The Byrds soared during an explosive and wildly creative era in youthful pop culture.
Inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, the band featured lead singer and co-founder Roger McGuinn, who performs at 7:30 p.m. Saturday at the Memorial House in Valparaiso.
“I do a solo concert; it’s a one-man show,” McGuinn said in a recent phone interview.
The songs — and related storytelling — make for an intimate travelogue.
“It takes people through a whole timeline, from the beginning to where I am now,” McGuinn, 74, said.
The Byrds’ stratospheric rise to success began with a chiming, electrified cover version of Bob Dylan’s “Mr. Tambourine Man,” which gave McGuinn and company a No. 1 pop hit in the summer of 1965.
According to his official biography, McGuinn — inspired by the rise of the Beatles — began playing folk tunes to a rock beat in the coffeehouses of New York City’s Greenwich Village before the Byrds formed.
“I got to meet the Beatles — met them in London in, I guess, around ’65,” McGuinn recalled. “Derek Taylor had been their press secretary, and he introduced us. I got to go to parties with them and hang out with them. We drove around with Paul McCartney in his Aston Martin DB5 in London. And he would help us with our equipment. He’d take us to concerts. It was an incredible time.”
After “Mr. Tambourine Man” scored, the Byrds notched another chart topper later in 1965 with “Turn! Turn! Turn! (To Everything There is a Season).”
Written by Pete Seeger, with lyrics taken from the Bible’s book of Ecclesiastes, the philosophic song about life’s cycles is a staple of McGuinn’s repertoire.
“I’ll be playing ‘Turn! Turn! Turn!,’ which is one of my favorite songs of all time, and I’ll probably be doing something like ‘Rock Island Line’ which is a Lead Belly song,” said the singer, offering examples of what is in store for the Valparaiso audience.
For such shows, McGuinn is known to come well-equipped: “I carry a lot of instruments.”
Among them are a five-string long neck banjo and a 12-string electric Rickenbacker guitar — the latter of which helped give the Byrds their signature, ringing pop sound.
McGuinn’s Saturday show will mark his third appearance at the ornate Memorial Opera House, which dates back to the late 19th century.
More Top Picks Best Therapy Balls For Adhd Students
The concert, which includes full-service bar, is presented and produced by Valparaiso-based Brightside Music LLC, which is owned by Rob Harkel.
“I just think he’s an American music icon,” Harkel said of McGuinn. “He’s had a pretty big influence on Tom Petty. He and Bob Dylan are very close.”
A Chicago native now living in Florida, McGuinn said he dispenses “stories between the songs” in his one-man show, which fills in fans about his life and his works.
“I love his music and I find his stories fascinating,” Harkel, a Valparaiso resident, said.
The Byrds are widely credited with being pioneers of folk rock, but they also dipped into psychedelia with “Eight Miles High” (1966).
“And we went on to do country rock, which was something that hadn’t been done previously,” McGuinn said.
The year after “Eight Miles High” became a hit single, the counterculture’s “Summer of Love” unfurled in 1967, and the Byrds were in the midst of the vibe that washed over fashion, music and youthful abandon.
McGuinn’s bandmates during that kaleidoscopic era included David Crosby, who went on to enjoy more fame with Crosby, Stills & Nash.
“We concentrated on peace and love,” McGuinn said. “Even though there was the Vietnam War and there was dissension in the country, the youth movement wanted to have peace and love, and I think that’s so missing in our culture today. I’m very disappointed with the American culture for not having any love left. It’s all hate — hate speech. Hate is not a good motivator.”
A year after the “Summer of Love,” the Byrds shifted musical gears with 1968’s “Sweetheart of the Rodeo.”
The album helped cement the band’s reputation as country-rock trailblazers.
It is no secret that the Byrds greatly influenced Don Henley of the Eagles, a band that racked up huge success with country rock in the 1970s.
Returning to his roots, McGuinn has fostered the preservation of traditional folk songs with his “Folk Den” project.
The undertaking encompasses his recordings of such fare, which have then been made available through his website, www.mcguinn.com.
“I started putting songs up on the internet for a free download in November of 1995,” the singer-songwriter said.
Besides folk music, another constant in McGuinn’s life has been the good feelings and memories from the idealistic and free-spirited ’60s.
“I love the peace and love and joy thing we had back in the day,” he said.
Bob Kostanczuk is a freelance writer for the Post-Tribune.
Roger McGuinn
Where: Memorial Opera House, 104 E. Indiana Ave., Valparaiso
When: 7:30 p.m. Saturday
Tickets: $35, $45
Information: 219-548-9137, www.memorialoperahouse.com