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First reported by The New York Times and later confirmed by his family to The Los Angeles Times, Joseph Byrd, a co-founder of the band United States of America, passed away at his Medford, Oregon, home on November 2. He was 87 years old.
Born in Louisville on December 19, 1937, Byrd was later raised in Tucson, learning how to play accordion and vibraphone as a child. He attended the University of Arizona, studying composition and later entering a graduate program at Stanford and then the University of California, Berkeley. While in New York, Byrd was heavily influenced by John Cage. Terry Riley and Steve Reich were also prominent figures in his life. With the help of La Monte Young, he played his first concert in 1961 in Yoko Ono’s apartment. Upon arriving in Los Angeles, Byrd joined the communist party and started a blues band with Linda Ronstadt.
Byrd and Moskowitz founded the United States of America in LA in 1967 with Gordon Marron, Rand Forbes, and Craig Woodson. Their self-titled debut album is credited as an early document of electronic rock music, though the group disbanded shortly after its release in 1968. Byrd was a notable leftist and put his beliefs into the music, making the United States of America one of the most radical groups of its time. True pioneers of California’s avant-garde world, the band’s utilization of synths, ring modulators, calliope, and audio processors was primitive. Psych-rock owes a thing or two to Byrd and Moskowitz.
After the United States of America was over, Byrd recorded an underground classic, The American Metaphysical Circus, under the name Joe Byrd and the Field Hippies. He eventually became a professor of American music at California State University, Fullerton, and scored movies for Robert Altman and Agnes Varda.
