Talk:Sweetheart of the Rodeo

South African tour

It seems to me that there is something odd about this passage:

"In May 1968 the band embarked on a short European tour and while in England for concerts at the Middle Earth Club and Blaises, The Byrds met with Mick Jagger and Keith Richards who both expressed concern over The Byrds' intention to tour South Africa during the summer. McGuinn chose to dismiss these concerns over the country's apartheid policies, having already convinced the rest of The Byrds that a trip to South Africa would be an interesting experience and received South African singer Miriam Makeba's blessing for the tour."

So, Jagger and Richards are concerned about the idea of touring South Africa, because of the country's apartheid policies. Right? And what McGuinn is dismissing are their concerns about going ahead with the tour. However, the formulation could make it sound as if McGuinn is dismissing their concern over the political situation, which he of course was not. 90.224.25.46 (talk) 15:32, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

I think the paragraph is OK because actually, McGuinn was naive in the extreme with regards the South African situation. For a start he believed the concert promoters who told him that the band would not be playing to segregated audiences…something that turned out to be untrue, unsurprisingly. Secondly, he viewed the tour as something of a curiosity trip - as the article states he considered it potentially "an interesting experience". In the third place, he believed that his talks with Miriam Makeba prior to the tour somehow gave him the moral high ground with regards touring there. When the UK and U.S. press later berated The Byrds for undertaking the tour and questioned their political integrity, McGuinn tried to claim that the tour was, in some way, a protest against the contry's political status quo. However, the truth of the matter seems to be that he really didn't have a grasp on the situation until he got there and by then it was too late.

I don't think the paragraph is misleading because ultimately McGuinn was dismissing Jagger & Richards' concerns about going ahead with the tour and their concern over the political situation, because he was ignorant of that situation. Ultimately though, a lot of this info concerning the tour is omitted from the article because it really has nothing to do with the Sweetheart of the Rodeo album itself. The main Byrds article goes into a bit more detail in the sub-section titled "The Gram Parsons era". The South African tour is only really mentioned in this article in connection with Gram Parsons' departure from the band. --Kohoutek1138 (talk) 16:41, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for your comment! I agree with you on the whole. It's just that, for me, there's something about the formulation that makes McGuinn seem overtly flippant about the issue. For sure, from what I've read in Rogan's book, there seems to have been a certain naïveté involved. But the formulation "chose to dismiss" to me suggests a kind of almost deliberate defiance. Of course, as you say, we cannot go into too much detail here, but I think it would suffice to just phrase a little differently what is already there. Something like this perhaps: "McGuinn, having already received the blessing of South African singer Miriam Makeba for the tour, did not lend as much weight to these concerns as Parsons later would, but rather saw the trip as an interesting experience for the band." 90.224.25.46 (talk) 20:08, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

Hmmmm...trouble is, there's doubt over the sincerity of Parsons' anti-apartheid stance. Chris Hillman, for one, has always believed that Gram just used it as a convenient excuse to hang with Mick and Keith from the Stones (as detailed later on in the article). The fact that Gram had known about the pending South African tour for some months and expressed no concern about going along prior to The Byrds' visit to London in July 1968, lends credence to Hillman's suspecions I would say. So personally, I would be against suggesting that Gram had any stronger anti-aparthied feelings than the article already outlines.

However, I do understand your concern. The phrase that Rogan actually uses in Timeless Flight is "McGuinn was undaunted", so perhaps we should just change the sentence to "McGuinn remained undaunted regarding these concerns over the country's apartheid policies, however, having already received the blessing of South African singer Miriam Makeba and convinced the rest of The Byrds that a trip to South Africa would be an interesting experience." What do you reckon to that? --Kohoutek1138 (talk) 00:16, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the discussion! I see your point about the nature of Parsons' stance being in question. "Undaunted" is a good choice of words, and your proposed formulation seems to work well. 90.224.25.46 (talk) 23:52, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

OK, I'll change the sentence accordingly. Thanks for your input. --Kohoutek1138 (talk) 04:33, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

Genre: The Consideration of Country

After watching the Byrds Under Review DVD, reading Sweetheart of the Rodeo album reviews and books on the subject (in particular Johnny Rogan's book), the general consensus made by journalists, music critics and musicians is that the majority of tracks on the album are purely country based, with little rock and roll being made. Of course, songs such as "You Ain't Goin' Nowhere", "One Hundred Years from Now", "Hickory Wind" and "Nothing Was Delivered" are less country orientated, more pop influenced and quintessentially "country rock", but I generally feel that the authentic country contributions should be represented along side country rock within the infobox.

SgtPetsounds 19:24, 12 October 2012 (UTC)

I agree. There's nothing country rock about "Blue Canadian Rockies" for example, that's as pure country as country can be. --Kohoutek1138 (talk) 13:24, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

Vocal credits for One Hundred Years from Now and Blue Canadian Rockies

One Hundred Years from Now has vocal credits from Hillman and McGuinn but is clearly a single vocalist. I'm assuming it's Hillman. It sounds like him.

