Joseph Byrd
Encyclopedia
Joseph Byrd was the leader of The United States of America
, a notable rock
band
from the 1960s, as well as the psychedelic group Joe Byrd and the Field Hippies, of cult fame through their release The American Metaphysical Circus
. His lengthy career in a wide variety of experimental and other music genres is matched by few, if any, American composer-arrangers and music educators.
and country
bands, later vibraphone
in jazz
ensembles, while a student at the University of Arizona
. He won a fellowship to get an M.A. at Stanford, and relocated to New York in 1959, drawn by the avant-garde, becoming a part of the FLUXUS
experiments that were emerging at that time. There he continued composing, and earned some international interest for his use of vocal and instrumental sound in early "minimal" compositions. Byrd also studied with legendary avant garde composer John Cage
, and was, according to Byrd, his last student. Another former Cage student, Yoko Ono
, offered her New York loft to Byrd for the first public performance of his compositions. Byrd's 1962 Carnegie Hall
recital was reviewed in prominent publications including The New York Times. He also worked as arranger and record producer, and as an assistant to composer and music critic Virgil Thomson
. It was in New York in 1963 that he met Dorothy Moskowitz.
Byrd returned with Moskowitz to the West Coast, accepting a teaching assistant position at UCLA (moving into a beachfront community populated by musicians, artists, and Indian musicians), where he studied music history, acoustics, psychology of music, and Indian music. At UCLA he formed the New Music Workshop with jazz trumpeter Don Ellis
and others, where the first West Coast experiments in what would come to be called "performance art" and "concept art" would develop. These interests led to more composition and his leaving the university in the summer of 1966 to create music full-time and produce "happenings." The collaborations also introduced Ellis and Byrd to Tom Oberheim, who built ring modulators and other devices for them.
. Their self-titled LP, produced by David Rubinson (who had been known to Byrd and Moskowitz prior), was recorded for Columbia Records in late 1967. It was released to critical acclaim in early 1968, but failed to find much commercial success in its original release. The band was influenced by groups like Blue Cheer
, Country Joe McDonald
, and The Red Krayola
The band did a single tour of the U.S. East Coast, followed by a number of performances in the Southwest U.S., with a record of mixed success, including shows with The Troggs
, Velvet Underground and at Bill Graham
's Fillmore East
, but rapidly came apart after a short period of time over creative and other differences. Eventually, the group split into two pieces, with Byrd leaving to pursue an evolution of the music with a new ensemble of largely studio musicians in 1968, and Moskowitz eventually joining Country Joe McDonald
. The United States of America record was more widely regarded in Europe, has been cited in recent years as a groundbreaking recording, and has seen at least three re-releases since 1992.
, in 1969. A very complex record for its time, featuring some of the earliest recorded extensive use of synthesizers in rock music, it was released on the classical-oriented Columbia Masterworks
label (the Masterworks catalog of that period also included the soundtrack for the film The Owl and the Pussycat
featuring music by the jazz-rock group Blood, Sweat & Tears
). The record rapidly achieved a cult following among listeners of psychedelic rock, sometimes compared to records by groups such as Pink Floyd
. Byrd estimated in 2002 in conjunction with a filing in the infamous Napster
music copyright case that likely over 100,000 copies of The American Metaphysical Circus had been sold, yet he had never received a penny of royalties from Columbia/CBS/Sony. Its sales were in fact sufficient to keep it in the Masterworks catalog for approximately twenty years, followed by CD (1996) and LP (1999) reissues. Joe Byrd and the Field Hippies never performed live.
In 1975, Byrd released a record of synthesized Christmas Carols, A Christmas Yet to Come (Takoma
C-1046) and in 1976, Yankee Transcendoodle (Takoma C-1051) an LP of synthesized patriotic music in conjunction with the United States Bicentennial. The irony of the latter release, in particular, in comparison to Byrd's musical broadside against President Lyndon Johnson on The American Metaphysical Circus
less than a decade earlier, is a topic for consideration, however, Byrd has a long-standing interest in American patriotic and popular music.
