“Morrison was very clever. He was a regular guy but he really played that image of his well. He was an actor”: The Byrds’ Roger McGuinn on John Lennon’s dangerous side, the myth of Jim Morrison and the forgotten guitar player who was as good as Hendrix

The Byrds’ Roger McGuinn posing for a photograph in the late 1960s.

Reel off any number of watersheds in rock history and it’s odds-on you’ll find Roger McGuinn was involved. He was singer and guitarist with The Byrds, whose 1965 chart-topping take on Bob Dylan’s Mr Tambourine Man bridged the gap between folk and rock. The following year’s Eight Miles High, propelled by McGuinn’s dizzying Rickenbacker riff, ushered in a new era of space-rock, while 1968’s Sweetheart Of The Rodeo album brought country to the hippie crowd. McGuinn’s solo career hasn’t been bad, either; he’s played with Dylan, Springsteen, Tom Petty and Bo Diddley.

“The 60s were very hectic and intense,” he told Classic Rock, when we sat down with him in 2009 to look back on some of the musicians and collaborators he’d crossed paths with. “You always had the feeling people were gonna pull your eyes out”.