The Witching Hour Sessions – 25/01/2018

Long Ryders

Like their peers in the Los Angeles Paisley Underground movement of the ’80s, the Long Ryders were a band who swore allegiance to the sounds of the ’60s, but unlike the Dream Syndicate, the Rain Parade, or Green on Red, psychedelic rock played a miniscule role in their musical formula. Instead, the Long Ryders were powerfully influenced by the roots-centric approach of early folk-rock and country rock acts, in particular the Byrds, the Flying Burrito Brothers, and Buffalo Springfield. And with the exception of the Bangles, the Long Ryders were the Paisley Underground band that came closest to achieving mainstream success, hitting the charts in the U.K. and earning a sizable cult following in the United States while making their mark on college radio. And the Long Ryders would later prove to be a major influence on the alt-country movement that would rise up only a few years after the band split up.

Tonight’s listening:

1 – 10-5-60 (1983)

It didn’t take a genius to figure out that Sid Griffin and his fellow Long Ryders loved the Byrds with all their hearts, but they rarely made their affection quite so obvious as on their debut EP, ’10-5-60′. The Long Ryders would gain a lot in the way of depth and ambition by the time they next entered a studio, but ’10-5-60′ proved they already had the talent, vision, and energy that would make them one of the more memorable American bands of the 1980s.

2 – Native Sons (1984)

‘Native Sons’ was the first full-length album by the Long Ryders and the one that established their eclectic mixture of Byrds/Clash/Flying Burrito Brothers’ influences. On ‘Native Sons’, the Long Ryders pioneered a musical design that future alternative roots rockers would use as a manual.

3 – State of Our Union (1985)

The Long Ryders kicked off their major label debut, ‘State of Our Union’, with one of their most anthemic and most explicitly political songs, ‘Looking for Lewis and Clark’, and that tune set the tone for the rest of the album. ‘State of Our Union’ found the Long Ryders reaching for a larger audience at the same time that they were using their music to say a great deal more than they had in the past.