26 Facts About Joseph Byrd

Joseph Byrd was born in Louisville, Kentucky, and was raised in Tucson, Arizona after his father purchased a mine near the Mexican border.

Joseph Byrd began his graduate studies in composition on a Sollnit Fellowship at Stanford University, where he first met La Monte Young, then a graduate student at the nearby University of California, Berkeley, as well as Terry Riley and Steve Reich.

Joseph Byrd became a part of the proto-Fluxus experiments that were emerging at that time in conjunction with Young, Charlotte Moorman, Yoko Ono, Jackson Mac Low and others.

Joseph Byrd continued to work with La Monte Young, who organised the first concert of Byrd's music in Yoko Ono's loft in March 1961.

Joseph Byrd continued composing, and earned some international interest for his use of vocal and instrumental sound in early minimal music compositions.

Joseph Byrd remains sensitive to the vertical qualities of any given pitch collection, but rather than presenting static drones or sequences of isolated chords, he frequently animates the relationship among the materials through indeterminate procedures and shifting cycles.

Joseph Byrd started work as a staff arranger and producer for Capitol Records, which worked on projects for Time-Life, and he and Moskowitz worked together on arrangements for The Life Treasury Of Christmas Music, released as an LP in 1963.

Late in 1963, Joseph Byrd returned to the West Coast with Moskowitz.

Joseph Byrd enrolled in the musicology doctoral program at UCLA and studied music history, acoustics, psychology of music, and Indian music.

Joseph Byrd developed radical political views, and joined the Communist Party.

On one occasion in 1965, as the concluding part of a series of concerts and events called "Steamed Spring Vegetable Pie", Byrd organized a blues band fronted by his friend Linda Ronstadt, to play during a "happening".

Moskowitz returned to New York in 1966, but she and Joseph Byrd stayed in contact.

In early 1967 Joseph Byrd approached Art Kunkin of the LA Free Press for financial help so he could start a rock group.

When Moskowitz returned to California, she and Joseph Byrd started the United States of America, with another politically radical composer, Michael Agnello.

Joseph Byrd was influenced by groups like The Red Crayola, Country Joe and the Fish, and Blue Cheer, and by the music of maverick American composer Charles Ives, particularly the melody "Columbia, the Gem of the Ocean" often referenced by Ives.

However, the group rapidly fell apart over creative and other differences as well as what Joseph Byrd saw as a lack of record company support.

Joseph Byrd then received the support of John McClure, head of Columbia's Masterworks classical music division, to record a second album.

Joseph Byrd recorded The American Metaphysical Circus, credited to Joe Byrd and the Field Hippies, later in 1968.

Joseph Byrd arranged two tracks on the 1968 album by folk group The Limeliters, Time To Gather Seeds.

Joseph Byrd researched the history of American popular music and, in 1974, founded the Yankee Doodle Society with Clare Spark, to research, promote and perform popular music of the mid-19th century American middle class.

In 1975 Joseph Byrd was approached by Takoma Records to make a record of synthesized Christmas carols, A Christmas Yet to Come, and in 1976, Yankee Transcendoodle, an LP of synthesized patriotic music in conjunction with the United States Bicentennial.

In 1986, Joseph Byrd moved to northern California, where he formed a klezmer group, the Jewish Wedding Band, later renamed Catskills Revival.

Joseph Byrd researched the history of Jewish music in America, locating and performing forgotten pieces from stage shows and films.

In 2006 Joseph Byrd collaborated with the Norwegian improvisation group Spunk and UK sound art unit Dreams of Tall Buildings.

Joseph Byrd began teaching music history and theory at the College of the Redwoods in Eureka in 2000.

Joseph Byrd was for five years a food columnist for the North Coast Journal in Humboldt County, California.