My brother had a chrome Craig tape deck hanging below the console of his new ‘70 Ford truck, only his continuous-loop tapes (not to be confused with the new Compact-Cassette decks) had a round hole on the underside. He had bought the package - deck and tapes - from a guy he knew up North and the tapes included; The Tremoloes, The Byrds and The Mamas and Papas. Unlike the newer 8-Track tapes these wonders had only 2 tracks of stereo. With his 3 x4 speakers in the doors there was a not even a hint of bass in the songs.

So the Byrds were the first band that I could listen to while driving - the first albums, that is. “Mr. Tambourine Man” is so ingrained in my very being that I could sing it backward. “Chimes of Freedom” is another favorite and the rest have the same jingly-jangly sound that Jim (now Roger) McGuinn made famous with his Rickenbacker 12-string guitar. He claims he bought one after he saw the The Beatles in “A Hard Day’s Night.” Through their many changes - booting out David Crosby being a landmark decision - I followed them, seeing them in concert in ‘71 as a long-haired country-rock band belting out “Jesus Is Just Alright With Me” and “Chestnut Mare.” As with their earlier recordings Bob Dylan’s songs were the mainstay of their albums. In fact it is safe to say that Dylan - along with The Byrds and part-time Byrd, Gram Parsons - invented the country-rock genre just as they collaborated to start folk-rock. Parsons came a little later on to the group and stayed a short while. He inspired British bands like The Rolling Stones and Elton John with his country-blues.

McGuinn was such a role model for Tom Petty that Petty’s early sound was a mimic of McGuinn. This is a strange occurrence because McGuinn’s vocal style was an attempt to copy Bob Dylan. (Again, I digress.)

The good news and bad news was that the 4-Track deck could also play 8-Tracks which started me on my long and harried relationship with the colored-plastic cartridges. Anyone who has ever owned them knows that you had to be an “8-Track mechanic” too. Because if you left them in the sun or out in subzero weather the tape stetched or wound incorrectly on the spools and you had to cut them open, fix the problem and then tape, yes tape, them back together. My 8-Track collection, at $8 a pop in the early ’70’s, amounted to thousands of dollars. Now I have hundreds of “buggered-up” cartridges that won’t play anymore.

4 Track Tape

Suggestion for you 8-Track enthusiasts with unuseable: Stack your unuseable cartridges on your patio and build a wall out of them. The bright colors will be pleasing to the eye. Fashion the wall like you would a small monument and plant a bonzai tree before it. Then, every morning, you can greet the rising sun in the lotus position and hum a few tunes to the long dormant collection of tape that faces you. (Now that’s digressing!)

I still have the 4-Tracks . . . . One of these days I’ll find a player on ebay and crank up the Byrds. I may yet find the bass on the tunes.