The Sixties Live Again at McGuire Concert

“You know what they say,” he joked, “if you remember the sixties, then you probably weren’t there.” 

It was obvious, however, that many of the several hundred people who gathered on the green at Wrentham Common on July 28 were not only a part of that decade, but also fondly recalled the soundtrack of their generation through the music of artists such as the headliner for the early-evening concert, Barry McGuire.

Together with John York, former member of the iconic rock band the Byrds, McGuire delighted the gathering with a ninety-minute performance, which was sponsored by the Proctor Mansion Inn, in celebration of the Inn’s 150th anniversary.

“A coworker, Cathy Green, is personal friends with Barry,” explained Proctor Mansion Innkeeper, Katie Agnello. McGuire, who arrived in the area last week, was asked by Green if he would consider doing the concert since “he was touring the area” and “had this evening free”. 

The Proctor Mansion Inn, owned by Brian and Dawn Fitzgerald, turned 150 years old this past April and currently is undergoing reconstruction and restoration.

“I’ve gotta tell you,” Fitzgerald joked, “that none of the old stuff ever breaks, it’s always the new stuff.” 

The concert was part of a year-long anniversary celebration which will also feature a Victorian Tea in September and a Victorian Costume Ball, scheduled for October 1.

“The guests (are invited to) show up in costume,” Agnello explained. “There will be a costume contest. The grand prize is a one-night stay at the Inn.”

Fitzgerald told the crowd that the free concert was sponsored by the inn as a way to “thank the folks of Wrentham for all the support you’ve given us. This is our little gift back to the town.”

Following the concert, the audience had an opportunity to meet McGuire in person at a special reception at the inn, which is just across the street from the common.

“We’re going to have a lot of fun tonight,” McGuire told the audience, following his introduction. “This is just the story of John and my lives … the experiences we had during that decade, the people we worked with, the songs that we sang and the behind-the-scenes things that happened to us.”

“We’ll start off right where I started,” he added. “In 1963, (when) I was with a group called the New Christy Minstrels.” The familiar strains of the Minstrel’s hit folk tune “Green Green” began to fill the summer air, as many in the audience nodded their recognition.

McGuire explained that his transition from traditional folk to folk-rock music was a direct result of a “skinny kid, whose guitar case was bigger than he was” arriving on the music scene.

“He had such a hard voice to listen to,” McGuire said, “like somebody stepping on a cat’s tail.”

The attraction, however, was in the songs that he was writing.

“This guy’s music changed the course of music in America, forever,” McGuire said. The singer in question was Bob Dylan.

The Dylan connection continued with McGuire’s telling of how he had been beaten to the punch, on recording another of that songwriter’s compositions.

“One day, Roger McGuinn gave me a ride across town and said that he had a single coming out the following week. I’m sitting in the passenger seat and he’s singing this Dylan tune and it was the very song that I had wanted to record.” The song was the number one smash, “Mr. Tambourine Man”.

“He beat me to it, the bum,” McGuire jokingly compained, before providing the audience with his own rendition of the tune.

McGuire, however, wouldn’t be denied his own number one single; the memorable '60s protest song, “Eve of Destruction,” which hit the top of the charts in 1965.

“Lou Adler introduced me to this 19-year old kid, who had a notebook full of new songs that he’d just written,” McGuire recalled. “His name was Phil Sloan.

"I picked a song out and, a couple of weeks later, we were recording and we’re going to do one take, because we only had 20 minutes left (in the session). I said, ‘Let’s do it and see what it sounds like and then come back next week and do it again.

"That was on Thursday, and, on Monday morning, I got a call from the record company saying ‘turn on KFWB.'” McGuire did, and heard his one-take version of a song which would not only go to the top of the charts but also be one of the most familiar hit records of the sixties.

McGuire relayed other anecdotes, much to the audience’s delight, such as his experiences with other musicians of note, including the members of the Mamas and the Papas, who for a time, served as back-up singers for McGuire.

“The first time I heard the Mamas and the Papas singing, I thought I had died and gone to musical heaven,” he told the audience.

His close association with that group led to other “behind the scenes” stories, such as the time that the group’s chief songwriter, John Phillips, wrote a hit record on a bet.

“He had written all of these hit songs, [but] couldn’t believe that he had done it. I said ‘I’ll bet you $500 that you can’t write a hit song [right now]. He borrowed Denny [Doherty’s] guitar and ….”. With that, McGuire launched into “San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Flowers In Your Hair), which became a hit record for Phillips’ friend, Scott MacKenzie.

He also told of being present when John Sebastian, of the Lovin’ Spoonful, was composing one of that band’s biggest hits; “Daydream.”

McGuire detailed other personal relationships with singer/songwriters such as Harry Nilsson (“Everybody’s Talkin’”) and Tim Hardin (“If I Were a Carpenter”), who lived at McGuire’s house for a time.

One of his favorites, he confessed, was the Mamas and the Papas hit “Creeque Alley”, because, he noted, “it was about ME!”.

The song, which chronicles the group’s history, made mention of the fact that “McGuinn and McGuire, were just a-catchin’ fire in L.A., you know where it’s at."

Though there were no flames in evidence, the enthusiastic response from those in attendance would attest to the fact that McGuire and York’s summer concert was, itself, a hot commodity on this warm July night.