FAO Byrds fans

Crazy Horse · May 18, 2006

More milking of the back catalogue - get your wallets ready.

One of the most influential American-spawned bands will be celebrated

with the

five-disc box set, "The Byrds: There is a Season." Due Aug. 29 via

Columbia/Legacy, the package compiles 99 studio and live tracks on

four CDs and

pairs them with a DVD featuring the band's appearances on U.S. and

U.K.

television shows in the 1960s.

Every participating member in the band's storied history is

represented, from

the original quintet of Roger McGuinn, David Crosby, Gene Clark,

Chris Hillman

and Michael Clarke and including Clarence White, Kevin Kelley, Gram

Parsons,

Gene Parsons, John York and Skip Battin. Fans will find every piece

of the

Byrds' flight on display, beginning with 1964 demos as Jet Set and

both sides of

a single released under the name Beefeaters, through to the final

Byrds studio

album in 1973 and a 1990 McGuinn/Crosby/Hillman recording session for

Legacy's

first Byrds box set.

Following the 1990 release of that collection, the label revamped the

group's

catalog with remastered and expanded editions. "There is a Season"

includes most

of the original and bonus material that was featured on those

reissues and

organizes them in chronological order to tell the band's story.

Still, the set adds five previously unreleased tracks, all of them

capturing the

band live. The second disc features an April 1967 Swedish radio

broadcast of the

band performing "He Was a Friend of Mine," while the rest stem from

1970 and

appear on the fourth disc. Two were recorded at New York's Queens

College ("You

All Look Alike" and "Nashville West") and two at the city's Fillmore

East (Jimmy

Reed's "Baby What You Want Me To Do" and "I Trust").

Meanwhile, the DVD collects the band's appearances on various

television shows

performing such beloved songs as "Mr. Tambourine Man," "Turn! Turn!

Turn! (To

Everything There Is a Season)," "So You Want To Be a Rock 'N' Roll

Star" and

"Eight Miles High," among others."

A full-color book accompanying the music boasts liner notes by

Rolling Stone

scribe David Fricke, including exclusive interviews with McGuinn and

Hillman and

appreciations penned by Tom Petty and the Jayhawks' Gary Louris. The

book also

features exhaustive information for each track.

"No band -- with the exception of the Byrds' biggest fans and

transatlantic

rivals, the Beatles -- achieved so much in so short a time, even in

the runaway

Sixties," Fricke writes. "And no other band risked so much, and came

so close to

losing it all, for the sake of going forward. The hits brought riches

and

acclaim -- but also disappointment, argument, desertion and, with

amazing

regularity, rebirth."

Snookie · May 18, 2006

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