>> the whole California country rock style of harmony where it's always in
>>unrelentingly sweet thirds-no tension, no dissonance, no
>>variation...cloying whether it's the Byrds, the Eagles, Desert
>>Rose...whoever.
>
>Er, ah, that's your basic bluegrass harmony. Via Chris Hillman, Herb
>Pedersen, Doug Dillard, Bernie Leadon, Jim Dickson (producer), et.al.
>Check out the newly-reissued Scottsville
>Squirrel Barkers, the Hillsmen reissue (Sugar Hill), the Dillards comp
>(There Was A Time, Vanguard), etc. Where's that dang Budrocket when you
>need him, anyhow? He's got a pretty good grasp of the details.
>>Jon Weisberger
Well, so does Jon (and that Rosenberg book too...though I'd add that there
are also, in addition to this clear bluegrass influence, rock and roll
harmony influences building on what the Beach Boys and Mamas and Papas, for
examples, had done--which probably takes us back even to the forever
plaid/Four Freshman kind of stuff which would REALLY appall somebody who
finds the BYRDS cloying!)
If I happen to think there could be potential power inf a NOT-entirely
unrelentingly sweet approach to these harmonies (coming shortly from Mr.
Earle?) my answer to this question, for what it's worth, is that
sometimes it's also powerful to have harmonies that are harmonious! (For
one secondary thing this sort of question raises-- without sweet
harmonies, how would you even know "dissonance and "variation" when you
heard them! Variation from WHAT?)
Personally, I don't think the handling of these sounds by the likes of the
Byrds and the Desert Rose band is as variationless or tensionless as this
origina lpost in this thread suggests... and the one that says Crosby,
Stills and Nash are to blame has the history backwards, in the sense that
they were a later follow-on to this Post-Byrds California style--and I can
only say that LOTS of ol' rockers were fairly turned off by the
"new"Crosby-dominated sound notions of CSN at the time, for the "blanding
down" reasons raised . If you were a hardcore fan of the Band and Dylan
and the Burrito Brothers and Let It Bleed Stones in 1968/69, you
certainly were NOT necessarily in love with these developments at all!
Some of the CSN smoothed-out sound seemed copped not from anything
California but from Simon & Garfunkle ; the first record often sounds
like variations on "Cecilia" to me! Not that it doesn't have some
moments...It was often said: What's wrong with CSN&Y is C&N...I think they
eventually DID get too slick and smooth and boring too--and incapable of
reproducing that sound live...
So let's get that straight--there was a real dividing line between 60s and
70s rock in that moment--and the lovers of the emerging 70s sound, younger
than the likes of me nd tneding toward a sort of willed stoned sweetness,
would support most of the blandest sounds of that decade many around here
find as dull as I do. It was enough to carry you into hard core country
and blues until the late 70s first punk arrvgal/revival!
But that really doesn't mean the history of California country rock
harmony is all sweetness and light.
Barry
