Byrds to Smooth Ruffled Feathers for Induction

All five original Byrds will be on stage together for the first time in more than 17 years when they are inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on Jan. 16 in New York City.

But whether the members of the classic Los Angeles rock band will pick up their instruments and join in the traditional jam that night remains questionable in light of longstanding rancor over disputed rights to the Byrds name.

“I’m really honored with the Hall of Fame thing,” said Chris Hillman, who was bassist in the original Byrds. “It’s the highlight of my life and I hope we’ll all be up there together. . . . (But) I don’t know if I’d ever work again with Michael Clarke and Gene Clark in the Byrds. I think it works best with me, Roger McGuinn and David Crosby.”

For the five of them to all even speak, let alone play, will be a matter of letting some serious bygones be bygones. Hillman, McGuinn and Crosby have fought a public battle in recent years to prevent drummer Clarke from touring with a band he calls the Byrds.

Last year a Florida judge ruled that Clarke had a right to continue using the name because he had been doing so for several years without any legal challenge by the others. Singer Gene Clark--who wrote such Byrds favorites as “Feel a Whole Lot Better” and co-wrote “Eight Miles High”--had also sometimes performed under a “Tribute to the Byrds” billing, but abandoned that when the others asked.

“I always hold the hope that we could get rid of all the problems that stand between us, lay down our pride and just play music and enjoy it,” said Gene Clark in a separate interview.

“We’re the five Byrds, and I hope that can really happen,” added Clark, who left the Byrds in 1966. In the mid-’70s, he and McGuinn teamed as a duo, and were later joined by Hillman.

McGuinn, too, is hopeful that “as far as standing up and receiving the award, the focus should be on the music and not the people now.” But neither he nor the others minced words concerning the estrangement.

“We wish Michael would stop going around being the bogus Byrds,” McGuinn said.

Hillman was equally direct: “I have no quarrel with Mike. Why deny him making a living? But the rest of us went out and did other things (without using the Byrds name) sink or swim. Crosby and I feel . . . that without Roger there isn’t a Byrds.”

Clarke’s response: “I think that’s bull, and you can print that. How about: ‘Without me playing drums it’s not the Byrds?’ We all made major contributions to the music.”

But Clarke, too, is cautiously optimistic that the Hall of Fame setting will help them overcome the barriers between them.

“I trust that we’ll be friends there,” he said. “But if not, then no problem. . . . I pretty much don’t care what they think, to tell you the truth.”

While Clarke, who lives in Florida, will continue performing as the Byrds, Los Angeles-based Gene Clark recorded an album with singer-songwriter Carla Olsen and is planning a second, as well as a solo album. Crosby (who was on vacation and unavailable) remains active recording and touring with Crosby, Stills & Nash. Hillman is now a country star with his Desert Rose Band.

Only Hillman, Crosby and McGuinn are heard on the six new recordings included in the Byrds retrospective boxed set. Two of the songs are Byrds classics (“Turn, Turn, Turn” and “Mr. Tambourine Man”) recorded at the Roy Orbison tribute concert at the Universal Amphitheatre in Los Angeles last February. (Bob Dylan joined them on “Mr. Tambourine Man.”) The other four selections were recorded in Nashville in August, including a version of Dylan’s “Paths of Victory” and a new McGuinn song, “Love That Never Dies.”

The latter song bids a fond adieu to the past with a playful nod to two Byrds favorites, “Mr. Tambourine Man” and the wistful “Chestnut Mare,” which McGuinn has kept in his repertoire as a solo artist:

Toss a dime to the tambourine man

And kiss all the horses goodby.