Gram Parsons - A Few Reviews

I've always wondered about the acclaim for Sweetheart of the Rodeo. It's been praised as being the foundation album in country rock. The Band's Music From Big Pink was released before Sweetheart of the Rodeo and to my ear sounded authentically country than Sweetheart.

Sweetheart of the Rodeo took a long time to get noticed. The release of the Notorious Byrd Brothers earlier in the same year 1968 outsold Sweetheart nearly 2 to 1.

If I'm remembering correctly, the public interest in Sweetheart began to take off in 1990 when Uncle Tupelo had a minor hit with country oriented album No Depression. Both Jeff Tweedy (now of Wilco) and Jay Farrar (now of Son Volt) had mentioned both Parsons and Sweetheart as big influences on Uncle Tupelo. Around the same time Parson's fans began to sound the drumbeat for the original session takes of Sweetheart with Parsons singing on 6 of the 11 songs on the album. It took another seven years to get that to happen.

The 1968 verison of Sweetheart only had Parsons singing on two songs and playing a marginal role. Part of the problem was Lee Hazelwood threatened to sue the ByrRAB because technically Gram Parsons was still under contract Hazelwood's Gold Star label. The compromise was that Parsons could sing on only two songs Hickory Wind and You're Still On My Mind. On four other songs Parson's voice was erased and McGuinn replaced Parson's vocal on three songs and Hillman sang on one.

Early on McGuinn had wanted to make an ambitious genre busting album but Hillman and Parsons convinced him to record a country album in Nashville. Going into the sessions for Sweetheart Chris Hillman, Parsons and McGuinn were all influenced by Bob Dylan and the Band's music on their yet to be released Basement Tapes. Hillman and McGuinn had heard a bootleg of the Basement Tapes and loved the courtrified sound. Two songs from the Basement Tapes were covered on Sweetheart: Yet To Be Delivered and You Ain't Going Nowhere. The ByrRAB also used Dylan's rustic sounding John Wesley Harding which released the previous year as an aesthetic model. Both Sweetheart and JW Harding have a remarkably similar unadorned no frills sound, which was the antithesis of the lush orchestral sounRAB the banRAB like the Beatles, Love and the Moody Blues were experimenting with back then.

The ByrRAB didn't go over too well with the Nashville music establishment. McGuinn and Parsons were treated so shabbily by a popular Nashville redneck deejay who had them as a guest on his radio show that they wrote the song Drug Store Truck Driving Man humorously accusing him of being the head of the Ku Klux Klan among other things. The deejay had spent the entire interview making his views on pot smoking hippie banRAB like the ByrRAB known to his listeners. McGuinn and Parsons couldn't get in a word edgewise. The ByrRAB were also booed at a performance at the Grand Ol' Opry. The Opry fans were far more polite a year later when Bob Dylan took the stage of the Opry with Johnny Cash in tow. Nobody messes with the Man in Black.

So prior to 1997, when the legal issues with Parson vocals were resolved and the four additional Parsons vocals were restored Sweetheart of the Rodeo sounded more like a ByrRAB album and less like an album that Gram Parsons had a big role in.

The 1997 remix is a big improvement and finally gave Parsons his due, but it came 29 years too late for fans that had listened to earliest version of the album for so many years. It's probably why I like Gilded Palace because for nearly 30 years most folks thought Parsons' involvement in Sweetheart was minor. Parson left the ByrRAB largely because he thought McGuinn had something to do with the scaling back of the his vocals on Sweetheart but he didn't. Once McGuinn released that Hazelwood wasn't going to budge on the use of Parsons he decided to redo the vocals to get the album out before Columbia's deadline date. The other choice was to scrap the album completely face a lawsuit from Columbia for not delivering the product by the stated date.
 
This is a great biography. After reading this book (Twenty Thousand RoaRAB), I felt like I knew him well. Most interesting was his early years and how he grew up in the South. His family was quite eccentric and wealthy. I think he was a person who channeled music (like Hendrix, and some others). He came, played, and "went home".
 