In the early 1970s Byrd taught at California State University, Fullerton
, where he introduced one of the first courses in American music (offered as part of the American Studies curriculum). He also did extensive research into the history of American popular music, culminating in a third Takoma LP "Sentimental Songs of the Mid-19th Century," by the American Music Consort (Joseph Byrd, Director - Takoma A-1048 - 1976). and the 6-sided LP set "Popular Music In Jacksonian America" (Musical Heritage Society MHS834651 - 1982).
He also has scored a number of films, including Agnès Varda
's 1969 "Lions Love", Bruce Clark's 1971 "The Ski Bum" with Charlotte Rampling
and Zalman King
, "The Ghost Dance" (1980) and Robert Altman
's ill-fated "H.E.A.L.T.H."
, which was originally shot in 1979, but had its U.S. release delayed until 1982 because of a shakeup in the management of 20th Century Fox
.
Joseph Byrd arranged and produced Ry Cooder
's critically acclaimed 1978 Jazz album, and provided an arrangement and electronic music for "Crucifixion
" from the 1967 Phil Ochs
record Pleasures of the Harbor
. Byrd also wrote commercially for advertising and television, including a theme for the "CBS Evening News", developed sounds used in Mattel toys, and created the electronic/modified voice sound effects for the drones in Douglas Trumbull
's Silent Running
(which may have been later adopted for the "voice" of R2D2 in the first Star Wars
movie). In the late 1990s Byrd produced and recorded two albums of klezmer
music.
Byrd has recently been active working in collaboration with the Norwegian improvisation group Spunk and UK sound art unit Dreams of Tall Buildings. For White Elephant, a collaboration between these three parties, he created a graphic score to be performed by Spunk alongside electroacoustic sounds by Dreams of Tall Buildings. White Elephant was premiered at Sonic Arts Network
's Expo festival in Manchester, UK on 24 June 2006.
In the present day, Byrd's fan base in the U.S. is likely exceeded by his following in Europe, particularly the UK, where he has been cited as a spiritual mentor to such important contemporary British bands as Radiohead
, Broadcast
, and Portishead.
He presently lives in northern California, where he teaches music history and theory, and has also taught songwriting under the supervision of Dr. Ed Macan at College of the Redwoods
. He also writes a regular food column for the North Coast Journal
in Humboldt County, California
.
The United States of America (band)
The United States of America was an American experimental rock and psychedelic band whose works are an example of early electronic music in rock and roll.-History:...
, a notable rock
Rock music
Rock music is a genre of popular music that developed during and after the 1960s, particularly in the United Kingdom and the United States. It has its roots in 1940s and 1950s rock and roll, itself heavily influenced by rhythm and blues and country music...
band
Musical ensemble
A musical ensemble is a group of people who perform instrumental or vocal music. In classical music, trios or quartets either blend the sounds of musical instrument families or group together instruments from the same instrument family, such as string ensembles or wind ensembles...
from the 1960s, as well as the psychedelic group Joe Byrd and the Field Hippies, of cult fame through their release The American Metaphysical Circus
The American Metaphysical Circus
The American Metaphysical Circus is a 1969 psychedelic album by Joseph "Joe" Byrd. It was recorded after his departure from the band The United States Of America, and featured some of the earliest recorded work in rock music utilizing extensive use of synthesizers and vocoder, along with an...
. His lengthy career in a wide variety of experimental and other music genres is matched by few, if any, American composer-arrangers and music educators.
Early musical career
As a teenager, Byrd played in a series of popPop music
Pop music is usually understood to be commercially recorded music, often oriented toward a youth market, usually consisting of relatively short, simple songs utilizing technological innovations to produce new variations on existing themes.- Definitions :David Hatch and Stephen Millward define pop...
and country
Country music
Country music is a popular American musical style that began in the rural Southern United States in the 1920s. It takes its roots from Western cowboy and folk music...
bands, later vibraphone
Vibraphone
The vibraphone, sometimes called the vibraharp or simply the vibes, is a musical instrument in the struck idiophone subfamily of the percussion family....
in jazz
Jazz
Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...
ensembles, while a student at the University of Arizona
University of Arizona
The University of Arizona is a land-grant and space-grant public institution of higher education and research located in Tucson, Arizona, United States. The University of Arizona was the first university in the state of Arizona, founded in 1885...
