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This previously unreleased, stand-alone live recording of the Byrds at the Fillmore West in 1969 is a testament to the band at the height of its musical prowess. The amalgam of Roger McGuinn, John York, Gene Parsons, and Clarence White -- with only McGuinn remaining from the original fivesome that launched the group in 1965 -- is so imbued with the dusty twang of Nashville that it isn't until McGuinn's Rickenbacker 12-string kicks in on the energetic power medley of "Turn! Turn! Turn!"/"Mr. Tambourine Man"/"Eight Miles High" that we realize, ah, hippies! Guitarist White's luminous and enterprising riffing infuse the band's flower-power California sound with bluegrass virtuosity on McGuinn's "King Apathy III," a Who-infused rocker that cuts to a country break, as well as on "So You Want to Be a Rock and Roll Star" and the Bob Dylan/Rick Danko composition "Wheels On Fire." The concert closes on a political note with a jangly version of Dylan's "Chimes of Freedom" and McGuinn's pognant "He Was a Friend of Mine," which appropriately captures that self-reflective American moment that followed the '68 assassinations of John Kennedy and Martin Luther King. Steph Paynes, Barnes & Noble