The Byrds - Jet Set

In 1965 The Byrds released their debut album on Columbia Records but most of us know that that was not the start of their recording career. There are enough tracks that predate the first album to fill several discs. Most of those were gathered on the ever expanding Preflyte album. But what if they released an album in 1964? This is my take on what that alt-debut album might have contained.

I've seen many alternative Byrds albums lately and this is me throwing my hat in the ring so to speak.

Side One
01 You Showed Me
02 Tomorrow Is A Long Ways Away
03 The Reason Why
04 The Airport Song
05 For Me Again
06 Boston

Side Two
01 It's No Use
02 Don't Be Long
03 Please Let Me Love You
04 The Only Girl I Adore
05 She Has A Way
06 You Movin'

Reality Notes

My goal on this one was to focus on only those songs that were recorded by the band. No demos, no solo recordings, no alternate versions or songs that appeared again later. All in glorious mono. Just The Byrds even if they weren't called that yet. I threw this together rather quickly with just a little research so forgive me if I misidentified a song or two but I'm confident and happy with my choices.

I must confess to not being that big of a fan of the band. I prefer Sweetheart of the Rodeo over the earlier albums. They've always been a bit hit and miss for me, some great songs and some meh. I was more into Buffalo Springfield I guess.

While I was compiling this I had the realization that many markets and genres had a "good boy" vs "bad boy" imaginary feuds. In England it was The Beatles vs The Stones, here we had The Byrds vs The Buffalo Springfield. Even the crooners back in the day had Bing vs Sinatra. Of course those feuds were all for publicity and did not reflect reality.

The cover image is an early promo pic. I named the album after their previous incarnation seeing as many of these were recorded while still performing under that name.