In 1973, a year after CCR disbanded and Lou Reed released "Walk On the Wild Side," Gram Parsons died in a resort town in the California desert. In fact, it's been thirty years since his death, and he has become a bonafide legend in certain circles, a lost prophet of American roots music gone far, far too soon. And the Eagles skullfucked his corpse in order to obtain their mastery over the country-rock format that he pioneered.
Kidding, though I always used to say that to a buddy of mine who happened to be a huge Eagles fan, as a way of being an ass.
Anyway, Parsons fronted two of the oddest-named bands in the history of popular music, the International Submarine Band and the Flying Burrito Brothers, in between these two briefly joining the premier American folk-rock band the Byrds and changing their musical direction irrevocably. If he hadn't died at the age of twenty-six, of the usual-suspects cause of drug overdose, he'd probably have a long and prolific career. But then he wouldn't be Gram Parsons.
His life, as recorded by Ben Fong-Torres, could've been a country song (and while there have been other books about Parsons, I would stick with Fong-Torres' tome). His biological father died when he was young, and his mother committed suicide. Parsons went to Harvard but dropped out to become a travelling musician, playing the country music of his native South (born in Florida but raised in Georgia) with an inverted rock twist. At the height of psychedelic rock (the inspiration for so many band names far more bizarre than even ISB or FBB), Parsons struck out on a different path, a path that would leave him gone before he could see how far and wide his inspiration went. You can't have Wilco without Gram Parsons to show the way.
Parsons and the country-fied Byrds were not alone in 1968, when Sweethearts Of the Rodeo (his sole album with the group) came out; the Band came out of hibernation with Dylan to release their own take on roots music, and Bob Dylan himself unplugged and embraced country sounds. It's not hard to understand why country rock took off like it did: the excess of a lot of Sixties music (basically anything that you hear in a movie today to make you think "oh, it must be the Sixties!") began to wear on its target audience as the world around them became much scarier. In 1968, you had the Tet Offensive in Vietnam, the assassinations of Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy, the Chicago Convention riots, and the election of Tricky Dick and his gang of crooks to the highest office in the land. Who wants to hear guitar feedback from the Exploding Chocolate Watchband Fruitgum Mothers of Dynamic Tensions and Inventions, fronted by Jeff Beck?
Country rock, of course, is now "alt country," and more power to you if you like it; I've dipped my toe in a couple of times, but apart from Wilco I think I'm good. Mainstream country music never embraced Gram Parsons the way that alt country did; they went for the slick Eagles-style commercial sound in the early Nineties and never looked back. The absolute nadir of this is, of course, Florida-Georgia Line's "Cruise." I doubt that Parsons would look too kindly upon this, as it sullies both his birthplace and home state in the band name alone.
Let's talk about band names for a minute: I can't remember why exactly Parsons and former Byrd Chris Hillman settled on "Flying Burrito Brothers" as a band name, but damned if it doesn't stick in your memory after you've heard it (and possibly makes you crave some Mexican food). Parsons made two albums with the group (one more than he made with the Byrds or the International Submarine Band) before striking out on a solo career that included the discovery of songbird Emmylou Harris as his duet partner. Those two albums, The Gilded Palace of Sin and Burrito Deluxe, are must-haves. The early Seventies were both the best and worst time for music in a lot of ways: with the Beatles split up, the stage was clear for someone to take up the mantle of rock god (it is only to ourselves that blame must fall for KISS claiming that title). Everyone who heard the Band's debut did their own country-rock version of it (Elton John named a song after Levon Helm, for pete's sake). And Gram Parsons sent his burritos flying with songs that married traditional country sounds with rock and roll sensibilities. The Rolling Stones owe him a debt, and it's possible that his time in the company of champion drug-taker Keith Richards contributed to Parsons' early demise. But sometimes an artist can reach more people after he's passed; it's unfortunate, but a truism. Van Gogh and Keats had to die before anyone would appreciate them; Jim Morrison and Ian Curtis unintentionally built up cults around their deaths somehow being prefigured in their music. Gram Parsons could've had a much longer career, but then maybe he wouldn't be Gram Parsons.
So seek out The Gilded Palace of Sin and Burrito Deluxe (if you're lucky, you'll come across the one-CD grouping of both albums as a package deal like I did years ago). Before hipsters tried to ruin it, country rock was pretty damn cool, and Gram Parsons was at the head of the pack.
No comments:
Post a Comment