. He won a fellowship to get an M.A. at Stanford, and relocated to New York in 1959, drawn by the avant-garde, becoming a part of the FLUXUS
Fluxus
Fluxus—a name taken from a Latin word meaning "to flow"—is an international network of artists, composers and designers noted for blending different artistic media and disciplines in the 1960s. They have been active in Neo-Dada noise music and visual art as well as literature, urban planning,...
experiments that were emerging at that time. There he continued composing, and earned some international interest for his use of vocal and instrumental sound in early "minimal" compositions. Byrd also studied with legendary avant garde composer John Cage
John Cage
John Milton Cage Jr. was an American composer, music theorist, writer, philosopher and artist. A pioneer of indeterminacy in music, electroacoustic music, and non-standard use of musical instruments, Cage was one of the leading figures of the post-war avant-garde...
, and was, according to Byrd, his last student. Another former Cage student, Yoko Ono
Yoko Ono
is a Japanese artist, musician, author and peace activist, known for her work in avant-garde art, music and filmmaking as well as her marriage to John Lennon...
, offered her New York loft to Byrd for the first public performance of his compositions. Byrd's 1962 Carnegie Hall
Carnegie Hall
Carnegie Hall is a concert venue in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, United States, located at 881 Seventh Avenue, occupying the east stretch of Seventh Avenue between West 56th Street and West 57th Street, two blocks south of Central Park....
recital was reviewed in prominent publications including The New York Times. He also worked as arranger and record producer, and as an assistant to composer and music critic Virgil Thomson
Virgil Thomson
Virgil Thomson was an American composer and critic. He was instrumental in the development of the "American Sound" in classical music...
. It was in New York in 1963 that he met Dorothy Moskowitz.
Byrd returned with Moskowitz to the West Coast, accepting a teaching assistant position at UCLA (moving into a beachfront community populated by musicians, artists, and Indian musicians), where he studied music history, acoustics, psychology of music, and Indian music. At UCLA he formed the New Music Workshop with jazz trumpeter Don Ellis
Don Ellis
Don Ellis was an American jazz trumpeter, drummer, composer and bandleader. He is best known for his extensive musical experimentation, particularly in the area of unusual time signatures...
and others, where the first West Coast experiments in what would come to be called "performance art" and "concept art" would develop. These interests led to more composition and his leaving the university in the summer of 1966 to create music full-time and produce "happenings." The collaborations also introduced Ellis and Byrd to Tom Oberheim, who built ring modulators and other devices for them.
The United States Of America
It was at that point that Byrd broke with tradition, and determined to combine performance art, electronic sound, and radical politics into a single whole, together with rock music. To perform his new songs, Byrd recruited Moskowitz from New York (where she had moved following their separation) to sing and write for his new band, as he had brought on bassist Rand Forbes, electric violinist Gordon Marron, and drummer Craig Woodson (another member of the New Music Workshop) to form The United States Of AmericaThe United States of America (band)
The United States of America was an American experimental rock and psychedelic band whose works are an example of early electronic music in rock and roll.-History:...
. Their self-titled LP, produced by David Rubinson (who had been known to Byrd and Moskowitz prior), was recorded for Columbia Records in late 1967. It was released to critical acclaim in early 1968, but failed to find much commercial success in its original release. The band was influenced by groups like Blue Cheer
Blue Cheer
Blue Cheer was an American psychedelic blues-rock band that initially performed and recorded in the late 1960s and early 1970s and was sporadically active until 2009...
, Country Joe McDonald
Country Joe McDonald
Country Joe McDonald is an American musician who was the lead singer of the 1960s psychedelic rock group Country Joe and the Fish.-Personal life:...
