You’re Still On My Mind

If you asked passers-by if they knew Gram Parsons, few would say yes. They would all know the Eagles, and it can be argued that the Eagles would not have existed without him. By those in the know, Gram Parsons is seen as the founder of country-rock and even alt.country, but is that true? Part of the legend is because he lived very fast and died very young - but what of the music. Just how great was Gram Parsons? I’m going to do my best to answer it.

In his otherwise excellent biography, Gram Parsons: God’s Own Singer (Helter Skelter, 2002), Jason Walker wrote, “I have not sought to investigate some of the frankly outlandish stories that proliferated at the time of his death.” What a ridiculous statement: surely that is what he should be investigating, and anyone who buys a biography expects to be told what the stories are and whether they are true.

It could be that Walker is just being lazy, but I can understand his reluctance. Gram Parsons’ wayward lifestyle led to his death and then, because of a drunken pact with his road manager, Phil Kaufman, his body was stolen and cremated in the desert. Rock fans who couldn’t name one of his songs know of his death, but the true fans, like Walker, prefer to say, “Listen to the music”. Okay, I will, but I would maintain that his excesses enhance and enrich his music. It is the same scenario as Hank Williams, Gene Vincent and Jerry Lee Lewis: you would never want them living next door but their work is the product of their unruly personalities. Gram Parsons died when he was 26 and although he had been full of promise, he blew every opportunity he had. He rarely lasted more than a few months in a group, a combination of his restlessness and his profligate lifestyle. Writing this feature, I realise that he annoys me intensely as I can’t believe how anyone so privileged and so talented could mess it all up.

If you set aside an afternoon, you could hear all of Gram Parsons’ recorded work as it is pitifully small: effectively, some early recordings, an album with the International Submarine Band, another with the Byrds, two with the Flying Burrito Brothers and two solo ones for Reprise: GP and the posthumous Grievous Angel. His songwriting legacy is around 50 songs, most of them co-written.

An overview of Gram’s career was issued on Sacred Hearts And Fallen Angels, a 2-CD Gram Parsons anthology, issued on Rhino in 2001. Rhino has now released Gram Parsons – The Complete Reprise Sessions, a 3-CD package which includes those solo albums, outtakes and an interview. A single CD compilation is Warm Evenings, Pale Mornings, Bottled Blues (Raven, 1992).

A feature-length TV documentary, Fallen Angel, first shown on BBC Four, has been issued on DVD, in an expanded version. There hasn’t been a bio-pic as such – we’ll come to the dodgy Grand Theft Parsons later - but he is a country James Dean and somebody must be planning something somewhere.

To date, there have been four biographies: Gram Parsons – A Musical Biography by Sid Griffin (Sierra, 1985), Hickory Wind: The Life And Times Of Gram Parsons by Ben Fong-Torres (St Martin’s Griffin Books, 25th anniversary edition, 1998), Grievous Angel: An Intimate Biography Of Gram Parsons by Jessica Hundley and Polly Parsons (Gram’s daughter) (Thunder’s Mouth, 2005) and the aforementioned Jason Walker. Phil Kaufman told the story of Gram’s last days to Colin White, in Road Manager Deluxe, which was published in its third edition by White-Boucke in 2005.

Gram is strongly featured in two comprehensive studies, Are You Ready For The Country? – Elvis, Dylan, Parsons And The Roots Of Country Rock by Peter Doggett (Viking, 2000) and Desperados – The Roots Of Country Rock by John Einarson (Cooper Square Press, 2001), as well as many other music books. Note Peter Doggett’s title as he is placing Gram Parsons alongside Elvis Presley and Bob Dylan. I have drawn on most of these books whilst writing this piece but the quotes, including the ones with the authors, come from my own interviews.

In Peter Doggett’s eyes, Gram Parsons was a chameleon: “Everybody thinks he was a down the line country singer but he changed his style depending on whom he was with. When he was with the Stones, he started acting like Mick Jagger. He was an impossible guy to be around - lots of drugs, lots of drink – and it was inevitable that he would die early.”

His contribution is succinctly expressed by the American writer and musician, Sid Griffin: “He brought to a young audience to country music. I had country music in my back yard as there was a barn that had country and western dances but I hated it. It’s absurd to realise that I had this incredible heritage and ignored it but in the 60s, I wanted to be in the Beatles and live in Liverpool or London. Many young southerners like myself were only introduced to the music by a young hip longhair called Gram Parsons, but that’s a hell of a good contribution to have made.”

Some say that Gram started country-rock, but I tend to think that was Elvis. I put this point of view to Emmylou Harris. “Well, I suppose he did, but then you could argue that Bill Monroe started rock’n’roll. None of us exist in a vacuum and we’re all influenced by other people. I do think that there are visionaries: Bill Monroe was one, Elvis was one and Gram Parsons was one too. He took the poetry and beauty of country music and that wonderful harmony style of the Louvin Brothers and fused it with the poetry of his own generation, plus, most importantly, a rock’n’roll attitude. He had one foot in rock’n’roll and one foot in country. That’s not to say that Elvis didn’t do that, but he was the King, and Gram was much more in tune with his own generation.”

“All the riches and pleasures, What else could life bring?”

