RIDGEFIELD - Only a limited number of musical artists on the touring circuit can virtually guarantee every audience member at every show will know at least one song well enough to sing along.also appearing at The PlayhouseIt wasn't long before David Crosby (The Newtown Bee caught up with McGuinn to ask a few questions, starting with one about the curious crossover point between the as-yet-unsigned-Byrds and jazz luminary Miles Davis.Newtown Bee: I was surprised to learn that your musical career may have never taken off if not for jazz icon Miles Davis, who helped The Byrds by facilitating your first record deal.Roger McGuinn: It's really off the wall, right? Who would have thought that Miles Davis, the king of jazz trumpet, would have anything to do with folk rock, never mind The Byrds?The Bee: And you were the only member of the band to actually play on the Byrds first single "Mr Tambourine Man" along with several members of The Wrecking Crew. That ensemble is so fascinating, but were you at all intimidated sitting in to record while the rest of the band was relegated to the sidelines?McGuinn: I had been a studio musician in New York for a while, and played on Paul Simon's "The Sound of Silence" demo, I was on Judy Collins's third album as musical director, and I had quite a bit of studio experience. So I was the only guy in The Byrds who had, plus I had the Rickenbacker 12-string and the riff, so it was kind of a no-brainer to play on the session.The Bee: Were you at all intimidated sitting in to record with the Wrecking Crew guys who played with everyone from Sinatra and Elvis, to being the Pet Sounds band for Brian Wilson?McGuinn: I had not been aware there was any such thing as the Wrecking Crew, before that. But I had heard a lot of their music but I had no idea who was playing on all those famous sessions. So I remember the producer Hal Blaine saying 'don't be nervous, kid, go out before the sessions and have a couple of beers.'Rebel Without a Cause (laughing).The Bee: I was re-reading our 2015 chat where we talked about your visiting the Kennedy Space Center, and I understand that your wife, Camilla, recently brought you to the UFO museum and Roswell Art Center in New Mexico. Were you a believer before that trip, or are you one now?McGuinn: I kind of think there's something out there. I think the distances between intelligent life planets are so great it's unreasonable to think they could get here unless they could do it through a time warp somehow - which I guess is possible. It's crazy to think we're the only intelligent life in the whole universe.The Bee: Camilla also posted about turning you on to all the Robert Goddard rocket material at the Roswell Art Center. Did you find that particularly interesting?McGuinn: I did. I found it fascinating because I had not been a student of Robert Goddard prior to that. I knew him as the modern father of rocket science of course, but I didn't realize he invented the stuff. And during World War II when the Germans had the V2 rocket, and the US got a hold of the Nazis and were interrogating them about how they learned to build it, they said, 'What are you talking to us for? We got it all from Robert Goddard.' It proved to me how short-sighted our government was at the time not to embrace what Robert Goddard was doing.The Bee: I've seen you perform 'American Girl' and of course, 'King of the Hill,' on numerous occasions, but am I to understand you are doing an expanded tribute to Tom Petty in your recent live sets?McGuinn: I don't want to give away the cookie, but yes.The Bee: Do you find your fondest memories are of working with Tom - or of times you spent with him after the guitars were put away?McGuinn: Wow, I think we always had guitars around, we'd sit around for hours with guitars and play riffs for each other. I remember Tom played me "Into The Great Wide Open" on acoustic guitar and told him I thought it was a really great song. So there were always guitars around in the rooms of his house where we first met, and all kinds of music equipment. So there weren't too many times we were together when there weren't guitars around.The Bee: Did you see greatness in him from the very beginning of your relationship?McGuinn: I did. I could hear it on his first record. I certainly heard it on "American Girl," and once I started seeing him perform, I said to myself he's really, really good - a really great performer. In a way he was like Mick Jagger, he just had that thing that compelled you to like him.The Bee: Was Petty in the studio for your 2017 session with Chris Hillman on his Bidin' My Time project?McGuinn: Yes. Tom had invited me to preset him with the Songwriter's Hall of Fame award in New York. And at the same time they were booked at Webster Hall to do a concert with [Petty's original band] Mudcrutch. So after the hall of fame induction, Tom invited me to come over and play with Mudcrutch and Herb Peterson was on the tour. He and Chris had been working together for many years, so it was through a kind of natural evolution to bring Tom in to do a record for Chris. Chris and I had always been friendly, but we hadn't been in touch a lot beyond exchanging Christmas cards and stuff, so getting a chance to do that [session] was an amazing and wonderful experience.The Bee: How about your current live set? There are way too many hits you've written or played on to cover, but are you still rolling out new or seldom played tunes to balance out the show?McGuinn: We keep track of which tunes we do at each venue so we can change up the set a bit differently each time we come back and play. There are some things I can't leave out, but we put in some more obscure songs. The whole idea is more like we're telling a story - like The Life of Will Rogers. Except it's about me.For tickets to the Roger McGuinn show, ($39.50) visit the Ridgefield Playhouse box office, call 203-438-5795  or go to ridgefieldplayhouse.org

