Jim McGuinn, later known as Roger, was already a veteran of the New York and Los Angeles music scene when he co-founded the group that would become the Byrds with Gene Clark and David Crosby in 1964.
Roger McGuinn, prior to forming the Byrds, toured and performed
folk music with the Limeliters, Chad Mitchell Trio and
Bobby Darin as a guitarist and banjo player. McGuinn, a Chicago native, studied at the Old Town School of Folk Music and was active on Chicago’s folk scene, where he was strongly influenced as a teenager by
Bob Gibson. Within a few weeks of finishing high school, McGuinn was working with the Limeliters in California, and he played guitar and banjo on their album “Tonight: In Person.”
