Seated in front of floor-to-ceiling shelves of CDs in the office of his house in the New York City suburbs, Ricky Byrd playfully grouses about the task at hand: picking 10 albums that changed his life.
"It’s very hard to narrow it down," the former guitarist in Joan Jett & the Blackhearts and now a solo artist, tells us via Zoom, noting that a mountain of vinyl is out of sight of the camera. "There’s a million of ’em that I love." Nevertheless, he says, “I based this on stuff I still listen to, but there are tons more I could put on here."
It’s a good time to get a little retrospection from the Bronx-born Byrd. He’s just released his latest album, NYC Made, his first for Little Steven Van Zandt’s Wicked Cool label. (Van Zandt plays mandolin on the track "Anna Lee" and is part of the “Ba ba black sheep” backing vocal chorus.) The 12-track set, produced by Byrd and regular collaborator Bob Stander, is loaded with nostalgia and sentimental rock and roll memories, whether referencing the New York City Top 40 of his youth in "Transistor Radio Childhood" or declaring "RnR’s Demise (Has Been Greatly Exaggerated)" and celebrating "The Best of Times."
Byrd also pays homage to the Jeff Beck with "Rhapsody in Blues (One for Jeff)," touching on the blues, rock and fusion aspects of the late electric guitar player's career.
"Each song has a different story," Byrd notes. "As you get older, man, you start looking back a little bit. I love to put in stuff that might remind you of when you were a kid. That’s how I wrote stuff.
“There’s a saying in recovery that it’s okay to look back — just don’t stare."
Sober himself for 38 years, Byrd remains active in the recovery community, but after two albums — Clean Getaway in 2015 and Sobering Times in 2021 — focusing on that he wanted to make NYC Made different.
"The last two albums were recovery based. Those were tunes I would play when I do recovery groups around the country in treatment facilities," he explains. "This time I said, ‘Okay, lemme hold off on that and write about different stuff.’
“’’Glamdemic Blues’ was back in the pandemic when we were locked in our houses — ‘When can I get out of here? Just give me one Saturday night!’ ‘Alien,’ on the other hand, was written the day after I watched The Day the Earth Stood Still on TCM and had a dream I was being interrogated by three aliens right out of the movie...and Steven Van Zandt was sitting to my right."
He laughs.
“That’s different, right? My thing is always I want to make people smile, especially in these times. I’m a byproduct of a lot of things, and my influences are always on my sleeve. I think you can hear that."
With that in mind, these are the 10 albums Byrd still hears on a regular basis
Live at the Harlem Square Club, 1963 — Sam Cooke
“This is a must-have for any education on soul music. There’s two (live) albums he did, this and Sam Cooke at the Copa [1964]. But he’s playing for a white audience on Live at the Copa. You can tell by his choice of music and just the way he did his thing. But, man, on Harlem Square Club he’s Sam Cooke, the gospel guy. He just lets it go and burns.”
Blues Breakers with Eric Clapton — John Mayall
“The sound alone is worth being here for, the guitar sound. All us guitar players are still trying to recreate the sound he got on ‘Steppin’ Out’ — ‘He used this! He used that! No, no, it was a Marshall combo!’ That to me is one of the greatest guitar sounds. Live Cream with ‘Crossroads’ was great, too, but I’ll say Blues Breakers, with the Beano Les Paul.”
Sinatra at the Sands — Frank Sinatra
“He’s just magnificent, and you it’s got Count Basie and his Orchestra. It’s perfect. You can’t say much more than that.”
Are You Experienced — The Jimi Hendrix Experience
“That’s the first album I purchased with my own money — that and the first Monkees album on the same day, but I’m not gonna put the Monkees album on here even though it’s great, too. This has ‘Purple Haze,’ first of all; that was a song you heard on Top 40 radio ’cause it was a hit single, and you didn’t hear much of the other stuff. I could actually learn that riff as a blossoming guitar player when I was a kid. And it had ‘Foxey Lady,’ too, just one great song after another.
“And of course you stared at the record cover ’cause of how they were dressed. I still pull it out. I loved Band of Gypsys, too; if you hear a better guitar than on ‘Machine Gun,’ let me know. But Are You Experienced was the one that really grabbed me first.”