Blue Canadian Rockies has a single vocal credit for Hillman but there are clearly two vocalists. I'm wondering if the vocal credits were mixed up between the two songs.

2001:558:6036:31:25F4:9A48:6C92:918F (talk) 05:15, 5 April 2014 (UTC)

No, "One Hundred Years From Now" does feature both McGuinn and Hillman singing the song's lead vocal in unison, like a very close double tracked vocal (I'm not counting the harmony vocals here). Listen to the first couple of lines -- there are clearly two voices singing in unison there. Hillman and McGuinn singing lead vocal on "One Hundred Years From Now" is borne out or supported by Christopher Hjort's So You Want to Be a Rock 'n' Roll Star book. Are you sure you're not getting mixed up between the album version of "One Hundred Years From Now" (here) and the outtake version with Gram Parsons on lead vocals (here)? The latter does indeed just feature one lead vocal, but the proper album version features McGuinn and Hillman singing the lead vocal together.

"Blue Canadian Rockies" features Hillman alone on lead vocals, with McGuinn (and possible Parsons or an overdubbed Hillman) providing the high harmony. McGuinn's harmony part is not the lead vocal though, since it drops out in the verses, leaving Hillman singing on his own (see the "Now, oh, how my lonely heart is aching tonight..." bit at the 0:29 mark). So attributing lead vocals to Hillman on "Blue Canadian Rockies" is correct. --Kohoutek1138 (talk) 14:32, 12 April 2014 (UTC)

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LOVE THIS!

I love what you did hear you should do that with every album, I'm serious. Please? Thank-you.

Title Writer Lead vocals Guest musicians/band contributions beyond usual instruments[65] Time

It's great! And perfect!

Release date

I don't know why so many sites, including this one, list August 30 as the release date. It had already sold enough copies to make the Top 100 Albums in the August 24 issue of Cash Box magazine. Billboard, Cash Box, and Record World had reviewed the album in their August 17 issues; Billboard only reviewed albums on or after release. Ads for the album appeared in the August 10 issues. So, it was definitely released before August 17; probably close to August 10. Unfortunately contemporary magazines rarely listed the release dates of albums, so I can't replace August 30 with an exact date. I'm just going to make it August PatConolly (talk) 07:16, 24 February 2021 (UTC)

My initial reaction to this is that it sounds like original research to me, which isn't really allowed on Wikipedia. Information must come from a reliable third-party source. In addition, just because the likes of Billboard, Cash Box, and Record World had reviewed the album in their August 17 issues doesn't automatically mean it was out then. Maybe Billboard sometimes reviewed albums before their release date on rare occasions? Promo copies of the album definitely exist and were obviously sent out to radio stations and the press prior to the album's actual release.

That said, the album appearing at number 89 in the August 24th edition of the Cash Box Top 100 Albums Chart is surprising and clearly suggests that the album was on sale before that date. I found a copy of the magazine in question online and double-checked and you are indeed correct. To be honest, such things aren't unheard of: there's similar confusion about the precise release date of other late 60s albums, like Sgt. Pepper and Blonde On Blonde. Indeed, there's disagreement about the release date of the Byrds' previous album The Notorious Byrd Brothers (most sources say January 15th, but some put it earlier at January 3rd).

I suggest simply saying "August 1968" in the article lede, while retaining the August 30 release date for the "Release and reception" sub-section (because that is what all the supposedly reliable sources say). But we can put a mention of the Cash Box chart and how it suggests that the release date seems to have been brought forward. As for the infobox, let's keep it as August 30, but put a note next to that date explaining that there is some doubt about its accuracy. Is that acceptable, PatConolly? --Kohoutek1138 (talk) 17:55, 24 February 2021 (UTC)

You say "such things aren't unheard of: there's similar confusion about the precise release date of other late 60s albums". Boy, that's for sure. In recent weeks I have been adding quite a few "Release Date" sections for various articles Talk pages, and sometimes correcting the articles. For Sly & the Family Stones 1971 "There's a Riot Going on" I was lucky to find a contemporary source which explicitly stated a release date and was able to cite that. In most cases I simply have to point out that if an album was selling enough to make the charts, it must have been released already.

