CHRIS HILLMAN INTERVIEW

AMERICANA MASTER

Byrds legend Chris Hillman takes a lifetime's worth of songs and stories on the road

by Matt Ashare |  
Published August 14, 2013

The name Chris Hillman may not be as instantly recognizable as the names of dozens of other his peers who came of age in the turbulent sixties and have since found their way into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Indeed, Hillman — who plays the Kirk Avenue Music Hall in Roanoke this Friday with his longtime collaborator Herb Pedersen — is one of those guys who managed to keep a relatively low profile, even as he was playing a major role in creating rock and roll history. Yeah, he was just the bass player in the Byrds when the Southern California psychedelic-folkies first hit the scene in 1964 as America's answer to the Beatles. But he went to on to co-write one of the band's signature hits — "So You Want to Be a Rock 'n' Roll Star" — with Byrds frontman Roger McGuinn in ’67, and was instrumental in steering the band toward the country-inflected stylings that defined their landmark 1968 album "Sweetheart of the Rodeo." If Neil Young is the "Godfather of Grunge," then Hillman, who left the Byrds in 1969 to form the now legendary Flying Burrito Brothers with Gram Parsons, and was in league with Eagles songwriter J.D. Souther in the early-’70s, probably deserves some sort of semi-official designation as, I don't know, the Archduke of Americana, or some such thing.
    Not that that's the sort of recognition or validation that 68-year-old Hillman seems to be looking for at this point in his career. He's a guy who hasn't just been there and done that: he's lived it, building up a resume that, along with his tenure in the Byrds and the Burrito Brothers, also includes a short stint with Stephen Stills as one of the primaries in the ’70a cult band Manassas, and a more sizable stretch at the helm of the countrified Desert Rose Band in the late-’80s/early-’90s. But, the even-keeled Hillman isn't drawn to the spotlight anymore. As he puts it, when I reach him at his office in Ventura, California, "It's not something i'm seeking anymore. I like playing smaller rooms and theaters. It's almost like returning to what I used to do fifty years ago as an 18-year old kid, playing acoustic music in more intimate rooms. There's an experience there that's still valid to me and to the people who come to see the shows. And, if the day comes when people aren't interested in listening anymore, that's fine. I've had a great career. I've had a great life. And I'm lucky to have been able to do this for so long."
    Hillman was only 18 when he recorded his first album, as the mandolin player in the bluegrass band called the Scottsville Squirrel Barkers, and he'd never even played bass when he was asked to join the Byrds a couple years later. "None of us were rock and roll players," he recalls of the Byrds. "We all came out of folk and country music. Yes we did play rock, as defined by the fact that we plugged in. And, there were times in the ’70s when I was in certain bands that played more rock and roll, mostly in Manassas with Stephen Stills. But the underlying foundation was always country and folk. It was always there, it was always what I was building on."
    Hillman's passion for, and deep connection to country music not only left an indelible stamp on the legacy of the Byrd, but it also had a wider influence on rock music. The Hillman/Parsons partnership, which started in the waning years of the Byrds and carried over to the Flying Burrito Brothers, inspired the Rolling Stones to delve into country rock in the late ’60s. And the Eagles grew out of the same California country-rock scene that Hillman was such an integral part of. And yet, Hillman seems to have been mosty comfortable playing a supporting, stabilizing role, as a thoughtful songwriter and consummate player, in those early years with McGuinn, Parsons, and Stills.
    "I didn't chose that," he reflects. "I liked to play music. And it took me longer to really grasp the idea of singing. I had no commitment to it. There was no feel in my voice. In fact, I can't listen to 'Sweetheart of the Rodeo.' I sang so badly on that. It just took a few more years for me to finally get the confidence to really sing, and sing the right way. And that's probably my strongest suit now. I suppose could wonder what might have been if only i had done more with my singing earlier, but I didn't and that's okay. And I'm doing it now. Actually, I like the way McGuinn put it in an interview years ago: he said, 'Chris was a late bloomer, but when he bloomed, he really blossomed.' All i know is that I enjoyed what I was doing. I was a band guy. I never wanted to be Bruce Springsteen. And then I took over the reigns of the Flying Burrito Brothers because I had to. Nobody could work with Graham Parsons, he was not in good shape. So I took over and onward we went until Desert Rose, when I was running the ship. It was all part of a learning curve for me."
    Much of what Hillman does these days evolved out of the Desert Rose Band, which he formed with his current touring partner Herb Pedersen. And, in some ways, the Desert Rose Band lives on. "We're not going to put the Desert Rose Band back together as a career move," Hillman points out, "but we do occasional shows, usually just one or two at a time if it's feasible.  And then there's Desert Rose acoustic, which is four or us performing acoustically. With the Chris and Herb duo that I'm bringing top Roanoke, we do some of the Desert Rose material, but we also do Byrds and all the other bands that we've been associated with. It's never the same set. I go up on stage with a list of 70 song. And sometimes I call audibles, like a football quarterback changing up the play. That's one of the things you can do when there are only two of you up there.
    "I may not have the same kind of passion that I had as a young fellow learning and honing the craft," he continues, "but I do have the passion in another form. My reward is to get up on stage and sing and play. When someone tells us that they're glad they came to the show, that validates my life and what I've chosen to do with it. The whole thing is the performance."
    As for the resurgence of roots music in the form of alt-county and Americana, two genres that owe an enormous debut to the music Hillman crafted with the Byrds, Burrito Brothers, and beyond, he's nothing but pleased. "I like Mumford & Sons and I like the Avett Brothers. What I love about it is that these guys are taking instruments like banjo and fiddle beyond the restrictive parameters of bluegrass. There are a lot of acoustic people who are just so good, not just singer-songwriters, but full string bands like the Carolina Chocolate Drops. They're doing the kind of music that I cut my teeth on as a kid, old time string music and bluegrass. The reason I left bluegrass — and I love the music, I really do — is that it was too narrow. I wanted to expand my music. And that's what Americana has done."