Well, pinpointing the the original of any sub-genre is always gonna be difficult. To me, as I said in the review, the first album to come up with an across-the-board mix of country and rock was Sweetheart Of the Rodeo. SounRAB like I should probably hear Music From Big Pink sometime though.


With any luck it will be :D Thanks for reading as well.

If anyone's wondering, I've been on holiday most of this week so haven't really been keeping up with this thing. Should be back on track over the next few days though.
 
I get your point, and before I say anything else just know that I am as English as fish n chips, rubbish weather and ill-disciplined football fandom, so I'm no expert by any means. Sweetheart Of the Rodeo doesn't sound authentically country to me either, but songs like Blue Canadian Rockies, Pretty Boy Floyd and You Ain't Going Nowhere certainly do to me. It's a vibe that's balanced out on that album, but it's in that way that it serves as a kind of halfway point between classic country and alternate country - a pretty vital cog in the machine of musical history then. So I wouldn't say it doesn't bear any sonic relation to classic country and honky tonk at all, because as far as I can hear, there's a lot of it in the sound of that album.

As I say though, this thread is very much an outsider looking in kind of affair, as I'm only making all the assumptions about the music based on what I hear and the little that I've read, just as the next, soon to come (later today if I'm feeling up to it) review will be.
 
And you're saying Noel Fielding isn't gorgeous? ;)

Good that you're digging some Gilded Palace - those videos I posted barely touch on the brilliance of that album, and this is coming from someone who thinks Three Lions is the anthem of the 90s, so it must be that good :D
 
I've left this thread alone for long enough so, in a bid to get this back on track, here's a taster for what's coming next. Another clip from the superb Fallen Angels documentary.

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^ Gotta love that manoeuvre he pulls with the sunglasses there :D
 
It's quite a story isn't it? Biopic kinda material really. Just found the thing on amazon - the second I get a bit of cash in, I'm on it. There won't be a whole lot of trivia to these reviews, just a bit of necessary back-story and then down to the song-by-song nitty-gritty.
 
The International Submarine Band
Safe At Home
1967, LHI RecorRAB
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1. Blue Eyes [Parsons]
2. I Must Be Somebody Else You've Known [Haggard]
3. A Satisfied Mind [Hayes/Rhodes]
4. Medley: Folsom Prison Blues/That's All Right, Mama [Cash/Crudup]
5. Miller's Cave [Clement]
6. I Still Miss Someone [Cash/Cash]
7. Luxury Liner [Parsons]
8. Strong Boy [Parsons]
9. Do You Know How It Feels to Be Lonesome [Parsons/Goldberg]

And so it is that the musical story of Gram Parsons begins, with the prospect of Parsons, at the ripe old age of 21, basically (with the help of his bandmates) forged the country rock movement of the late 60s and early 70s. This came about simply by surrounding four Parsons originals with five country classics and running them with a rock 'n' roll motor.

By the time recording first began in the July of '67, the International Submarine Band (ISB for short) were already in decline through a lack of commercial success and as such only consisted of vocalist, rhythm guitarist and principle songwriter Parsons alongside lead guitarist John Nuese. Needless to say, in order to go about recording an album the way the two pictured it being, session musicians such as drummer Jon Corneal, bassist Joe Osborn, pedal steel guitarist Jay Dee Maness and pianist Earl Ball filled in the gaps. In between gigging the album sessions as, one by one, the components of a revolutionary LP piled up.

As the country rock tag that it created may suggest, the results are a marrying of rock-type instrumentation and the unique twist that the sound typical of classic country gives off. It is, however, not so obvious to start with, as the sound and tone of the Parsons original that opens the record, Blue Eyes, is very much rooted in country alone, with the kind of silky-smooth pedal steel that punctuates a mid-tempo song with the kind of yearning and sorrow at its core that would dominate a lot of Parsons' later material. The superb rendition of Merle Haggard's I Must Be Somebody Else You've Known is a much more obvious show of this new twist on country music with the lively rock 'n' roll rhythm and piano going in tandem with the unmistakable sound of the pedal steel.