Although a wealth of material has been published about Gram Parsons, his history is unclear. This is partly his own doing. Gram told reporters that he was the son of a hobo country musician, who died in jail. Like Bob Dylan rewriting his past, it sounded good. In a sense, he had no choice: we prefer working-class heroes and it wouldn’t have looked good if he had acknowledged a privileged and wealthy upbringing.

Parsons’ grandfather, John Snively, owned land in Florida and made a fortune through orange juice, cattle and the entertainment complex, Cypress Gardens. His net worth was $30m and his daughter, Avis, married Major Ingram Connor, a fighter pilot from World War II. Gram was born Ingram Cecil Connor III in Winter Haven, Florida on 5 November 1946, but he spent his early years in Waycross, Georgia. His father ran a packing plant for Snively in Waycross, but he suffered from depression from his wartime experiences and drank heavily. His main interest was in hunting dogs and he was often called ‘Coon Dog’.

Gram was impressed when he heard Elvis Presley with Little Jimmy Dickens at Waycross City Auditorium in February 1956. According to Parsons, Elvis shook his hand, gave him an autograph and wished him luck. Gram loved the Louvin Brothers and he wrote his first song, Gram Boogie, when he was 11. He had some talent as a budding magician and would perform shows for his neighbours. However, it was a troubled family and Coon Dog’s self-esteem reached rock bottom when he found out about his wife’s affairs. He committed suicide just after seeing his family on a train to Winter Haven on 22 December 1958.

At the time, Gram was studying at a military academy and he became disturbed, soon being expelled for bad behaviour. His mother married a businessman from New Orleans, Bob Parsons, who specialised in earthmoving equipment. The Snivelys didn’t like him, regarding him as a gold-digger, but he adopted Gram and his sister, Avis, and Gram enjoyed his company. The family returned to Winter Haven and Gram had a Fender Stratocaster and learnt Chuck Berry and Buddy Holly songs. He played in the Legends with Jim Stafford (later to hit with Spiders And Snakes) and Kent LaVoie (later to become Lobo and score with Me And You And A Dog Named Boo). One day Gram dyed his hair blonde but when it came out orange, his mother made him leave it as a punishment.

Gram befriended a successful equestrian, Buddy Freeman, at a Cypress Gardens horse show. He arranged a few bookings for Gram and as a result he teamed up with a folk group, the Shilos, consisting of Paul Surratt, Joe Kelly and George Wrigley, Buddy became their manager and did well, sometimes hiring them out for $350 a night, which is good for an unknown group. A Miami newspaper said, “Parsons is the only one of the quartet, who has finished high school. The group, however, sings with a professional poise rivaling better-known groups who are riding the folk-song fad.” So Kingston Trio, watch out!

The Shilos played amusement parks and hootenannies and were included on a variety show for the state visit of King Hussein of Jordan. Bob and Avis bought the 17-year-old Gram a coffee-house, the Derry Down in Winter Haven, so that the group would have a regular performing venue. The Shilos’ introductory tape for radio stations was issued in 1979 as Gram Parsons: The Early Years 1963-1965, Volume 1 (Sierra 200750). There wasn’t a Volume 2 but the album was reissued with bonus tracks in 1985.

It’s a spirited recording very much in the style of the Kingston Trio, the Brothers Four or the Highwaymen. The songs include Bells Of Rhymney and Mary Don’t You Weep, but they also perform Gram’s torch ballad Zah’s Blues, which he wrote about a girl singer he heard in Greenwich Village. As well as the radio tapes, there is a demo of Gram’s song, Surfinanny, which is Gonna Raise A Ruckus Tonight with new words. He’s still working on the song and stumbling over the words.

On 27 March 1965, Parsons wrote to Paul Surratt about his ambitions and saying that they must perform original material: “I think we should work on my material. I know it will sell. Music, believe it or not, is turning towards a more intellectual vein. I’m sure that my music is going to be as big as Dylan’s.” He told a friend that not to write ‘haven’t’ in a song but ‘ain’t’ to make it more authentic: he was learning fast.

The Parsons household was becoming more and more like a Tennessee Williams melodrama. His mother, Avis, was drinking heavily and in June 1965, she died at the age of 38, actually on the day that Gram graduated. Gram paid her an affectionate tribute in his song, Brass Buttons, the first known recording being in December 1965. Avis and his stepfather Bob had had a child of their own, and to add to Gram’s problems, Bob was to marry the babysitter.

After his initial setback, Gram had done well at school and secured a place at Harvard University. He told the Shilos that the group was over. He said, “I’m heading north and I’m never coming back south again. Good luck to all the rest of you.”

Unsafe At Home

In September 1965, Gram Parsons went to Harvard to study theology, but it’s doubtful if he did anything except enroll. He wrote to his sister about his parents: “We have the advantage of seeing definite examples of what can happen when people permit life to tangle them so badly that there is no escape.” Sound advice, but it was not something he heeded.

Although Gram may have intended to study, he was sidetracked into making music and taking LSD. Following the death of his mother, he was entitled to a trust fund of $30,000 a year. In December 1965, he was sent down from Harvard for not doing any work, but he had enough money to set up himself and his group, The Like, in a house in the Bronx where they lived and rehearsed.

Among Gram’s friends was the former child actor, Brandon de Wilde, who had been in Shane (1953), Goodbye My Lady (1956) and Hud (1963) and who nurtured dreams of being a rock star, perhaps with The Like. The band was rehearsing both country and R&B songs. There is nothing particularly new in this – after all, both Elvis and the Beatles did it, not to mention Ray Charles with his groundbreaking albums.

