(Untitled) is the ninth album by the American rock band the Byrds and was released in September 1970 on Columbia Records. It is a double album, with the first LP featuring live concert recordings from early 1970, and a second disc consisting of new studio recordings. The album represented the first official release of any live recordings by the band, as well as the first appearance on a Byrds' record of new recruit Skip Battin, who had replaced the band's previous bass player, John York, in late 1969.
The studio album mostly consists of newly written, self-penned material, including a number of songs that had been composed by band leader Roger McGuinn and Broadway theatre director Jacques Levy for a planned country rock musical that the pair were developing. The production was to have been based on Henrik Ibsen's Peer Gynt and staged under the title of Gene Tryp (an anagram of Ibsen's play), but plans for the musical fell through. Five of the songs that had been intended for Gene Tryp were instead recorded by the Byrds for (Untitled)—although only four appear in the album's final running order.
The album peaked at number 40 on the Billboard Top LPs chart and reached number 11 on the UK Albums Chart. A single taken from the album, "Chestnut Mare" b/w "Just a Season", was released in the U.S. in October 1970, but missed the Billboard Hot 100 chart, bubbling under at number 121. The single was later released in the UK in January 1971, where it did considerably better, reaching number 19 on the UK Singles Chart. Upon release, (Untitled) was met with positive reviews and strong sales, with many critics and fans regarding the album as a return to form for the band. Likewise, the album is today generally regarded by critics as being the best that the latter-day line-up of the Byrds produced.
Background Following the dismissal of the Byrds' bass player, John York, in September 1969, Skip Battin was recruited as a replacement at the suggestion of drummer Gene Parsons and guitarist Clarence White. Battin was, at 35, the oldest member of the band and the one with the longest musical history. Battin's professional career in music had begun in 1959, as one half of the pop music duo Skip & Flip. The duo had notched up a string of hits between 1959 and 1961, including "It Was I", "Fancy Nancy", and "Cherry Pie". After the break-up of Skip & Flip, Battin moved to Los Angeles, where he worked as a freelance session musician and formed the band Evergreen Blueshoes. Following the disbandment of that group, Battin returned to session work in the late 1960s and it was during this period that he met Gene Parsons and became reacquainted with Clarence White, whom he had known from a few years earlier. York's dismissal and Battin's recruitment marked the last line-up change to the Byrds for almost three years, until Parsons was fired by McGuinn in July 1972. Thus, the McGuinn, White, Parsons, and Battin line-up of the band was the most stable and longest lived of any configuration of the Byrds.
For most of 1969, the Byrds' leader and guitarist, Roger McGuinn, had been developing a country rock stage production of Henrik Ibsen's Peer Gynt with former psychologist and Broadway impresario Jacques Levy. The musical was to be titled Gene Tryp, an anagram of the title of Ibsen's play, and would loosely follow the storyline of Peer Gynt, with some modifications to transpose the action from Norway to south-west America during the mid-19th century. The musical was intended as a prelude to even loftier plans of McGuinn's to produce a science-fiction film, tentatively titled Ecology 70 and starring former Byrd Gram Parsons (unrelated to Gene Parsons) and ex-member of the Mamas & the Papas, Michelle Phillips, as a pair of intergalactic flower children. Ultimately, Gene Tryp was abandoned and a handful of the songs that McGuinn and Levy had written for the project would instead see release on (Untitled) and its follow-up, Byrdmaniax.
Of the twenty-six songs that were written for the musical, "Chestnut Mare", "Lover of the Bayou", "All the Things", and "Just a Season" were included on (Untitled), while "Kathleen's Song" and "I Wanna Grow Up to Be a Politician" were held over for the Byrds' next album. "Lover of the Bayou" would be re-recorded by McGuinn in 1975 and appear on his Roger McGuinn & Band album.
Despite not being staged at the time, Gene Tryp was eventually performed in a revised configuration by the drama students of Colgate University, between November 18 and November 21, 1992, under the new title of Just a Season: A Romance of the Old West.
Conception and title Having toured extensively throughout 1969 and early 1970, the Byrds decided that the time was right to issue a live album. At the same time, it was felt that the band had a sufficient backlog of new compositions to warrant the recording of a new studio album. The dilemma was resolved when it was suggested by producer Terry Melcher that the band should release a double album, featuring an LP of concert recordings and an LP of new studio recordings, which would retail for the same price as a regular single album. At around this same time, the band's original manager Jim Dickson, who had been fired by the group in June 1967, returned to the Byrds' camp to help Melcher with the editing of the live recordings, affording him a co-producer credit on (Untitled).