Truth — Jeff Beck
“I listened to it when I was a kid, and I still listen to that record now. His guitar sound, first of all; he was still playing blues-based stuff back then, but not like Jimmy Page and Clapton. This stuff, it was just dirty, and he had multiple guitars. You’d hear different stuff like "You Shook Me" and "I Ain’t Superstitious" — that was stuff that made you go, "Oh, I want to do that!” He was unique sounding, and his guitar with Rod’s voice was just a great combination. Of course I love everything he did after that, but there was something about hearing Truth as a teenager that made me want to pick up a Les Paul.”
Get Yer Ya-Ya’s Out! — The Rolling Stones
“As a kid I would stare at the back cover with the pictures of the Stones, and it would make me want to be that guy — Mick and Keith and Charlie. And when Mick says, ‘Chollie’s good tonight,’ that became part of the lexicon of rock and roll. Musicians just look at each other and go, ‘How you doing?’ ‘Oh, Chollie’s good tonight’ — that’s where it came from.
“And on ‘Little Queenie,’ the Chuck Berry song, if you notice Watts comes in on the wrong beat. It’s famous for that. Sometimes when I do an event with Liberty DeVitto on drums, we’ll do ‘Little Queenie’ and Liberty does the same thing — instead of coming down on the downbeat he comes down on the upbeat. That always gives me the chills.”
Live at Leeds — The Who
“This was a tough one. I love My Generation and The Who Sell Out and all their early records. I was trying to play Tommy when I was a kid. But Live at Leeds...
“First of all, Joan and the Blackhearts played that same college when we were over in England. And my bands, my garage bands, we would do that version of ‘Summertime Blues’ when we’d play dances, and ‘Shakin’ All Over.’ And the whole Tommy thing being in there…
“It’s such an important album. And when you opened it up it came with all the stuff — a poster, their contract. The whole experience of that album was just cool.”
Performance: Rockin’ the Fillmore — Humble Pie
“This was one of my favorite bands from the ’70s. I became friends with Steve Marriott and Peter Frampton later. I can’t tell you how many times I listened to Rockin’ the Fillmore. I knew every shout-out that Steve did — ‘We go home Monday, but I have to tell you, we have had a gas’ was, again, part of that rock and roll lexicon that people would repeat constantly.
“It’s got ‘Four Day Creep,’ ‘I Don’t Need No Doctor,’ which is a Ray Charles tune. Every song on there is unbelievable. Peter Frampton’s playing on that album was just ridiculous. He was so much harder to nick riffs off of ‘cause he came from a jazz background and you could hear it in there. That’s what made him so special next to Steve Marriott, who was more of a crunchy guitar players — and one of my favorites, just a great rock and roll soul singer.
Every Picture Tells a Story — Rod Stewart
“They were a big influence when I was a kid, the Faces and Rod Stewart. And Every Picture Tells a Story was a complete favorite of mine, and I still listen to it to this day. It was just such a part of my teenage years of going out and dressing like that, like Rod. It was on the jukebox at Max’s Kansas City. It was just sloppy, drunken sailor music. And ‘Maggie May’ — when you were a teenager falling in love or getting your rocks off somewhere, going to clubs in the city, it was all about ‘Maggie May.’ I got to see the Faces. I remember Rod coming out and saying, ‘How do you like me green suit?’ I still remember one-liners like that.”
Exile on Main St. — The Rolling Stones
“When you read now about how high and everyone was and what it was like recording at that place in France [Nellcôte], and that it was done in the basement, and all the hangers-on that came by while they were recording… The whole business of it makes it just so legendary. If you listen carefully, it’s not a very neat album. It’s sloppy as hell, but that’s what I’m into: sloppy rock and roll. ‘Rip This Joint,’ ‘Happy’… Come on! ‘Happy’ is a classic, like every song on there.
“When I was touring with Joan, I would listen to the cassette on my boom box every day before the show; ‘Okay, time to leave for the show in an hour and a half,’ and then I’d put it on and get in the shower and get all pumped up. There were also some great pictures on the cover, too.”