During 1965 and 1966 Gram recorded some demo tapes and they have been released on Another Side Of This Life (Sundazed, 2000). The CD has to be reprogrammed to hear them chronologically but there are five from March 1965, six from Boxing Day 1965, five from April 1966 and two of Gram’s own songs from December 1966. The tapes were never intended for public performance and so it is unfair to criticise them, but they include some of the limpest covers you will ever hear, particularly of the Coasters’ Searchin’. Naturally, it is intriguing to have 50 minutes of Gram’s voice and guitar, but the CD is only of historical interest and I can’t imagine anyone putting it on for pleasure.

During 1966 and inspired by the name of a comic orchestra in an episode of The Little Rascals, The Like changed its name to the International Submarine Band, which was both psychedelic name and a nod to the Beatles’ Yellow Submarine. In November, Parsons went to Los Angeles where de Wilde was making a film. De Wilde introduced him to David Crosby and he told Crosby’s girlfriend, Nancy Ross, “I’ve been looking for you a long time”, a chat up line which was surprisingly successful and didn’t wreck his friendship with Crosby. Gram moved the band to Laurel Canyon and they played at the Whisky A Go Go. Brandon de Wilde recommended them to Peter Fonda, who recorded Gram’s song November Nights and placed them in his psychedelic film, The Trip. Their song, Lazy Days, was not deemed hip enough and they are seen playing while another group, the Electric Flag, is on the soundtrack. Either the film was made on drugs or Fonda and his team were hooked on kaleidoscopes.

The line-up of the International Submarine Band had been Parsons, John Nuese (guitar), Ian Dunlop (bass) and Mickey Gauvin (drums). They released two singles, One Day Week (Columbia), which is rather like the Dave Clark Five, and a rock version of Johnny Mandel’s theme for the satirical film, The Russians Are Coming, The Russians Are Coming (Ascot), but in July 1967, Dunlop and Gauvin left. Those two teamed with Barry Tashian and Barry Briggs to form the first Flying Burrito Brothers.

The merger of country and rock was gathering momentum in Los Angeles, and in particular, Rick Nelson had cut an album, Bright Lights And Country Music, in early 1966. Gram Parsons persuaded Duane Eddy’s former producer, Lee Hazlewood, to give his band a chance, and Hazlewood’s girlfriend, Suzi Jane Hokum, produced their album, Safe At Home. Just Parsons and Nuese remained from the original band and the line-up is supplemented by Chris Ethridge (bass), Jay Dee Maness (pedal steel), Earl Ball (piano) and Jon Corneal (drums).

The album includes Gram’s composition about a cruise ship, Luxury Liner, an odd subject for a country song but one with a long life. His picture of a happy marriage, Blue Eyes, could have been taken up by any number of country stars and Do You Know How It Feels To Be Lonesome is a typical, but less distinctive country song. They perform fine versions of Bobby Bare’s Miller’s Cave, and Merle Haggard’s I Must Be Somebody Else You’ve Known. The album is completed by covers of A Satisfied Mind, That’s All Right (Mama), Folsom Prison Blues and I Still Miss Someone, but there is an outtake on the first Rhino set of a pedestrian version of Knee Deep In The Blues.

Duane Eddy, Glen Campbell and Don Everly sang the band’s praises on the back sleeve. Everly raves about the album’s “white soul”. I wouldn’t make any great claims for the album, but the Byrds’ biographer, Johnny Rogan, disagrees. “I think Safe At Home by the International Submarine band was an important milestone in the history of country music because it was the classic combination of country and rock which Gram went on to do with the Byrds and the Burritos. It wasn’t well known at the time and yes, I am sure you could find other groups who were doing similar things, but that doesn’t take anything away from it.”

By now Gram had married Nancy Ross and she had become pregnant. Gram didn’t relish the responsibility of being a father and unlike his character in Blue Eyes, he wanted Nancy to have an abortion. She refused and Parsons’ only child, Polly, was born in late 1967. Shortly afterwards, they split up and Nancy moved to Santa Barbara. Gram had revealed himself to be not safe at home and the poor sales of the album led to the submarine sinking.

Flying High

The hit-making Los Angeles band, the Byrds had reached a crisis. They had had international success with Mr Tambourine Man, All I Really Want To Do, Turn! Turn! Turn! and Eight Miles High. They had instigated folk-rock and had delved into country music with A Satisfied Mind and their hit single, Mr Spaceman, a novelty record which could be described as psychedelic bluegrass.

But as soon as one member joined, another one left. When David Crosby left in October 1967, there was just Roger McGuinn, Chris Hillman and drummer Michael Clarke (who was about to be sacked) and they had dates to fulfil. The Byrds were dropping out of the sky, so Chris Hillman went to see Gram Parsons. Roger McGuinn recalls, “Chris Hillman found Gram and brought him over and I thought he was good and we hired him and he evolved into a monstrously good player and songwriter and singer.”

Although McGuinn had no clear idea of what the Byrds were going to do next, he expected them to continue in the psychedelic vein of Eight Miles High. When he heard Chris Hillman and Gram Parsons harmonising on country numbers, he envisaged a double-album capturing a century of American music and ending with psychedelia. In the end, he decided on just going country. Hillman was delighted – he was an experienced bluegrass musician who had been sneaking country songs onto Byrds’ albums when he could. Now he had an ally in Parsons.

