Roger McGuinn – I Want to Preserve the Songs
ND: It’s a thrill to hear you all together, and it’s really a statement about the broad cloth you’re pulling from.
RM: Well, that’s good, that’s kinda what I wanted to do, and basically I want to preserve the songs, and highlight the people who have been faithful to the tradition all these years. And the music business has kind of ignored them because there’s no money in it. When the money went away from folk music, people stopped playing it.
IV. THE ‘ANTIQUE COLLECTOR’
ND: The folk tradition is rooted in an interpersonal, hand-me-down oral process. As such, it requires a certain selfless, all-for-one humility, wherein the singer is at least as much a vessel carrying on what has gone before as he/she is a performer. Is this at odds with the urge to create new music, or is that fulfilled by applying your personal stamp to the new version?
RM: It’s a separate process, and I’m not in the creative mode right now, although I’m capable of it and I will get back to it. But you’re right; that’s very perceptive — you have to have a certain humility singing these hundreds-of-years-old songs that are being passed on by the oral tradition.
That’s how I feel when I’m doing them. Hopefully, you can sense the sincerity in my voice when I’m doing them. And it’s really not about promoting myself or about fame or anything like that; it’s about keeping the music alive.
ND: So, is there a difference in how you go about singing a traditional song as opposed to how you sing something you’ve written yourself?
RM: Well, no, because I’ve always considered myself a folk singer, and even when I write a song, it’s kind of a folkish song with a story. So I would sing a song that I’ve written myself with the same kind of approach, I think. It’s just a different aspect of me — it’s sort of the antique collector side of my personality.
ND: I guess I’m asking this because there’s a common tendency to pigeonhole performers according to what they’re best-known for, so that when you do anything outside of that particular field…
RM: …you’re going upstream. I’ve been doing that most of my career. It’s actually by choice; it’s just a matter of where the fresh air is. The room gets stale, and so you want to go somewhere else.
ND: “Cane Blues” is one of the most beautiful songs I’ve heard in some time. What was its original form, and what was your inspiration for writing new music for it?
RM: I’d redone it. The original title was “Ain’ No Mo’ Cane On De Brazos”, so I simplified the title. I actually did this as a kind of marketing test on MP3. I put it on MP3.com with its original title, and nobody was hitting on it, and I figured out the title probably scared them away — it was too un-politically-correct, you know? So I changed the title to “Cane Blues” and it shot up to top 5 on the charts. Exactly the same version; the only thing I changed was the title.
The melody’s a little bit different from its original form, and the chord changes are different. Nobody does that song like I do; I completely did that arrangement.
ND: Which of your own songs are you most proud of today? What really holds up for you?
RM: “Chestnut Mare” comes to mind. I guess “Eight Miles High”, “Rock ‘N’ Roll Star”. I don’t know; I don’t really think about it.
ND: What kinds of music do you listen to in your free time?
RM: I listen to a lot of classical and jazz at home. I don’t really listen to a lot of new music, although people do give me a lot of CDs that I’ll listen to. I’m kind of out of the loop, you know; I’m not really there.
ND: There’s a certain freedom to that, isn’t there?
RM: Yeah. I just listen to what I want to listen to. I’ve got boxes and boxes of CDs that I don’t get around to.
ND: That’s the major pitfall of making your living with your hobby.
RM: Music was my hobby, but now it’s my work, so my hobby is now electronics and toys.
V. PLUGGING IN…
ND: Do you still have the urge to play rock ‘n’ roll?
RM: Not really. I’m happy being a folksinger. I’ve always considered myself a folksinger, so I’m really just back at my roots.
ND: I think that it’s easier for those who were around when the Byrds broke in to see you in that light than for younger listeners who only associate you with that band. When “Mr. Tambourine Man” broke through, even with the much more limited rock/music press of that time, it was pretty well-known that you came from a folk background, and then electrified.
RM: Yeah, and I did it before Dylan. Most people don’t know that. In encyclopedia after encyclopedia, it’s ‘The Byrds followed Bob Dylan’s lead into folk rock.’ And because it’s in print, because it’s on CDROM, everybody believes it.
ND: There has always been a lot of false information that, through repeated printing and reprinting, becomes “fact”…
RM: …and you’re a heretic if you tell them the truth (laughs).
ND: Is it something that rankles?
RM: Well, it’s just give credit where credit is due, that’s all.