For Roger McGuinn, its more like every audience member at every show knows most if not all his songs well enough to sing along. On May 9, the Rock and Roll Hall of Famer returns to The Ridgefield Playhouse for an 8 pm show.

McGuinn's musical inspirations are deeply rooted and have woven through the fabric of our culture all these 50-plus years since he teamed up with Gene Clark and put an already successful career into warp speed by forming The Byrds.

In a scant space of nine years, he helped create the tight, soaring harmonies and unique guitar sound behind timeless classics like "Turn! Turn! Turn!," "Eight Miles High," "Mr Spaceman," and "Ballad of Easy Rider," their first number one hit, Bob Dylan's "Tambourine Man," along with "So You Want to Be a Rock 'n' Roll Star," and Clark's "I'll Feel a Whole Lot Better" - both famously covered by the late, great and long time McGuinn collaborator Tom Petty.

His advance points out that McGuinn and that trademark 12-string Rickenbacker sound pioneered folk-rock and by extension, country-rock, influencing contemporaries like the Beatles and the likes of Petty and REM.

According to the bio, after working as a sideman for early folk pioneers like Limeliters, the Chad Mitchell Trio, Judy Collins, and Bobby Darin, McGuinn moved to New York to work for Darin's publishing company, TM Music, as a songwriter in the fabled Brill Building.

It was during his time at the Brill Building that McGuinn heard the Beatles for the first time, and began playing folk songs to a rock beat in the coffee houses of Greenwich Village.

When his experiments in merging folk and rock didn't please folk purists in New York, he moved to Los Angeles. Gigging at the Troubadour and getting picked up to play an opening set for Hoyt Axton, McGuinn was approached by Clark and the pair started writing songs together.

on June 12) joined them, adding his unique concept of harmony to the duo, and completing the underpinnings for The Byrds. Having been influenced by the British Invasion and Dylan, The Byrds went on to influence both the Beatles and Dylan in turn - along with a host of others.

Soon after The Byrds called it quits, McGuinn launched a solo career that yielded ten albums, a Grammy nomination, the FM rock favorite "King Of The Hill" co-written and produced by Petty, and an extensive global touring, lecturing and performing regiment.

Ahead of his May 9 stop in Ridgefield, 

But Benny Shapiro was his agent - and we had auditioned for Benny the night before. He wasn't thrilled with us, but his daughter came running down the stairs and was so excited that we were playing in her living room. When he told Miles about what happened the next morning, Miles said kids know about things like that. He trusted the demographic of the teenage daughter. And Benny ended up signing us.

I was a professional studio musician but these guys were really something. I mean they were doing ten sessions a day every day so their chops were really awesome. And they were a bit older, and I remember they were really cool - they all dressed like James Dean in

It was sort of sneaky how they were this unknown studio band who made all these hits. Back then studio time was really expensive, and when it came to The Byrds, our drummer learned how to play on cardboard boxes a couple of months before we got in the studio, so it was necessary to bring them in for those Byrds sessions.

Tom was a very mild mannered guy, very kind-hearted and generous. He was a delight to be around and we did compare notes. I told him some of the things I'd learned that helped him out. I first met him in '76 so he wasn't a big star at that point, and he became one of the biggest guys in the business. He was never intimidated, though - even by Dylan.

Check out Roger McGuinn performing "I'll Feel a Whole Lot Better" at the Scherr Forum in Thousand Oaks, CA in October 2015:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wMISlpxuXZI

Marty Stuart and guest Roger McGuinn mix it up on "My Back Pages" at Nashville's Ryman Auditorium in June 2012:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l3ChFfKsaXI

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