Michael Clarke comments, “Chris and I had always loved country music and so there had always been a country twang in the Byrds, but Roger is no James Burton, if you know what I mean.” And no friend of Michael Clarke’s, it would seem. Michael Clarke was replaced with Hillman’s cousin, Kevin Kelley, who had been in the Rising Sons with Taj Mahal and Ry Cooder.

In March 1968, the long-haired Byrds went to Nashville to make the new album and on their first day, they recorded a countrified version of Bob Dylan’s You Ain’t Going Nowhere. A few days later, they were guests on Tompall and the Glaser Brothers’ section of the Grand Ole Opry. The Opry promoted old-style country and the audience was not impressed with hippie musicians. As soon as their name was mentioned, they went “tweet, tweet”.

Tompall Glaser announced that they would sing Merle Haggard’s Life In Prison, but Grams’ grandmother was in the audience and he decided in the final seconds to switch it to his nostalgic Hickory Wind. A new song by a hippie band: the audience was bored, but they won them round with Merle Haggard’s Sing Me Back Home featuring Lloyd Green on steel guitar. The presenter of the Grand Ole Opry, Ralph Emery, told the Byrds that he didn’t like hippies, which prompted Roger and Gram to write Drug Store, Truck Drivin’ Man, a song that Joan Baez sang at Woodstock. On the other hand, Emery’s former wife Skeeter Davis kissed them and said they’d done well.

The Byrds continued making the album, which became Sweetheart Of the Rodeo. Although there is some country-soul with William Bell’s You Don’t Miss The Water, it is largely country and folk numbers in a contemporary setting. McGuinn is in his element with Woody Guthrie’s Pretty Boy Floyd. They do a wonderful take on the Louvin Brothers’ The Christian Life without, it would seem, any irony, and Hillman sings the bluegrass hymn, I Am A Pilgrim. The new songs included Gram’s nostalgic view of a lost childhood, Hickory Wind, which was dedicated to his grandmother.

It was intended that several tracks would feature Gram Parsons’ lead vocals. When Parsons foolishly told Hazlewood what he was doing, Hazlewood pointed out that Parsons was under contract. The negotiations between Columbia and Hazlewood ended bizarrely: Gram’s lead vocals were removed on some tracks, although they remained on Hickory Wind and the country standard, You’re Still On My Mind. Roger McGuinn recorded new lead vocals for such songs as Parsons’ One Hundred Years From Now, and the album was released.

Sweetheart Of The Rodeo was very well reviewed but a poor seller. The country fans weren’t interested and the rock fans were suspicious of country and what’s more, McGuinn’s distinctive 12-string sound had been abandoned. Peter Doggett recalls, “Up to that point, it was the Byrds’ worst selling album. First of all, it was an out and out country album and people weren’t expecting that from the Byrds and several songs were sung by Gram Parsons. Nobody had ever heard of him, and what was he doing on a Byrds’ album? It was a real shock for their fans. It wasn’t a big seller but it was one of those records that has become really influential for other musicians.” The Byrds’ biographer, Johnny Rogan, agrees, “When the Byrds went to Nashville, Nashville did not want to know them, but they did influence a whole generation of new country singers.”

What of the claims that are now made for Sweetheart Of The Rodeo? Clinton Heylin: “I know that Rolling Stone in 1968 had a whole cover story on country-rock based on Sweetheart, maybe the Band’s Music From Big Pink, and certainly Bob Dylan’s John Wesley Harding, which really was the first true country-rock album (leaving aside Moby Grape). Of course, the problem with Sweetheart is that it’s pretty lame, certainly compared with the first Burritos album. It’s redeemed by a handful of tracks but it never works as a cogent whole. In this, it truly is a Byrds album, none of which satisfy me from beginning to end – hence, the reason why they’re not the American Beatles, or even the best band in LA.”

Roger McGuinn says, “Gram was going to do the leads but there was a contractual problem with the company that he had been signed to and so we put my vocal on another track and used those. The threat of a law suit went away and so we were able to use his again.” But not for some years. Gram’s original lead vocals were not wiped. They were issued on the 4-CD box set, The Byrds (1990), while some rehearsals were featured on the enhanced CD of Sweetheart Of The Rodeo (1997).

The tapes reveal how faithful McGuinn had been to Parsons’ intentions, right down to duplicating his drawl on The Christian Life although McGuinn’s is more tongue in cheek. I prefer McGuinn’s vocals but then I have always loved his voice. Of more interest are the outakes: Tim Hardin’s You Got A Reputation, Gram Parsons’ Lazy Days, an instrumental All I Have Is Memories and the traditional Pretty Polly. Although Johnny Rogan is excited as you can now play the album in two forms – the original release and the Parsons mix – there is not much difference.

The Byrds were scheduled to play European dates in May 1968. Sweetheart Of The Rodeo had not been released and Pete Frame, who has prepared Rock Family Trees of the Byrds and Gram Parsons, recalls, “The Byrds played to a full house at London’s underground club, Middle Earth, which was housed in a cellar in King Street, Covent Garden, and the line-up was McGuinn, Hillman, Kelley and Parsons. Mick Jagger and Marianne Faithfull came in to witness the gig and were assisted to the front by a minder. Gram was wearing a translucent silky, black shirt and he sat at an electric piano for most of the gig. He played acoustic guitar now and then. He sang lead on several songs, but sang harmony on most, and he left all the talking to McGuinn and Hillman. Also in the line-up - though only on the numbers which suited the banjo - was Doug Dillard. They played past favourites plus a whole tranche of country numbers, which neither I nor most of the audience were expecting. In 1968, country & western was a backwater style as far as most British rock fans were concerned. The Notorious Byrd Brothers, which I consider to be one of the greatest albums ever released, had only just come out and they appeared to have changed their style completely since then.”

