McGuinn, Clark & Hillman (later McGuinn-Hillman) came about in 1979, after three former members of the original Byrds -- Roger McGuinn, Gene Clark, and Chris Hillman -- decided to do a joint tour of Europe, each fronting his own band. The tour itself didn't go off as planned, but the experience of singing together on-stage for the first time in more than ten years worked so well that McGuinn and Clark ended up touring the United States together as a duo, with Hillman and even David Crosby occasionally showing up at their performances (this was how the unofficial "Byrds" reunion concert at the Boarding House in San Francisco came about, later released from a radio tape as Doin' Alright for Old People).

McGuinn, Clark & Hillman (later McGuinn-Hillman) came about in 1979, after three former members of the original Byrds -- Roger McGuinn, Gene Clark, and Chris Hillman -- decided to do a joint tour of Europe, each fronting his own band. The tour itself didn't go off as planned, but the experience of singing together on-stage for the first time in more than ten years worked so well that McGuinn and Clark ended up touring the United States together as a duo, with Hillman and even David Crosby occasionally showing up at their performances (this was how the unofficial "Byrds" reunion concert at the Boarding House in San Francisco came about, later released from a radio tape as Doin' Alright for Old People). Capitol Records became interested in recording the duo, and a contract was signed with McGuinn and Clark, with Hillman coming aboard soon after.

The resulting album, McGuinn, Clark & Hillman, was a bit stiff at times, and in its best moments was closer in spirit to the Eagles than the Byrds, which wasn't so bad -- the Eagles being indirect offshoots of the Byrds, by way of the Flying Burrito Brothers. A tour followed, and things were going well until Clark's health began deteriorating, forcing his exit from the tour. This also created a rift between the ex-bandmates that was never fully healed, and may have been responsible for Clark's not having been asked to participate in the "reunion" tracks recorded for the Byrds box set in the early '90s.

A second album, City, released in 1980, included a pair of Clark songs but was otherwise a McGuinn-Hillman album ("featuring Gene Clark"). It was successful enough to justify a third release, McGuinn/Hillman, but that record proved a group-breaker -- the producers, Jerry Wexler and Barry Beckett, were renowned R&B specialists who evidently just didn't embrace the Byrds' sound or its modern permutations, and neither musician was comfortable with the results. There were a few good songs, mostly written by McGuinn or Hillman, but none of the outside material was really suitable.

Hillman returned to bluegrass, where he'd started his career, and later won several country music awards and cut a string of successful albums with the Desert Rose Band, while McGuinn resumed his solo career, playing the occasional concert and eventually cutting a fairly successful album, Back From Rio. Clark toured nationally with a band called the Firebyrds and cut one album (with another left unfinished) for Allegiance Records in the early '80s, and subsequently recorded with Carla Olsen, but he never really resumed a full-time career. He died in 1991, just a few months after taking the stage with McGuinn, Hillman, and Crosby at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony honoring the Byrds. ~ Bruce Eder, All Music Guide