How did McGuinn get there?

This post on a blog from the Orlando Sentinel explains it:


McGuinn and his wife, Camilla, had been on the road and didn't even realize that Springsteen and the band were in town. Until, that is, an email late Wednesday afternoon from guitarist Steven Van Zandt..

"It said, 'Sorry about the short notice, but we're in town and we'd love to have you come by and hang out backstage,' "" McGuinn says. "So we arranged to get down there and then he called and said, 'I told Bruce about it and he'd like to do a song.' ''

Like a couple of teen-age garage-banders, McGuinn and Van Zandt went back and forth a bit -- "What do you wanna do?" "I dunno, what do YOU wanna do?" -- before settling on "Turn, Turn, Turn."

"Steven thought it would be appropriate," McGuinn says.

A car was dispatched to take McGuinn to soundcheck. The band does "Turn Turn Turn," and then Bruce wants to play something else. How about "Mr. Tambourine Man"?

McGuinn first sang the single version, but Springsteen tells him "Is that all? I thought there were more words than that."

"I told him, I know 'em all, if you wanna do 'em all," McGuinn says. "They had a little TelePromTer on the stage, so a guy input the lyrics and I already knew 'em, so we did that, too. It was just an email, a phone call and a little ride down there."

McGuinn, who is preparing to release an abridged best-of version of his Folk Den Project boxed set, says it's not the first time he has played with the Boss.

"I played with Bruce at Tom Petty's birthday party in Encino years ago, so we both knew we knew how to do that," says McGuinn, who was lauded by the Boss on stage for his timeless work with the Byrds:

"I must have listened to those songs over 200 times in the dark," Springsteen told the crowd. "Night after night after night. It's some of the most beautiful music ever written."

McGuinn's reaction on Thursday: "it was heartwarming. I didn't realize the extent to which the Byrds had been an influence on him. I knew I was on his iPod."