When Sweetheart Of The Rodeo was released, it only made No 77 on the US album charts and did even less business here. However, You Ain’t Going Nowhere did make the UK Top 50, the only record with Gram Parsons to do so. A few months later, country-rock would be in full swing with Bob Dylan’s Nashville Skyline which had a guest appearance from Johnny Cash. Roger McGuinn reflects, “We were just experimenting: we were doing what we felt like doing. We weren’t thinking in terms of trends, but maybe we were receiving what was in the air at the time, a subconscious thing. Lots of people were doing the same sort of thing including Bob Dylan, but I wasn’t in touch with him at the time and we never discussed anything. Some people thought he was going mad when he did those country things, but I think it was a good direction and he was doing good stuff.”

In July, the Byrds were back in London for a show at the Royal Albert Hall, and it was to be followed by dates in South Africa. Miriam Makeba had been encouraged the tour as she thought that American musicians should see how bad the racism was. On the day after the Albert Hall concert, Parsons refused to leave his hotel room. Roger McGuinn reflects, “I thought Gram would leave the Byrds, but I didn’t expect him to go so suddenly and the reason why he went was not exactly honest. He said that he was upset over apartheid and going to South Africa, which was not the truth. He was fully aware of where we were going and that our contract called for us to play for mixed audiences in South Africa. We weren’t taking sides on the racial issue and, in fact, we were trying to help out. The reason for him staying in London was because he wanted to be with Mick and Keith, and anybody who knew him will tell you that.”

Both McGuinn and Hillman were furious at Gram leaving the Byrds, particularly because he simply wanted to stay with the Rolling Stones. The Byrds went to South Africa without him and their roadie, Carlos Bernal learnt Gram’s parts for the tour. The press coverage had such headlines as “The Byrds Say South Africa Is Sick, Backwards And Rude”. The audiences gave them catcalls and they left following drugs charges. The authorities impounded their money and said that they would have to face the magistrate first.

To make matters worse, in October 1968, the Byrds discovered that their manager had not been keeping the books correctly. Totally disillusioned, Chris Hillman left the band, but he, once again, became friends with Gram Parsons and they planned their next move together.

Cosmic American Music

Back in Los Angeles, Gram Parsons wanted to form a group that would encompass country, soul, gospel and rock, which he would call not country-rock but “cosmic American music”. He shared his concept with Chris Hillman and they found they could write together. “It developed that way,” says Hillman today, “but at that point Graham was a pretty normal kid. He was focused, ambitious and disciplined and he was good to work with. We wrote some great songs together.”

Chris and Gram had both separated from their partners which gave their songs an edge. David Crosby’s girlfriend, Christine from the GTO’s had been teasing them about their relationships and they wrote a song, Christine’s Tune, in retaliation, a lively song with a Bo Diddley beat. Taking a joke name for Las Vegas, they wrote Sin City, and Hillman put in references to the Byrds’ manager, Larry Spector, who did have an office on the 31st floor. When Gram received his call-up papers, he wrote about Uncle Sam in My Uncle, the references to his family in the first verse being double-edged. In the event, he was able to call upon his stepfather to free him from this.

Their most covered songs has been Wheels. Chris Hillman: “Graham had a motorcycle accident and he limped home with his BSA, an English bike, as he couldn’t ride it. We wrote this song Wheels: (sings) ‘We all have wheels to take ourselves away.’ It’s a funny little song but there is some relevance to it. There are some interesting innuendoes in that song but I would leave them for the listeners to decipher. I never tell anybody what a song’s about. It’s like a painter having to tell a viewer what the paintings are about. The listeners can work it out for themselves!”

The original Flying Burrito Brothers were no longer in town and so they purloined the name. They were joined by the bass player Chris Ethridge, who had played on Safe At Home, and he told Gram that he had two new melodies. Gram supplied lyrics about his relationships: Hot Burrito No.1 (also known as I’m Your Toy) is about Nancy Ross. Hot Burrito No.2 is equally poignant and the Burritos’ record has Gram’s best-ever vocal.

Parsons, Hillman and Ethridge were joined by the steel player, Sneaky Pete Kleinow and, after some trial and errors, the drummer Jon Corneal. One potential drummer had fallen to the floor stoned during a take on their record sessions. I wouldn’t have thought that Parsons would have held this against him, but apparently he did.

Their first album for A&M, The Gilded Palace Of Sin, sounds like a companion to the Byrds’ Sweetheart Of The Rodeo but Hillman doesn’t really agree. “Sort of, but all in all, these groups are like one big, incestuous family.” The album has more of a rock feel, possibly emanating from Parsons’ time with the Rolling Stones. There are two soul music covers – James Carr’s Dark End Of The Street and Aretha Franklin’s Do Right Woman – Do Right Man, the latter with harmonies from David Crosby.

