The Long Ryders

The Long Ryders took their name from Walter Hill's film The Long Riders, and their sound from a record collection that took in Gram Parsons, the Byrds, country and punk rock. Sid Griffin and Stephen McCarthy sang and played guitars, Greg Sowders drummed, and Des Brewer played bass on the 10-5-60 EP before Tom Stevens took over, a lineup that held for the rest of their recording life. Two of them had come west from the American South, but Los Angeles made them its own, and they were part of the Paisley Underground crowd.

What they played was jangly, twangy and tough, like Rubber Soul-era Beatles and electric Dylan run through Buffalo Springfield and the Flying Burrito Brothers, but meaner. Griffin, the obsessive record collector, brought the punk; McCarthy brought the old-school country. On Native Sons, their 1984 album, former Byrd Gene Clark lent his voice to "Ivory Tower", which is about as good a blessing as a band like this could get, and "Lookin' For Lewis and Clark" charges along with the same frontier spirit.

They were at it mainly from 1982 to 1987, a decade ahead of the alternative country boom, and they've kept coming back: reunions in 2004, 2009, 2014 and 2016, and in 2019 they released their first studio record in 32 years and went back on the road to play it.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.