, and The Red Krayola
The band did a single tour of the U.S. East Coast, followed by a number of performances in the Southwest U.S., with a record of mixed success, including shows with The Troggs
The Troggs
The Troggs are an English rock band from the 1960s that had a number of hits in UK and the US. Their most famous songs include, "Wild Thing", "With a Girl Like You", and "Love Is All Around"...
, Velvet Underground and at Bill Graham
Bill Graham (promoter)
Bill Graham was an American impresario and rock concert promoter from the 1960s until his death.-Early life:...
's Fillmore East
Fillmore East
The Fillmore East was rock promoter Bill Graham's rock venue on Second Avenue near East 6th Street in the East Village neighborhood of the Manhattan borough of New York City. It was open from 1968 to 1971, and featured some of the biggest acts in rock music at the time...
, but rapidly came apart after a short period of time over creative and other differences. Eventually, the group split into two pieces, with Byrd leaving to pursue an evolution of the music with a new ensemble of largely studio musicians in 1968, and Moskowitz eventually joining Country Joe McDonald
Country Joe McDonald
Country Joe McDonald is an American musician who was the lead singer of the 1960s psychedelic rock group Country Joe and the Fish.-Personal life:...
. The United States of America record was more widely regarded in Europe, has been cited in recent years as a groundbreaking recording, and has seen at least three re-releases since 1992.
The American Metaphysical Circus
Byrd went on to release, as Joe Byrd and the Field Hippies, The American Metaphysical CircusThe American Metaphysical Circus
The American Metaphysical Circus is a 1969 psychedelic album by Joseph "Joe" Byrd. It was recorded after his departure from the band The United States Of America, and featured some of the earliest recorded work in rock music utilizing extensive use of synthesizers and vocoder, along with an...
, in 1969. A very complex record for its time, featuring some of the earliest recorded extensive use of synthesizers in rock music, it was released on the classical-oriented Columbia Masterworks
Columbia Masterworks Records
Columbia Masterworks Records was a record label started in 1927 by Columbia Records.It was intended for releases of classical music and artists, as opposed to popular music, which bore the regular Columbia logo. Masterworks Records' first release, in 1927, was a complete performance of the...
label (the Masterworks catalog of that period also included the soundtrack for the film The Owl and the Pussycat
The Owl and the Pussycat (film)
The Owl and the Pussycat is a 1970 romantic comedy film directed by Herbert Ross and starring Barbra Streisand and George Segal. Barbra Streisand plays the role of a somewhat uneducated actress, model and part-time prostitute. She temporarily lives with an educated aspiring writer . Their...
featuring music by the jazz-rock group Blood, Sweat & Tears
Blood, Sweat & Tears
Blood, Sweat & Tears is an American music group, originally formed in 1967 in New York City. Since its beginnings in 1967, the band has gone through numerous iterations with varying personnel and has encompassed a multitude of musical styles...
). The record rapidly achieved a cult following among listeners of psychedelic rock, sometimes compared to records by groups such as Pink Floyd
Pink Floyd
Pink Floyd were an English rock band that achieved worldwide success with their progressive and psychedelic rock music. Their work is marked by the use of philosophical lyrics, sonic experimentation, innovative album art, and elaborate live shows. Pink Floyd are one of the most commercially...
. Byrd estimated in 2002 in conjunction with a filing in the infamous Napster
Napster
Napster is an online music store and a Best Buy company. It was originally founded as a pioneering peer-to-peer file sharing Internet service that emphasized sharing audio files that were typically digitally encoded music as MP3 format files...
music copyright case that likely over 100,000 copies of The American Metaphysical Circus had been sold, yet he had never received a penny of royalties from Columbia/CBS/Sony. Its sales were in fact sufficient to keep it in the Masterworks catalog for approximately twenty years, followed by CD (1996) and LP (1999) reissues. Joe Byrd and the Field Hippies never performed live.
Additional information
Takoma Records
Takoma Records was a small but influential record label founded by John Fahey in the late 1950s.. It was named after Fahey's hometown, the Washington, D.C. suburb of Takoma Park, Maryland.-History:...