By February 1969, the Byrds only had McGuinn left from Sweetheart, and he had added Clarence White, John York and Gene Parsons. Their Live At The Fillmore – February 1969 is mostly a country music set. Bob Dylan had gone country with Nashville Skyline, which included Lay Lady Lay, and any number of bands was following the same route including Poco. Johnny Rogan: “Dylan is always ahead of the pack and I don’t think that he would know there was a bandwagon to jump on.” Peter Doggett agrees, “It is possible that he was influenced by Sweetheart Of The Rodeo but it is more likely that he was simply ploughing his own furrow and anyway, he loved country music.”

The Burritos went one better than the Byrds as Gram used his allowance to purchase tailormade unique country outfits from Nudie’s Rodeo Tailors. Ever since he came to Hollywood, Gram had been intrigued by the shop and he and Nudie had become friends. He had loved Hank Williams’ suit embroidered with musical notes and noticed how they had become more outlandish and elaborate with Faron Young and Porter Wagoner. None, however, had told their life story on their clothes, but you can summarise Gram Parsons in just one picture – a photograph of Gram in his Nudie suit. As with Rod Steiger in The Illustrated Man, that suit tells the story of his life and, as it happens, his death. There are marijuana plants down the trouser legs, pills on the shoulders, a naked girl on the lapels, a gaudy cross on the back, as well as desert motifs and burning flames. On the surface, Gram embraced country music fashion, but his suit was not what country stars were wearing. The suit was designed more to alienate true country fans than turn them on.

The Gilded Palace Of Sin has an outstanding cover – four guys in Nudie suits and a couple of very tasty girls standing by a shed in the middle of nowhere. When I first looked at the picture, I knew there was no chance being there but it was where I wanted to be. The band and the girls are in the desert at Joshua Tree and this bleak landscape of rocks, shrubs and cacti held a fascination for Gram. In an interview, he said it was like being in another world, and he knew more about that feeling than most. Gram once went with Keith Richards to the vast and quiet desert to look for UFOs – says it all, really.

The Flying Burrito Brothers toured the US by train, effectively booked in wherever there was work. Sometimes they shared the bill with Three Dog Night and sometimes with the Beatles’ film, Magical Mystery Tour. Their stage performances were erratic, largely depending on Gram was feeling that night. There is a clip of Gram singing a highly emotional version of George Jones’ She Once Lived Here on the Fallen Angel DVD, and I wish the whole show had been a DVD extra. Such promising musicians as Bernie Leadon, Glenn Frey and J D Souther, would see the shows. “They were thinking, ‘We could do this but better’,” says Hillman, and the resulting Longbranch Pennywhistle became, three years further on, the Eagles. On their return to Los Angeles, the Burritos made a single, The Train Song, which was produced by Larry Williams and Johnny ‘Guitar’ Watson.

Al Perkins, who later played in the Burritos and also with Gram, comments, “The Burritos were definitely playing for the rock crowds. We played a lot of universities when I was with them and did some package tours to 1,500 to 2,500 seaters. I don’t think they’d have gone down too well with Roy Acuff’s audience, although they fancied themselves as being in the country music vein, and the Nudie suits were part of that.” A good example of the Burritos’ dilemma would be Hippie Boy, which questions the sincerity of so many country narrations. Chris Hillman does the narration and the backing vocalists include the GTO’s.

Rolling Stones biographer, Stanley Booth: “I was born in Waycross, Georgia and for a long time I thought that Gram was also born in Waycross. He was actually born a few miles away in north Florida. He lived in a neighbourhood close to mine and he went to junior high at a place where my mother taught, although she didn’t teach him. I’d done a review of his first album with the Burritos and I was in the house where Bill and Charlie were staying. Mick and Keith came into the room with this tall and tanned feller with blond frosting and wearing a celestial country outfit. He was just glowing, a radiant personality, and I thought later he was probably like Brian Jones before his deterioration, so that appealed to them. I suddenly realised that it was Gram Parsons and here were two boys from Waycross, Georgia up in the Hollywood hills with the Rolling Stones. I came to love Gram and he was a very dear person. He would drop little lines on me, and I have to think about each one of them as they were portents.”

Both the Rolling Stones and Gram Parsons gained from their friendship. The Stones learnt a lot about country music, although Keith Richards says on the Fallen Angel DVD that they had written Wild Horses before they met Gram. Although Gram was not involved in the sessions for their 1972 album, Exile On Main Street, his influence can be heard on Sweet Virginia and Torn And Frayed in which Mick and Keith come to terms with a rock star’s addiction. Strangely, there is no evidence of any drug busts during Parsons’ life. At the time of his death, the drugs were associated with a rock lifestyle, but we now know that Johnny Cash, Waylon Jennings and many others also took them to excess.

The Flying Burrito Brotheres opened for the Rolling Stones at the free Altamont festival in December 1969 and they can be seen in the concert film, Gimme Shelter. The festival was a disaster as the Stones had employed Hell’s Angels as security guards and the cameras caught them stabbing someone to death. The Burritos are an oasis of calm in the film and Gram was on form that night. Gram Parsons did not often wear his Nudie suit on stage but he did take to feather boas after seeing Dottie West and prancing around like Mick Jagger. He was losing the plot.