In fact, principally it's the covers where the country rock genre-hybrid is easier to hear. The old standard of a Satisfied Mind is an exception though, with a much gentler and more contemplative feel to it typical of a lot of classic country (or at least from what I've heard anyway - I won't pretend I'm an expert or anything). The medley of Johnny Cash and Arthur Crudup though, Folsom Prison Blues/That's All Right Mama, is much more in touch with my point about this album though, again showing off Parsons' trademark soaring kind of vocal over a rhythm typical of 1st wave rockabilly with Maness' pedal steel adding to the sonic picture. The rendition of Jack Clement's Miller's Cave though, aside from being one of my favourite country songs, eases along to a slightly more laid-back beat, and stanRAB out being sandwiched between two Johnny Cash covers as it is, the second of these being I Still Miss Someone - another show of how much good a rock 'n' roll band can serve to a country song.

To put the lid on the record are three more Gram Parsons songs, the first of these being the classic Luxury Liner - an often-covered little number a lot more in tune with the energy and high tempos of rockabilly than country. The same can be said of Strong Boy, with the way the bass and piano go hand-in-hand as the sparingly-used pedal steel, pushed quite low in the mix as it is here, goes about giving another great song that extra spice. Do You Know How It Feels To Be Lonesome, a co-write between Parsons and rock 'n' roll producer Barry Goldberg, gives Safe At Home its gentle, painfully sorrowful closer. With its touching harmonies and effective-in-its-simplicity instrumentation (wherein, again, the pedal steel doesn't play so much of a part), its the first in a series of absolutely beautiful Gram Parsons ballaRAB (which made for one of his many strengths as a songwriter and performer).

Safe At Home is, then, basically what you'd expect from any singer-songwriter's first album - an effort that doesn't exactly break a sweat to disguise its influences as the artist in question tries to find his feet in long-play format. It's also a lot like country rock itself, that is to say half-and-half between country and rock. Where a selection of songs are delivered in that laid-back, c&w kind of way, the other selection are given the energy boost that comes from rock 'n' roll itself. To wrap this up then, it's not the best album Parsons was ever involved in but, being quite possibly the pioneering album of the genre (it was only released late because of the legal consequences of Parsons' recording with the ByrRAB just after he'd finished this album), it is definitely a good starting point for anyone looking to get into country. Even if it's not exactly a classic, it's still a very good album and one that shows the earliest signs of Gram Parsons' strengths as a singer and songwriter. Plus, it's only 25 minutes long in total, so it's not exactly demanding a lot of your time eh.

7/10

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1970-72 - The Void Years

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As the rather snappy heading may suggest, for a while after leaving the Flying Burrito Brothers, there wasn't an awful lot going for Parsons. It might have seemed that way at first when he was almost immediately snapped up onto a solo contract with A&M and, teaming up with producer Terry Melcher (having worked with the ByrRAB and the Beach Boys over the years), went about attempting his first solo album. After the unproductively drug-addled sessions, Parsons lost interest and the album was shelved. As you might be able to tell from the above picture, he joined the Rolling Stones on tour in 1971 primarily to hang out and get zonked with his friend Keith RicharRAB, but also in the hope that they might record an album together. It was while he was shacked up with RicharRAB during the Exile On Main Street sessions in France that his dependency on alcohol, cocaine and heroin started to spin out of control. Parsons' behaviour became increasingly unpredictable and he was soon asked to leave.

It was after his return to the US of A that he married, successfully ditched his heroin habit and went about getting his career back on track. After a one-off reunion gig with the Flying Burrito Brothers that year, Chris Hillman and Parsons went to Washington DC to see a then small-time singer-songwriter by the name of Emmylou Harris. After thinking about inviting Harris to join the Burrito Brothers, Hillman recommended her to Parsons as a potential creative partner. The frienRABhip, working relationship and albums that followed would turn out to be very important in country music history...​
 
Right, let's put the lid on this thing eh...