C-1046) and in 1976, Yankee Transcendoodle (Takoma C-1051) an LP of synthesized patriotic music in conjunction with the United States Bicentennial. The irony of the latter release, in particular, in comparison to Byrd's musical broadside against President Lyndon Johnson on The American Metaphysical Circus
The American Metaphysical Circus
The American Metaphysical Circus is a 1969 psychedelic album by Joseph "Joe" Byrd. It was recorded after his departure from the band The United States Of America, and featured some of the earliest recorded work in rock music utilizing extensive use of synthesizers and vocoder, along with an...
less than a decade earlier, is a topic for consideration, however, Byrd has a long-standing interest in American patriotic and popular music.
In the early 1970s Byrd taught at California State University, Fullerton
California State University, Fullerton
California State University, Fullerton is a public university located in Fullerton, California. It is the largest institution in the CSU System by enrollment, it offers long-distance education and adult-degree programs...
, where he introduced one of the first courses in American music (offered as part of the American Studies curriculum). He also did extensive research into the history of American popular music, culminating in a third Takoma LP "Sentimental Songs of the Mid-19th Century," by the American Music Consort (Joseph Byrd, Director - Takoma A-1048 - 1976). and the 6-sided LP set "Popular Music In Jacksonian America" (Musical Heritage Society MHS834651 - 1982).
He also has scored a number of films, including Agnès Varda
Agnès Varda
Agnès Varda is a French film director and professor at the European Graduate School. Her movies, photographs, and art installations focus on documentary realism, feminist issues, and social commentary — with a distinct experimental style....
's 1969 "Lions Love", Bruce Clark's 1971 "The Ski Bum" with Charlotte Rampling
Charlotte Rampling
Charlotte Rampling, OBE is an English actress. Her career spans four decades in English-language as well as French and Italian cinema.- Early life :...
and Zalman King
Zalman King
Zalman King is an American film director, writer, actor and producer. His directing and writing productions are known for incorporating erotica as a centerpiece to plots which are nevertheless about greater issues.-Acting:As a young man in 1963 he played a gang member on Alfred Hitchcock Presents...
, "The Ghost Dance" (1980) and Robert Altman
Robert Altman
Robert Bernard Altman was an American film director and screenwriter known for making films that are highly naturalistic, but with a stylized perspective. In 2006, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences recognized his body of work with an Academy Honorary Award.His films MASH , McCabe and...
's ill-fated "H.E.A.L.T.H."
Health (film)
HealtH is a 1980 ensemble comedy film, the fifteenth feature project from director Robert Altman. It stars Carol Burnett, Glenda Jackson, James Garner, Lauren Bacall, and Paul Dooley, and was written by Altman, Dooley and Frank Barhydt...
, which was originally shot in 1979, but had its U.S. release delayed until 1982 because of a shakeup in the management of 20th Century Fox
20th Century Fox
Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation — also known as 20th Century Fox, or simply 20th or Fox — is one of the six major American film studios...
.
Joseph Byrd arranged and produced Ry Cooder
Ry Cooder
Ryland Peter "Ry" Cooder is an American guitarist, singer and composer. He is known for his slide guitar work, his interest in roots music from the United States, and, more recently, his collaborations with traditional musicians from many countries.His solo work has been eclectic, encompassing...
's critically acclaimed 1978 Jazz album, and provided an arrangement and electronic music for "Crucifixion
Crucifixion (song)
"Crucifixion" is a 1966 song by Phil Ochs, a U.S. singer-songwriter. Ochs described the song as "the greatest song I've ever written".-The song:...
" from the 1967 Phil Ochs
Phil Ochs
Philip David Ochs was an American protest singer and songwriter who was known for his sharp wit, sardonic humor, earnest humanism, political activism, insightful and alliterative lyrics, and haunting voice...
record Pleasures of the Harbor
Pleasures of the Harbor
Pleasures of the Harbor was Phil Ochs' fourth full-length album and his first for A&M Records, released in 1967. It is one of Ochs's most somber albums...