Inevitably, the line-up of the band would change. Sid Grffin: “The old blues men and women have a history of alcoholism but those west coast harmony groups have inter-band histories of strife – the Beach Boys, the Byrds, Buffalo Springfield, the Bangles, the Mamas and the Papas – they all have honey-laden vocals but you wouldn’t want them to show up at your party. Those young 25-year-olds were always on the move and I could never understand why this happened. Go figure.”

The Burritos lost Chris Ethridge and Jon Corneal and their replacements were Bernie Leadon and Michael Clarke from the Byrds. The result was Burrito Deluxe, which was released in March 1970. It wasn’t another Gilded Palace Of Sin, but it had its moments. The Rolling Stones had sent Wild Horses to Sneaky Pete Kleinow to overdub a steel guitar. The Burritos loved the song and the Stones allowed the band not only to record the song, but also to release it before them. Their six minute version was excellent but surprisingly long for a country-styled band. The album also included their single, Cody Cody, which sounded like the Byrds. Their version of Bob Dylan’s If You Gotta Go, Go Now is taken too fast and lacks Manfred Mann’s humour.

Some outtakes have appeared on compilations of which the best is Gram’s lead vocal on the Bee Gees’ To Love Somebody. Often the Burritos’ covers were not too strong and it is self-evident why they were not issued at the time. Both Merle Haggard and the Everly Brothers did Sing Me Back Home considerably better.

Predictably, Gram Parsons was being distracted from advancing his career through the Flying Burrito Brothers. As well as drinking and drugging to excess, he had a 16-year-old girlfriend, Gretchen Burrell, and a Harley-Davidson plus his friendship with the Stones. One night Jagger ordered him out of the studio to do his show. He married Gretchen at his stepfather’s house in New Orleans. In Feburary 1970, he was out riding with John Phillips of the Mamas and the Papas and his bike fell apart at 50mph with Gram being thrown over the handlebars. He spent several weeks in hospital and the band realised that they might be better off without him. One night in June 1970, he turned up just before he was due on stage and launched into a ballad while the rest of them were playing a rocker. Chris Hillman told him that enough was enough and fired him. His replacement was the highly competent Rick Roberts, but the band lost its impetus once Gram had gone.

Another country-rock band, Poco, made Gram an offer but he preferred to spend his time with Keith Richards. Keith wanted to make a solo album with him but that didn’t happen. Gretchen, who was making the Roger Vadim film Pretty Maids All In A Row with Rock Hudson and Angie Dickinson, sent flowers to the band but they froze in the hold of the aircraft, hence their song Dead Flowers. The film did moderately well, despite its ludicrous plot. Hudson plays a school football coach who has affairs with several pupils and kills them so they won’t tell. The nudity was the selling factor.

From time to time, Gram helped out at record sessions and he can be heard on Steve Young’s Rock, Salt And Nails, Jesse Davis and Delaney and Bonnie’s Motel Shot. He also sings Ya Don’t Miss The Water with Fred Neil on Neil’s album, The Other Side Of This Life. Whilst with the Byrds, Gram had suggested an arrangement of the gospel song, Jesus Is Just Alright which the Byrds recorded on the album, Ballad Of Easy Rider.

And from time to time, Gram would rejoin the Burritos for a date or two. Al Perkins had joined on steel guitar and recalls, “When we were touring in the South, Gram came to see us and he sat in that night and he paid me a compliment. He said that if I had been in the group, he might still be there. He called me later to work with him and Emmylou when they did the two albums.”

“Out with the truckers and the kickers and and the cowboy angels”

Doris Day’s son, Terry Melcher, had produced the Byrds and his mother, Doris Day. He told A&M that, with his help, they could recoup their investment in Parsons. He described Parsons as “the white country Hendrix” and he booked Ry Cooder, Clarence White and Spooner Oldham for the sessions. The intention was to make an album which would be a homage to Gram’s country heroes, but Gram cut new songs alongside I Fall To Pieces, Family Bible, She Thinks I Still Care and Dream Baby.

Unfortunately, Melcher, by all accounts a really nice guy, had become as unhinged as Parsons. He had become paranoid since his friendship with Charles Manson as he realised how close he had come to death. Both Parsons and Melcher were drinking and drugging and at one session, Parsons vomited over the piano while Melcher slept at the console.

In March 1971 Gram and Gretchen went to London to hang out with the Stones. Terry Melcher came over with the tapes for some overdubbing, but nothing was completed, or if it was, it was never released. However, Parsons had lost interest as there was talk of him recording for Rolling Stones Records. He became addicted to heroin and one night he was so out of it that he attempted suicide.

Whilst Gram was in London, he went to see the doctor, Sam Hutt. “I was brought up on R&B really and the only countryish thing in my life was the Everly Brothers, and I didn’t see them as country at all. When I met Gram, I still didn’t really like country music but he brought his wife with him and he picked up my guitar and sang You’re Still On My Mind, which was on Sweetheart Of The Rodeo. Now, I loved the Byrds but I had not bought that album because it was too country for me. When I heard him sing it, it got to my soul and I became excited and I was a convert. I packed in my private practice and became Hank Wangford.”

Around September 1971, the couple stayed in Cornwall with Ian Dunlop from the International Submarine Band and Gram proposed to Gretchen. They were married on their return to America, the ceremony being in New Orleans where Gram’s stepfather, Bob, held a party for the couple. The minister was the Harvard professor who had sent him down from Harvard. Not everything went as well as planned as Gram and Gretchen were thrown off Bob’s boat when drugs were discovered.

