My Music Monday

I threatened to do a few weeks of '80s music, but I'm still holding off. Partially because of the songs I had thought of a few weeks back have slipped my mind and I just don't remember the representation I was going to put forth.

Maybe it's time to start Aricept.

My choice to day is a 1991 song - with hints of 1960s.

Roger McGuinn was a founding member of the Byrds and their lead singer and guitarist.  There is no way to get around that sound.

While McGuinn made records after the Byrds broke up in the early '70s, he had a slight resurgence in 1991 with his album, Back from Rio.

There is no denying the influence the Byrds had on rock music - just listen to any Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers.

It's not a complete shock that those guys showed up on McGuinns Rio, as did members of the Eagles, Wall of Voodoo, Elvis Costello, Michael Penn and some former member of the Byrds.

Back from Rio is a pretty good disk, though I'm not sure exactly how well it did - though I own it.

I went back and forth between two songs - my pick, "Someone to Love" and "King of the Hill".  Both are nicely done, though the latter is almost twice as long as the former - and I know you guys don't have that kind of attention span.

Secondly, "King of the Hill" was co-written by Petty and as much as he takes his influence from McGuinn, it is almost as if McGuinn becomes a back-up player.

"Someone to Love" is just a nice piece of pop music - with its Byrds-like jangling guitar sound.

I'm sure McGuinn put out music afterwards, but the press had moved on to, I'm sure, other comebacks that were more interesting.