Roger McGuinn

Roger McGuinn, prior to forming the Byrds, toured and performed folk music with the Limeliters, Chad Mitchell Trio and Bobby Darin as a guitarist and banjo player.

McGuinn, a Chicago native, studied at the Old Town School of Folk Music and was active on Chicago's folk scene, where he was strongly influenced as a teenager by Bob Gibson.

Within a few weeks of finishing high school, McGuinn was working with the Limeliters in California, and he played guitar and banjo on their album "Tonight: In Person."
McGuinn is also on the Chad Mitchell Trio's album "Mighty Day on Campus",1961.

After touring for awhile with singer Bobby Darin, McGuinn moved to New York at Darin's request to work for his publishing company, TM Music, in the the fabled Brill Building as a songwriter. He and Frank Gari co wrote the song "Beach Ball,"and performed it with Darin, as the City Surfers, on a very rare single, July 1963.

After hearing the Beatles for the first time at the Brill Building, Roger began playing folk songs to a rock beat in the coffee houses of Greenwich Village .

His experiments in merging folk and rock didn't please the folk purist, so he moved to Los Angeles to work at the Troubadour. It was after an opening set for Hoyt Axton that Gene Clark approached Roger with appreciation for his new musical blend.They started writing songs together in the folk den of the Troubadour.

It wasn't long before David Crosby joined them and added his unique concepts of harmony to the duo, thereby completing the underpinnings for one of the most influential bands of the '60s.