The Byrds - Sing Me Back Home - Various Songs (1969)

I posted a few albums of the Byrds in their early era (1964-1967) a while back. I was looking for a few songs before I posted some late era Byrds stuff (1968 to 1973). I finally found what I was looking forward, so I can move ahead. First up is a stray tracks album dealing with 1969.

In 1968, the Byrds changed their sound with the ground breaking country rock album "Sweethearts of the Rodeo." The songs on this album generally contains more country rock, as well as the band's usual fascination with Bob Dylan songs. In my opinion, this is a very solid bunch of songs. This would go toe to toe with some of the studio albums the Byrds put out in their late era.

The first six songs are officially released. They are from a box set and/or album bonus tracks. Most of the rest are live tracks. Three of those are from an archival live album; another four are from concert bootlegs. I'm happy to report that the bootleg recordings sound as good as the officially released live tracks. With all the live songs, I removed as much of the crowd noise as I could so they'd fit in with the studio tracks.

There's one bonus track here, "Ballad of Easy Rider." It's a great song, one of my favorites from the group. The reason it's only a bonus track is because the definitive version is on the album "The Ballad of Easy Rider." This is a different version done solo by band leader Roger McGuinn for the "Easy Rider" movie soundtrack. I don't like it as much as the other version, but it's still worth hearing.

01 Lay Lady Lay (Byrds)
02 Stanley's Song (Byrds)
03 Way Beyond the Sun [Way Behind the Sun] (Byrds)
04 Mae Jean Goes to Hollywood (Byrds)
05 Build It Up [Instrumental] (Byrds)
06 Fiddler a Dram [Moog Experiment] (Byrds)
07 Long Black Veil (Byrds)
08 Get Out of My Life Woman (Byrds)
09 I Shall Be Released (Byrds)
10 Sing Me Back Home (Byrds)
11 Close Up the Honky Tonks (Byrds)
12 It's Alright Ma [I'm Only Bleeding] (Roger McGuinn)
13 Take a City Bride (Byrds)
14 Buckaroo [Instrumental] (Byrds)

The Ballad of Easy Rider (Roger McGuinn)

https://www51.zippyshare.com/v/d82ovbLX/file.html

I stole the cover art from a Byrds bootleg called "Santuary III." I liked the period flavor, plus it has one of the very few good color photos I've seen of a 1969 era Byrds line-up that isn't used for a different album cover or something like that. This is from later in 1969, after John York was replaced by Skip Battin. I made a few tweaks, and add the text at the bottom.