. Byrd also wrote commercially for advertising and television, including a theme for the "CBS Evening News", developed sounds used in Mattel toys, and created the electronic/modified voice sound effects for the drones in Douglas Trumbull
Douglas Trumbull
Douglas Huntley Trumbull is an American film director, special effects supervisor, and inventor. He contributed to, or was responsible for, the special photographic effects of 2001: A Space Odyssey, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Star Trek: The Motion Picture, Blade Runner and The Tree of...
's Silent Running
Silent Running
Silent Running is a 1972 environmentally themed science fiction film starring Bruce Dern and directed by Douglas Trumbull, who had previously worked as a special effects supervisor on such science fiction films as 2001: A Space Odyssey and The Andromeda Strain.-Plot summary:Silent Running depicts a...
(which may have been later adopted for the "voice" of R2D2 in the first Star Wars
Star Wars
Star Wars is an American epic space opera film series created by George Lucas. The first film in the series was originally released on May 25, 1977, under the title Star Wars, by 20th Century Fox, and became a worldwide pop culture phenomenon, followed by two sequels, released at three-year...
movie). In the late 1990s Byrd produced and recorded two albums of klezmer
Klezmer
Klezmer is a musical tradition of the Ashkenazic Jews of Eastern Europe. Played by professional musicians called klezmorim, the genre originally consisted largely of dance tunes and instrumental display pieces for weddings and other celebrations...
music.
Byrd has recently been active working in collaboration with the Norwegian improvisation group Spunk and UK sound art unit Dreams of Tall Buildings. For White Elephant, a collaboration between these three parties, he created a graphic score to be performed by Spunk alongside electroacoustic sounds by Dreams of Tall Buildings. White Elephant was premiered at Sonic Arts Network
Sonic Arts Network
Sonic Arts Network was a UK-based organisation, established in 1979, that aimed to enable both audiences and practitioners to engage with the art of sound through a programme of festivals, events, commissions and education projects...
's Expo festival in Manchester, UK on 24 June 2006.
In the present day, Byrd's fan base in the U.S. is likely exceeded by his following in Europe, particularly the UK, where he has been cited as a spiritual mentor to such important contemporary British bands as Radiohead
Radiohead
Radiohead are an English rock band from Abingdon, Oxfordshire, formed in 1985. The band consists of Thom Yorke , Jonny Greenwood , Ed O'Brien , Colin Greenwood and Phil Selway .Radiohead released their debut single "Creep" in 1992...
, Broadcast
Broadcast (band)
Broadcast are an electronic music band, founded in Birmingham, England. Original members were Trish Keenan , Roj Stevens , Tim Felton and James Cargill . Various drummers played with the band, including Keith York, Phil Jenkins, Jeremy Barnes, Steve Perkins, and Neil Bullock...
, and Portishead.
He presently lives in northern California, where he teaches music history and theory, and has also taught songwriting under the supervision of Dr. Ed Macan at College of the Redwoods
College of the Redwoods
College of the Redwoods is a public two-year community college whose main campus, comprising , is located on the southernmost edge of Eureka in Humboldt County, California. This sprawling site is spacious and distinctive in its modernistic use of massive, exposed wooden support beams in each...
. He also writes a regular food column for the North Coast Journal
North Coast Journal
The North Coast Journal is an alternative weekly newspaper serving Humboldt County, California. The Journal is published in Eureka, California and includes coverage of the arts, news, personages, and politics of the region....
in Humboldt County, California
Humboldt County, California
Humboldt County is a county in the U.S. state of California, located on the far North Coast 200 miles north of San Francisco. According to 2010 Census Data, the county’s population was 134,623...
.
External links
- Salon.com 2002 Interview with Joe Byrd on Napster case
- Follow-up letter on Salon.com referencing the Byrd Interview
- 2004 Interview with Joseph Byrd on CloudsAndClocks.net
- 2003 Interview with Dorothy Moskowitz
- Article by Richie Unterberger including interviews with Dorothy Moskowitz of the United States of America and record producer David Rubinson
- Spunk Web site on "White Elephant"
- Sonic Arts on "White Elephant"
- MySpace site for The American Metaphysical Circus
- Sonic Arts Network & Expo
- Joseph Byrd columns in North Coast Journal