I have to admit: I know just about nothing about the Byrds (I literally just now found out that Gram Parsons was a member at one point). And to keep this post from sounding like an encyclopedia article, I opened the Wikipedia page briefly to check on date and city of origin. And that surprised me a little. Given their importance in the music scene in the 1960s, I half expected them to be from the U.K.

But the group’s influences are incredibly obvious–both by the content of their music and their time and place on the world. The Byrds married the folk traditionalism of Bob Dylan with the rhythms and electricity of the Beatles and the vocal harmonies and sunshine of the Beach Boys. It’s an easy formula to think up, but the Byrds prove their salt by not only dwelling in the center of that triangle, but by maintaining a freshness that is hard to maintain when channeling the tastemakers so faithfully.

The freshness is even more surprising when you realize that the majority of the songs on this record are covers (and two of those are Bob Dylan tunes. One is a nearly unlistenable arrangement of Oh! Susanna. I don’t know what they were thinking). Even the title track, their most famous, was originally adapted from the Book of Ecclesiastes by undersung folk hero Pete Seeger. But with the Byrds’ special brand of folk rock and California sunshine, the songs are made largely their own, and that is no small feat.