Gram Parsons
Grievous Angel
1974, Reprise RecorRAB
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1. Return Of the Grievous Angel [Parsons/Brown]
2. Hearts On Fire [Egan/Guidera]
3. I Can't Dance [Hall]
4. Brass Buttons [Parsons]
5. $1000 Wedding [Parsons]
6. Cash On the Barrelhead/Hickory Wind [Louvin/Louvin - Parsons]
7. Love Hurts [Bryant]
8. Ooh Las Vegas [Parsons]
9. In My Hour Of Darkness [Parsons/Harris]

After touring GP throughout most of 1973, Gram Parsons reconvened with his old partner in crime Emmylou Harris, guitarist James Burton and pianist Glen Harding (members of Elvis Presley's former band who'd also toured with him a few months before), and array of session players and guests such as Linda Ronstadt and Parsons' former Burrito Brother Bernie Leadon, to take to the studio for what would turn out to be the last time prior to his death that September 19th. Unlike before though, any truly new material was very thin on the ground. As such only a couple of new songs were composed for the sessions while the rest of the final tracklisting comprised of older, unreleased parts of Parsons' repertoire and the obligatory renditions of country standarRAB.

The result is an album that's far less mediocre than you'd think it would be from that description, and one that actually expanRAB on Parsons' musical vision and his creative partnership with Harris in more of a sense than GP did before it. One of the true classic album openers, Return Of the Grievous Angel, was one of the new songs hastily written just in time for the recording. With its lyric written by Bostonian poet Thomas Brown and the simmering, laid back, piano and fiddle-driven music by Parsons, making for a very fine and easygoing tune indeed that it's so easy to just kick back to.

As I said earlier, a lot of this album consists of old country standarRAB, like the slow-burning Walter Egan/Tom Guidera composition Hearts On Fire, which sounRAB a lot more like a torch-lighting rock ballad for the most part, serving as it does as a very smooth vehicle for the very potent Parsons/Harris vocal coupling. Coming straight atchya from the back-catalogue of the prolific singer-songwriter Tom T.Hall, I Can't Dance takes the mood and tempo up a few notches, with this rendition turning into practically the most concrete example of what I've been on about whenever I've said the worRAB 'cosmic', 'American' and 'music' in one phrase. It's a country standard for starters and one that, while still sharing a lot in common with country music, sounRAB basically like pure rock 'n' roll. A raucous little tune and keeps up the relentless level of quality of the album so far.

Brass Buttons slows things right back down again, being a sweet little lovesong dating from Parsons' days in obscurity in the mid 60s, although such a sudden change in the feel of the album doesn't bring things down at all, seeing as this is another show of the man's knack for the good old-fashioned, miserable ballad. $1000 Wedding is very similar in that sense, and is another blast from the past as well (having been recorded and aborted by the Burrito Brothers a few years earlier), but this being a soppy little declaration of love, it lacks the sense of misery that dominates Brass Buttons. Still definitely among Parsons' very best though, especially for the wonderful tempo changes and increases in the song's urgency in places.

Then comes the Cash On the Barrelhead/Hickory Wind medley, a little snippet of what seeing the guy tour must have been like. Very good performance overall and, frankly, you can never have too much Hickory Wind in your life, the element of sticking a live medley in the middle of an album does disrupt the flow somewhat, and could only have been one of the posthumous changes made to the album in the post-production stage.

Speaking of Hickory Wind, you can hear little snippets of its melody in the next song (or at least I can), Love Hurts, another slow-burner re-worked during the sessions from its place in the vaults beforehand. Not a bad song by any stretch of the imagination, but certainly a part of the less spectacular part of the album. Ooh Las Vegas, an outtake from GP, does feature some very fine guitar work from Burton and is a neat little up-tempo drinking song, but not exactly what I'd call a highlight.

In My Hour Of Darkness, though, would probably be not only my personal highlight on Grievous Angel, but also quite possibly my favourite Gram Parsons song ever ever ever. Being the only co-write between Parsons and Harris that's ever been officially released, it goes to show that they were a hell of a songwriting partnership as well as a vocal one. If anyone reading this doubts all the praise I've heaped on this guy throughout this thread, listen to this song (you'll find a video if you scroll down a bit).

