Number 1 With A Bullet: The Byrds’ “Mr. Tambourine Man”

The Byrds - "Mr. Tambourine Man" (Columbia, 1965)

In March 1965, Bob Dylan committed folk music heresy by releasing Bringing It All Back Home, a set of songs that featured (gasp!) electric instruments on side one. The following month, the Byrds took the next step, recording Dylan’s “Mr. Tambourine Man” as a full-on electric pop song.

The story of the Byrds’ version of “Mr. Tambourine Man” dates back several months before its release. Manager Jim Dickson acquired an acetate of the Dylan tune and set about having the band record it at LA’s Columbia Recording Studios starting in January 1965.

When Dylan went electric in March, Columbia Records, still famously conservative about releasing “rock records,” was convinced that the electric folk of the Byrds’ first single should be put on the market.

The song was released on April 12, 1965, landed on the Top 40 by early June and, by late that month, had risen all the way to Number 1, the first “rock” record to do so for the label.

Though the band were responsible for the music on the rest of their debut album, the instrument track on “Tambourine Man” was actually played by LA studio musicians, the Wrecking Crew, which included Glen Campbell and Hal Blaine. Instrumentally, Roger McGuinn‘s electric 12-string Rickenbacker guitar was the only Byrds contribution.

There’s a lot more ammo where this came from. Check out more songs that were “#1 with a Bullet” here…