Now, for this article. I just undid my change (reluctantly, but I'm not going to be defiant about this). I don't know how to make a footnote for the infobox. If you can do that, I'll leave it alone. A few days ago, I had changed the lede from August 30 to August, but had overlooked the "Release and Reception" section. After the first sentence which states the US and UK release dates, I will add the sentence, "It first made the U.S. album charts in the August 24 issue of Cash Box magazine." and cite the issue and page. Readers can make of that what they will. If they really care maybe they'll look at this Talk page and see the discussion. PatConolly (talk) 14:13, 25 February 2021 (UTC)

Hello. I have another question about this. Do the dates on the periodicals, such as Cash Box, Billboard, and Record World, necessarily correspond to the dates that they were actually published? I was under the impression that they might not, but I don't really know. — Mudwater ^(Talk) 22:39, 24 February 2021 (UTC)

An interesting point. Actually, the date on many periodicals were to indicate how long they were supposed to be kept on the newsstand, not when they first appear on the newsstands. I checked the copyright registrations. The issues dated August 24 were actually published August 17 - and the people selling them weren't supposed to take them off until the next issue appeared August 24 (which would have an August 31 date on them). So, on August 17 you could buy the issue of Cash Box which showed this album had already sold enough copies to make their album chart. PatConolly (talk) 13:33, 25 February 2021 (UTC)

Thanks. Yeah, I thought it was something like that. — Mudwater ^(Talk) 13:38, 25 February 2021 (UTC)

Great stuff, PatConolly. I'll add in the note in the infobox now and format the inline citation you added in the "Release and reception" subsection so that it matches all the others in the article. Thanks for bringing this to my attention: I love learning new stuff about the Byrds, even trivia like an album's exact release date. --Kohoutek1138 (talk) 15:39, 25 February 2021 (UTC)

I've just done the discussed edits, but something that just occurred to me PatConolly is that perhaps the album listing in the August 24, 1968 issue of Cashbox was based on advanced orders? Could that account for the release date descrepancy? On the other hand, I've just been looking at Christopher Hjort's "Byrds Day-By-Day" book and McGuinn was out doing TV and radio promotion for the album at least a week prior to August 30 and a review of it had appeared in the August 16 issue of The Village Voice (which aligns with PatConolly's claim that Billboard, Cashbox and Record World had all reviewed the album by August 17). --Kohoutek1138 (talk) 17:06, 25 February 2021 (UTC)

First let me note that the Byrds album reached Billboard's chart in the August 31 issue, which went on sale August 24, at position 131. Billboard explicitly stated their Top Albums chart was "compiled from National Retail Stores". I'm very sure Cash Box did it with same principal as Billboard - the charts were based on retail sales. That was what their customers needed to know - what was actually selling. Compare for instance Sgt. Pepper. It's pretty definite that June 2, 1967 was the U.S. release date, and you KNOW they had a ton of advance orders. So in which issue of Cash Box did it first appear on the charts? The June 17 issue. Here's a bit of a digression, but you may find it interesting. You may be old enough to remember in 1978 all 4 members of Kiss released solo albums. And for promotional purposes, their record company shipped 1 million copies of each album. That was enough for RIAA to instantly certify all 4 of them as Platinum. And if customers had really bought them all, or if the magazines used the advance order or shipping numbers, they would have gone very close, or even reached the top of the album charts. But in fact the peaks in Billboard were Gene Simmons #22, Ace Frehley #26, Paul Stanley #40, Peter Criss #43. There just weren't that many interested customers, and the charts reflected that. "Shipped Platinum, returned Gold". PatConolly (talk) 23:19, 25 February 2021 (UTC)

I think PatConolly makes some convincing points, and hopefully there is a way to fix this without veering into straight original research. The fact(s) that copies were purchased in stores and the album charted a while before 30 August should encourage us to seek to avoid repeating the error, if we can. Years ago, there was a similar situation with The Dark Side of the Moon – all Pink Floyd biographers seemed to give a release date that was a couple of weeks after the album's entry into the Billboard Top LPs & Tape chart. I'll add the talk page link if I find it, but basically editors arrived at a correct date via contemporary Billboard articles. Piriczki/Ohnothimagain did most of the work on this, if I remember right. It's a shame he's not around anymore; he had a fantastic knowledge of the chart methodology and the magazine's production schedule ... Perhaps he'll respond to the pings here. JG66 (talk) 23:50, 25 February 2021 (UTC)

Ah, I think this could be the discussion: Talk:The Dark Side of the Moon/Archive 6#RfC: Is Billboard magazine a reliable source? JG66 (talk) 23:55, 25 February 2021 (UTC)

To me, the key point in the Dark Side of the Moon article is that a contemporary, reputable, source explicitly stated a release date that could be cited. All the other discussion was to lend support for that stated date. Unfortunately, we don't have that for Sweetheart of the Rodeo. At best, we can calculate a probable time frame, and for my personal catalog that's what I use, but we can't really use that in Wikipedia. PatConolly (talk) 02:41, 26 February 2021 (UTC)

Yeah, PatConolly is right. If we outright changed the August 30 release date we'd be guessing. So, I think that the way things are right now, with August 30 listed, but with attention drawn to the fact that this date is almost certainly wrong, is the best and only way to go at the moment. Even if we wanted to engage in original research, we don't have any real clue of an exact alternate release date. We just know roughly when it would've been. --Kohoutek1138 (talk) 15:04, 28 February 2021 (UTC)