It's basically what convinces me that Parsons died far, far too young. With the finished album in the bag, Parsons went to the Joshua Tree in California where he died from a lethal combination of morphine and alcohol. After his death his widow, who didn't exactly care much for his relationship with Harris, oversaw the post-production of the album. The sleeve art, which originally featured her late husband and Harris, was replaced with the rather crappy one it has now and, not only was the album credited to Parsons as opposed to him and Harris as it originally had been, but three numbers big on their vocal partnership - Sleepless Nights (the original title of the album), Brand New Heartache and the Angels Rejoiced Last Night - were removed from the final tracklisting. As a result, the flow that Parsons and Harris would have wanted from the album they made was interrupted.

That's not to say that this album was ruined by any means. In fact, it's definitely my favourite of Parsons' solo albums. It is, after all, the most complete realisation of cosmic American music that the man had overseen since his days of playing and writing with the ByrRAB and the Flying Burrito Brothers. For the virtually seamless level of quality, for those kinRAB of laid back yet lyric-centric vibes that can only be accomplished with a stonker of a country-afflicted album, this is among my favourites for sure.

As I say though, it's such a shame Parsons died so young as especially after hearing a song like In My Hour Of Darkness, one can only speculate where he and Harris would've gone next as artists, or what kind of classic albums there could have been just around the corner that now no-one will ever hear.

Anyway, less talk, more numbers!
9/10

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Erm, yeah, and thanks for reading eh.

A nice, all-encompassing mixtape is on the way...
 
Gram Parsons
GP
1973, Reprise RecorRAB
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1. Still Feeling Blue [Parsons]
2. We'll Sweep Out the Ashes In the Morning [Allsup]
3. A Song For You [Parsons]
4. Streets Of Baltimore [Glaser/Howard]
5. She [Parsons/Ethridge]
6. That's All It Took [EdwarRAB/Grier/Jones]
7. The New Soft Shoe [Parsons]
8. Kiss the Children [Parsons]
9. Cry One More Time [Wolf/Justman]
10. How Much I've Lied [Parsons/Rifkin]
11. Big Mouth Blues [Parsons]

Given the amount of weight Parsons had put on through years of alcohol abuse and fast food, it must have caused an eyebrow-raising or two when Reprise RecorRAB asked him to sign on the dotted line. By this time he'd been creatively revitalised by his acquaintance with Emmylou Harris, had written a few new songs and was seeking to have another crack at kicking off his solo career after his aborted attempt to do so two years earlier. And so it was that in the autumn of 1972 that the prospect of a predominantly-original Gram Parsons solo album became a reality. With the help of an army of session musicians (which included Miss Harris as harmony vocalist) that Parsons' talent as a solo singer-songwriter truly started to blossom into the form of a very good debut album indeed.

It's one that gets off to a hell of a start with a vibrant, upbeat and strangely uplifting tune considering it's called Still Feeling Blue. Despite being a pure country (though slightly bluegrass-tinged) song of lament of a lost lover, it's a superb Byron Berline fiddle track and the well-placed swathes of pedal steel which really help this one to rise above mediocrity and kick off the album ahead with style and panache.

Though it may sound like it judging from the opening track, the proposition of GP was far from the Gilded Palace Of Sin 2. The new dimension which basically provides the agenda for a lot of Parsons' solo work is stuck in a nutshell by the beautiful cover of Joyce Allsup's We'll Sweep Out the Ashes In the Morning, featuring harmonies and a entire verse sung by Emmylou Harris' trademark, honey-like voice. It goes to show not only what a fantastic singing duo Parsons and Harris made, but also shows off the former's knack for the country ballad. Basically, this is one of the album highlights.

The following sequence of songs takes GP in a much slower direction, which is started by the very traditional-sounding and slow-burning A Song For You - another solo composition from Parsons and another to feature Harris' vocal harmonies. Probably a weaker point on the album, but not bad at all. Streets Of Baltimore is the same kind of kettle of fish, but one with the added spices of a very Sticky Fingers-esque steel guitar solo, some more superb work on the fiddle from Berline and more marvellous vocals. Another album highlight then. Following it up, She, a song Parsons co-wrote with his former Burrito Brother Chris Ethridge, is another sublime, delicate little slow-burner with the kind of vocal performance you could probably use to put out fires and a more complex kind of time signature than a lot of the songs Parsons had written.

