Pop That Goes Crunch!

Go-Go Dancing To The Byrds

Groovy 60’s Go-Go Dancing and the Byrds are not often mentioned in the same breath. The Byrds are more associated with folk rock. Their influence can even be heard on The Beatles’ “Help” and “Rubber Soul,” among countless dozens of other records from the mid-60s

Go-Go dancing was big in the mid 60s, and here are the Byrds performing “Feel A Whole Lot Better” in front of a bevy of go-go dancers on a long-forgotten show called “Shivaree.”

The Byrds did, however, help create something brand new in ’65 by adding a back-beat to folk music to make it “danceable.” When Bob Dylan heard their version of “Mr. Tambourine Man,” he supposedly said “Wow, you can dance to that.”

The Byrds’ first four albums with most of the original line-up intact — “Mr. Tambourine Man,” “Turn, Turn, Turn,” “5th Dimension” and “Younger Than Today” — are classics that influenced everyone, most notably R.E.M. and Tom Petty, who covered “Feel A Whole Lot Better” on “Full Moon Fever.”

Some colleagues of mine were exchanging all-time Top Twenty Lists last fall. I put “Feel A Whole Lot Better” on mine. Roger McGuinn’s 12-string Rickenbacker guitar is one of the greatest sounds in rock history, and the song has a great melody and the band’s trademark four-part harmonies. All of that greatness propelled it all the way to Number 103 on the Billboard chart.