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The Byrds’ version of “Turn! Turn! Turn!” has come to encapsulate the counterculture at its sweetest and most idealistic.
But Chris Hillman, one of the founding members of the band, sees the ’60s in a dingier light these days.
“I look back at the ’60s a little differently than I did at the time,” he said. “You look at it now, and it doesn’t quite hold up.
“It was great in the early days,” he said. “But in 1968, things took a sharp edge. Drugs got real ugly. When my generation stomped on traditional family values, we were throwing out such wonderful things that had kept civilization vibrant.”
Hillman said he doesn’t want to get up on a soapbox. He said it a lot during the interview. The soapbox proved to be one seductive step-up.
But Hillman earned his current views the hard way, by excelling in a tough business, by lasting longer than most and by watching too many friends struggle and succumb to the excesses of the rock ’n’ roll lifestyle.
Hillman performs Thursday at Come2go downtown. He has earned legend status in rock, and nothing could make him more miserable.
“One of the worst pitfalls you can fall into is to start believing anything written about you,” he said. “I was basically one lucky guy. I got to play with a lot of really good bands. I loved music so much, and I had such a passion for it when I started. But I never suffered from king-of-the-mountain syndrome.”
Those bands include the Byrds with Roger McGuinn and David Crosby, Manassas with Steven Stills, the Flying Burrito Brothers with Gram Parsons and the Eagles’ Bernie Leadon, the Souther-Hillman-Furay Band with Richie Furay of Poco and the Buffalo Springfield and Hillman’s own Desert Rose Band.
Hillman has written so many songs he’s not sure how many songs he’s written. But the only band anybody ever wants to talk about is the Byrds, and Hillman is happy to oblige.
Hillman said the members of that band had no idea what they were doing when they started doing it.
“We didn’t have a blueprint,” he said. “Nobody had any rock ’n’ roll experience other than being fans of early rock. Roger McGuinn, David Crosby and Gene Clark were all coming out of a very commercial branch of folk music, and I was coming out of traditional bluegrass. Roger was the most seasoned and experienced musician of the bunch.”
The Byrds’ distinctive sound and lasting influence, Hillman said, can be credited to two men: McGuinn and producer Jim Dixon.
“Our sound developed around Roger’s approach to the electric 12-string guitar,” Hillman said. “And we had a good guy at the helm. Jim Dixon. He had the vision. He was the guy who brought ‘Mr. Tambourine Man’ to us. He brought us this song with the most beautiful, poetic lyrics.
“He gave us direction,” Hillman said. “He instilled in us how important it was to try and do something that we can be proud of in 40 years. He said, ‘Go for some substance. Don’t emulate the Beatles.’ ”
Hillman said the band evolved quickly, recording the psychedelic song “Eight Miles High” only a few months after the release of the band’s second album “Turn! Turn! Turn!” (which actually had a cover of “Oh! Susanna” on it).
The band endured the usual bickering, artistic differences and personnel changes before it dissolved in the early ’70s, but Hillman feels lucky to have been a part of it.
“Eighty-five to 90 percent of the material holds up really well,” he said.
Hillman went on to form the Flying Burrito Brothers with the talented but troubled Gram Parsons. But Parsons eventually had to be fired from the band because of his drug use.
“I had a wonderful working relationship with him at the beginning,” Hillman said. “But eight months into it, I’d have to go looking for him or he’d show up late, inebriated or stoned.
“And he wasn’t singing well,” he said. “He had a gift, and he squandered that gift, and that was his own choice.
“He was just one of the wonderful people who died so young,” Hillman said. “But that was their choice.”
Of all the projects Hillman has been involved with over the years, he is proudest of the Desert Rose Band.
“I had gone through a long apprenticeship of being a team player,” he said. “But with the Desert Rose Band, I went from first mate to captain even though I did steer the ship into the rocks a couple of times.
“The Desert Rose Band got a record deal without even trying,” Hillman said. “We were immediately accepted by country music fans and not because I was in the Byrds. There was no preconception of us.”
These days, Hillman plays what he wants, where he wants and with whom he wants and he said he feels “blessed.”
He comes across as a truly humble guy, not a man who dons humility the way a bald man slips on a toupee. When Hillman says, “I never have complete mastery of anything I attempt to do,” you believe that he believes it.
He is comfortable with his career prospects, but isn’t so comfortable with the state of the music industry. Or the state of music as an art form. Or the state of this country.
“There’s some pretty heinous behavior going on out there,” he said. “We’ve lost our edge. We’ve lost our competitiveness. We’re losing our sense of responsibility and morality.
“Every civilization crumbles when its moral compass goes awry,” Hillman said. “When that starts to go, the gates open for the Visigoths to come in.”
spen@jg.net