The album's innominate title actually came about by accident. According to Jim Bickhart's liner notes on the original double album sleeve, the group's intention was to name the release something more grandiose, such as Phoenix or The Byrds' First Album. These working titles were intended to signify the artistic rebirth that the band felt the album represented. Another proposed title for the album was McGuinn, White, Parsons and Battin, but McGuinn felt that this title might be misinterpreted by the public. The band still had not made up their minds regarding a title when Melcher, while filling out record company documentation for the album sessions, wrote the placeholder "(Untitled)" in a box specifying the album's title. A misunderstanding ensued and before anyone associated with the band had realized, Columbia Records had pressed up the album with that title, including the parentheses.
Live recordings The latter-day line-up of the Byrds, featuring McGuinn, White, Parsons, and Battin, was regarded by critics and audiences as being much more accomplished in concert than previous configurations of the band had been. This being the case, it made perfect sense to capture their sound in a live environment, and so two consecutive New York concert appearances were recorded. The first of these was the band's performance at Queens College's Colden Auditorium on February 28, 1970, and the second was their performance at the Felt Forum on March 1, 1970.
(Untitled) featured recordings from both of these concerts, spliced together to give the impression of a single continuous performance. Of the seven live tracks featured on the album, "So You Want to Be a Rock 'n' Roll Star", "Mr. Tambourine Man", "Mr. Spaceman", and "Eight Miles High" were drawn from the Queens College performance, while "Lover of the Bayou", "Positively 4th Street", and "Nashville West" originated from the Felt Forum show. Byrds biographer Johnny Rogan has suggested that the appearance of the band's earlier hit singles "Mr. Tambourine Man", "So You Want to Be a Rock 'n' Roll Star", and "Eight Miles High" on the live record had the effect of forging a spiritual and musical link between the band's current line-up and the original mid-1960s incarnation of the band.
The opening track of the live LP is "Lover of the Bayou", a new song written by McGuinn and Levy for their aborted Gene Tryp stage show. The song is set during the American Civil War and was intended for a scene in which the eponymous hero of the musical is working as a smuggler, bootlegger, and gun runner for both the Confederacy and the Unionists. Despite the central character's appearance in the scene, McGuinn explained in a 1970 interview with journalist Vincent Flanders that the song wasn't actually intended to be sung by Gene Tryp, but by another character, a voodoo witch-doctor (or houngan) named Big Cat.
"Lover of the Bayou" is followed on the album by a cover of Bob Dylan's "Positively 4th Street", which would be the last Dylan song that the Byrds covered on an album until "Paths of Victory", which was recorded during the 1990 reunion sessions featured on The Byrds box set. The remainder of side one of (Untitled) is made up of live versions of album tracks and earlier hits. In a 1999 interview with journalist David Fricke, McGuinn explained the rationale behind the inclusion of earlier Byrds' material on the album: "The live album was Melcher's way of repackaging some of the hits in a viable way. Actually, I wanted the studio stuff to come first. Terry wouldn't hear of it."
Side two of the live album is taken up in its entirety by a sixteen-minute, extended version of "Eight Miles High", which proved to be popular on progressive rock radio during the early 1970s. The track is highlighted by the dramatic guitar interplay between McGuinn and White, as well as the intricate bass and drum playing of Battin and Parsons. The song begins with improvisational jamming, which lasts for over twelve minutes and culminates in an iteration of the song's first verse. Rogan has stated the opinion that the revamping of "Eight Miles High" featured on (Untitled) represented the ultimate fusion of the original Byrds and the newer line-up. At the end of this live performance of "Eight Miles High", the band can be heard playing a rendition of their signature stage tune, "Hold It", which had first been heard on record at the close of the "My Back Pages/B.J. Blues/Baby What You Want Me to Do" medley included on Dr. Byrds & Mr. Hyde.
Additional live material from the Byrds' early 1970 appearances at Queens College and the Felt Forum has been officially released over the years. "Lover of the Bayou", "Black Mountain Rag (Soldier's Joy)", and a cover of Lowell George's "Willin'", taken from the Queens College concert, were included on The Byrds box set in 1990. Additionally, performances of "You Ain't Goin' Nowhere", "Old Blue", "It's Alright, Ma (I'm Only Bleeding)", "Ballad of Easy Rider", "My Back Pages", and "This Wheel's on Fire" from the Felt Forum show were included on the expanded (Untitled)/(Unissued) release in 2000. A further two songs, "You All Look Alike" and "Nashville West", taken from the Queen's College concert were included on the 2006 box set, There Is a Season.
Studio recordings The studio recording sessions for (Untitled) were produced by Terry Melcher and took place between May 26 and June 11, 1970 at Columbia Studios in Hollywood, California. Melcher had been the producer of the Byrds' first two albums in 1965, Mr. Tambourine Man and Turn! Turn! Turn!, as well as producer of their previous LP, Ballad of Easy Rider. The majority of the songs included on the studio album were penned by the band members themselves, in stark contrast to their previous album, which had largely consisted of cover versions or renditions of traditional material.