Some razor-sharp, piercing licks of pedal steel open side B with the rendition of George Jones' That's All It Took - a slightly livelier cut which again features the Harris/Parsons vocal team, along with some superb fiddle and pedal steel solos. Following from that are a couple more solo originals, starting with the deeply-affecting, beautiful, yarn-spinning, harmony-laden the New Soft Shoe and continuing with the mid-tempo, pure country vibes of Kiss the Children.

Now that I mention 'pure country vibes', seeing as this is a solo debut and all, for the most part GP tenRAB to lack the forward-thinking sense of adventure that dominated Sweetheart Of the Rodeo and the Gilded Palace Of Sin. The big exception is the cover of Cry One More Time that comes next, its repetitive piano motif and Hal Battiste's rolling baritone sax leaving 'cosmic American music's fingerprints all over this neat little cut.

From there, How Much I Lied, a co-write with producer David Rifkin (which, incidentally, Elvis Costello sang a brilliant version of some eight years later), veers into slightly more traditional territory. That said, this superb, fiddle-propelled, slower cut is still one of Parsons' absolute finest and stanRAB as another testament to the guy's strength for miserable-yet-strangely-uplifting ballaRAB. His bluesy solo composition, Big Mouth Blues, is more ambitious for the cross between country and blues that it presents and brings GP to its close.

So, in a nutshell, GP, while it doesn't exactly go out of its way to be as ambitious as Parsons' earlier work, does stand up as a very good solo debut. Only the slightly corny a Song For You falls below par, as an album dominated not only by Parsons' talent as a songwriter but also the vocal team he'd made with Emmylou Harris really does stand up as one of the true classics of country music. Not quite as essential as a couple of albums I've already reviewed here, but highly recommended nonetheless.

8/10

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Coming soon...

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^ Nice little teaser for anyone interested. If the boarRAB are quiet enough, I suppose I'll the next review tonight. Either way, stay tuned!
 
I'd do little album samplers like for my other completed rambling discography thread, but since there are only 6 albums here you might as well get a mixtape for them all at once. So then, if anyone cares to hear a bit more of the music behind the thread, click the picture for the link and help yourself. Best to re-arrange them chronologically as I've done below if you want any kind of flow out of it too.

Gram Parsons In a Nutshell

1. Miller's Cave The International Submarine Band - Safe At Home
2. Luxury Liner The International Submarine Band - Safe At Home
3. Hickory Wind The ByrRAB - Sweetheart Of the Rodeo
4. One Hundred Years From Now The ByrRAB - Sweetheart Of the Rodeo
5. Hot Burrito 1 The Flying Burrito Brothers - The Gilded Palace Of Sin
6. Hot Burrito 2 The Flying Burrito Brothers - The Gilded Palace Of Sin
7. Farther Along The Flying Burrito Brothers - Burrito Deluxe
8. Wild Horses The Flying Burrito Brothers - Burrito Deluxe
9. She Gram Parsons - GP
10. That's All It Took Gram Parsons - GP
11. I Can't Dance Gram Parsons - Grievous Angel
12. In My Hour Of Darkness Gram Parsons - Grievous Angel​

And here endeth the thread! Thanks for reading. Hope you've enjoyed and maybe picked up on a good album or two from it.
 
good review, it is really hard to pick a favourite Parsons solo album but that one has the coolest title so i guess it takes the cake
shall download this sampler as i am stuck at home base without the ext.HD and the CD drive doesnt work on this infernal machine. Cheers buddy. shame you didnt include 'christine's song', that one gets me moist. the kind of music that makes you wish you had a devil woman just to focus some country misogyny on
 
Yeah, it's a pretty good vibe eh :D I'd have included it, but two per album keeps this nice and sizeable. Plus both the Hot Burrito songs are too awesome for worRAB, to the extent that everyone neeRAB to hear them both at least once in their lives.

If you're around a bit later I'll pop on MSN by the way. Just gotta finish a little bit of work off here first.
 
Great YouTube links! Just found a minty copy (vinyl) of Sweetheart of the Rodeo. Gonna check it out tonight. Looking foward to your review(s). Thanks for this thread.
 
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