Farther Along (The Byrds Album) - Overview

Overview

Following the release of the Byrdmaniax album, The Byrds' producer and manager, Terry Melcher, resigned amid accusations of overdubbing strings, horns, and a gospel choir onto that album without the band's consent. The Byrds' annoyance over Melcher's additions to Byrdmaniax prompted them to try to rectify the situation by quickly recording a new album, this time produced by themselves. Despite a heavy touring schedule—resulting from the band being an in-demand fixture on the live concert circuit—The Byrds were eager to release another studio album as soon as possible.

Upon arriving in England for an appearance at the Lincoln Folk Festival on July 24, 1971, The Byrds booked into a London recording studio with engineer Mike Ross to record their next album. The band's decision to produce the album themselves was almost certainly an attempt to show Melcher that they could do a better job than he had done on Byrdmaniax. During five days of recording between July 22 and July 28, 1971, The Byrds recorded all eleven songs that would appear on Farther Along, with no other songs known to have been attempted by the band during the sessions. The tapes were then brought back to the U.S., where they were mixed by Eric Prestidge at Columbia Studios, Hollywood in August 1971, with the song "Bugler" receiving additional Mandolin and lead vocal overdubs from the band's lead guitarist, Clarence White.

Overall, Farther Along had a much less cluttered sound than its predecessor, as guitarist and band leader Roger McGuinn noted to journalist David Fricke in 2000: "It was as live as you can get in the studio. We didn't do a lot of overdubs, mostly just the vocals." Nonetheless, while the album succeeded in countering the over-production present on Byrdmaniax, the band themselves weren't particularly satisfied with the finished product. In a 1997 interview, bass player Skip Battin expressed his dissatisfaction with the album by saying "When we finished it, I didn't think we had anything, I thought the stuff was rotten - it didn't sound good, it was scattered and there was no unification." Drummer Gene Parsons concurred with Battin's assessment of the album, stating "I felt that Farther Along was a good album, but it was under produced. It was done really rapidly and it suffered in under production as a reaction to Byrdmaniax."