The Mynah Birds Single Set for Record Store Day

Neil Young Vinyl Shopping - April 16, 2011
Plan9 Music, Richmond, Virginia
Photo by Emaleigh Franzak

Neil Young showed his support of Vinyl & Independent Record Stores last year, doing some shopping at Plan9 Music, in Richmond, Virginia on 2011 Record Store Day.

Record Store Day is April 21st this year and The Mynah Birds have a special release: "It's My Time" b/w "Go On and Cry". The Mynah Birds were a short-lived mid-'60s group with Neil Young and Rick James. In 1965, they recorded tracks for Motown that never saw an official release -- until now have only been released in the Archives and Hipo-Select Motown boxsets. (Thanks Glorious Noise for correction!)


Rick James

Funk legend Rick James, the flashy Motown Records artist was best known for his 1981 hit 'Super Freak'.

While much is known about James' "Super Freak" period, relatively little is known about the period during the 1960's when he formed a band known as the Mynah Birds with Neil Young, Goldie McJohn (later of Steppenwolf) and Bruce Palmer (later of Buffalo Springfield). The name of the band Mynah Birds was apparently a takeoff of the well known folk-rock band The Byrds.

In an interview with Neil Young in MOJO Magazine in 1995, Neil was asked about a 1965 Mynah Birds album being recorded which never was released.

YOUNG: "Yeah, there are tapes of me and The Mynah Birds also. After I arrived in Toronto I tried to keep my band going and then tried to work with several others. But it just never worked out for me there. I could never get anything going in Toronto, never even got one gig with a band. I just couldn't break into that scene. So I moved instead towards acoustic music and immediately became very introspective and musically-inward. That's the beginning of that whole side of my music."

More on The Super Freak and The Loner: Rick James and Neil Young.

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