Roger McGuinn, forgrundsfiguren i The Byrds med den herlige 12-strengede guitar, er også kendt for ikke at sætte sit egos lys under en skæppe. Og denne fordom kan man ikke helt løsrive sig fra, når man læser om hans afsløring af, hvordan han – sammen med David Crosby – fik George Harrison og de andre Beatler på sporet af den indiske musik, meditationen osv. Det skete efter sigende ved et party i skuespillerinden Zsa-Zsa Garbors hus i 1965, hvor Beatles havde inviteret til fest.
“There were girls at the gates, police guards. We went in and David, John Lennon, George Harrison and I took LSD to help get to know each other better. There was a large bathroom in the house and we were all sitting on the edge of a shower passing around a guitar, taking turns to play our favourite songs. John and I agreed Be-Bop-A-Lula was our favourite 50s rock record.
“I showed George Harrison some Ravi Shankar sounds, which I’d heard because we shared the same record company, on the guitar. I told him about Ravi Shankar and he said he had never heard Indian music before,” McGuinn told the Daily Telegraph from his home in Florida.
“You can hear what I played him from the Byrds’ song ‘Why‘. I had learned to play it on the guitar from listening to records of Ravi Shankar,”
“We planted the seeds [of psychedelia]. We loved Indian music and did some things in that vein, but not as much as The Beatles. Later they went out there [to India], got some sitars, met Ravi Shankar and learned to play them, and got into the whole Eastern Thing. We didn’t really realise it but it had an impact. We loved the Beatles and they loved The Byrds, and we were sharing influences,”
@Donald: Det kunne de jo ogsÃ¥. Jeg læser pt. nogle bøger om The Beatles, og der er en ting, der har slÃ¥et mig. Ganske vist røg de sjov tobak og smagte pÃ¥ stærkere sager, men først og fremmest arbejdede de helt vildt intenst med deres musik. Jeg tror først og fremmest, at de var workaholics…
Det var jo egentlig forfærdeligt at de ikke kunne blive høje uden stoffer.