
21. So You Want to Be a Rock N’Roll Star
22. I Feel A Whole Lot Better
23. Eight Miles High
24. Turn! Turn! Turn!
CONTACT INFORMATION
ROGER McGUINN
https://twitter.com/RogerMcGuinn
https://www.facebook.com/roger.mcguinn.3/
CHRIS HILLMAN
https://www.chrishillman.com
https://www.instagram.com/chrishillmanofficial/
https://www.facebook.com/ChrisHillmanMusic
https://open.spotify.com/artist/70FybmH2MMz9fHewhnLvjs?si=mM0X-TJTQgGIADbL6A2Znw
MARTY STUART
https://www.martystuart.net/
https://www.facebook.com/martystuarthq
https://twitter.com/martystuarthq
https://www.instagram.com/martystuart/?hl=en
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For more information, please contact Mary Moyer ([email protected]) and Emilio Herce
([email protected]) at Q Prime.