Gram returned to LA and put on weight by giving up drugs and sticking to alcohol. In 1972, Gram wrote to a friend, “My feeling is that there is no boundary between types of music. I see only two types of sound – good ones and bad ones.” By now, he had the idea of recording country duets with a female voice.

Here Chris Hillman and Rick Roberts could help him out. In October 1971, they heard a young female in Washington DC, Emmylou Harris, and told Gram about her. He was guesting with the Burritos at the time and went to hear her. Emmylou Harris had been looking for a break for some years: “Washington is a wonderful town for music: there are a lot of college students there and there is a real interest in music. You could really work on who you were and what you did. You didn’t make a lot of money but certainly it was as much money as I could make waiting on tables and with the help of my parents caring my infant daughter, I was able to establish some sort of name for myself around the club circuit. I could make $100 a week which would pay the rent and pay the groceries and it was playing at one of those clubs that Gram first heard me.” They found that they could harmonise perfectly together, and Gram introduced her to the music of the Louvin Brothers.

The Burritos’ manager, Eddie Tickner, arranged a deal with Reprise for an album to be produced by Merle Haggard. James Burton: “I was working with Merle Haggard, and Merle called me and asked me about Gram Parsons. Gram and I worked together on the Byrds records, that is where I first met him, and Merle called me and said, ‘Do you know this guy Gram Parsons?’ I said, ‘Yes’, and he said, ‘Is he an okay singer?’ I said, ‘He’s a real good country singer’, and Merle asked if I would be interested in co-producing a record with him, and I said, ‘Sure’, and nothing happened. Then a couple of weeks later, I got a phone call from Gram and he jumped through the phone and he said, ‘Man, I got a record deal with Warner Brothers.’”

In June 1972, Gram and Gretchen returned to London and worked with Ric Grech of Family and Blind Faith on a solo album. They stayed on his farm in Sussex and Parsons invited Grech to produce the album. By then, Bernie Leadon had become part of the Eagles and they had created an ultra-commercial version of the Byrds and the Burritos: effectively, country music for people who didn’t like country music. The Eagles were being feted, but Gram’s comment was “Life is tougher than that.”

Back on the west coast, Gretchen insisted that they leave their rented bungalow at Chateau Marmont and move to Laurel Canyon. She thought that this could help Gram to shake off his drugs habit and judging by the picture of Chateau Marmont in Wired: The Short Life And Fast Times Of John Belushi, this was a sensible move. Gram told Reprise that he wanted Elvis Presley’s band for his album and they told him to use his own money. And that’s just what he did. (There is a reference to Gram meeting up with the King in Return To The Grievous Angel, although he did not write the lyric.)

In August 1972 Gram went to see Elvis Presley at the Hilton International and he asked his accompanying musicians, Glen D Hardin, James Burton and Ronnie Tutt, if they would like to work on his album. They agreed. Unfortunately, the lifestyle had now got the better of his voice, which was sounding desperate and frail. Just listen to the way he sings A Song For You.

Emmylou Harris had never sung harmony before, but she soon picked up what was required: “We never worked anything out: we just sat down and sang. Gram never told me to sing one note or another, sometimes he might say, ‘At the end of the song, instead of going up high, let’s go down low.’ We did that on We’ll Sweep Out The Ashes In The Morning, but we never really worked on anything. He would start singing and I would jump in. I discovered a natural affinity for harmonies and the fact that I was so unschooled meant that I didn’t choose one particular note just because it was correct or because it was the third above or the baritone or the tenor part. I just looked on it as another melody.”

The album features some great ballads (She, A Song For You, The New Soft Shoe), an excellent cover of Streets Of Baltimore and some good rockers including the J Geils Band’s Cry One More Time. By and large, his songs such as Kiss The Children have similar qualities to the covers. The highlights are the duets with Emmylou on That’s All It Took and We’ll Sweep Out The Ashes In The Morning. Emmylou was paid $500 for her work on the album.

Gram’s biographer, Sid Griffin, recalls, “Gram Parsons is this icon that people mention in interviews but 25 years ago when I was student at the University of South Carolina, the Flying Burrito Brothers and Gram Parsons with his solo work, were hip young Southerners that were nonetheless against the Vietnam war and played country and western music with a rock’n’roll attitude. They were the only people to be doing that and it hit a responsive chord with other hip young Southerners, if I may be so vain. If you were searching for something that wasn’t English like the Who or the Beatles and the Rolling Stones and wasn’t straight country like Porter Wagoner, someone I love now, a good meeting point in the middle ground was Gram Parsons.”

With the help of road manager Phil Kaufman, a tour was set up to promote the GP album and the band was called the Fallen Angels. There must have been some financial support and there was a tour bus with “Gram Parsons” on the side. They didn’t rehearse with any seriousness and their first gig in Boulder was a disaster. That forced them to rehearsal and they gave a fine show at the Armadillo World Headquarters in Austin. A radio show in March was recorded and released as Live 1973 in 1982. It is a fine album and contains some tracks which they didn’t otherwise record. Gram prefaces his version of Drug Store, Truck Drivin’ Man by saying that he feared for his life in Nashville.

While in Boston, a student called Tom Brown gave Gram a lyric called Return Of The Grievous Angel and Gram set it to music. It contained some great words, “20,000 roads I went down, down, down / And they all led me straight back home to you.” The first issue of the album omitted to credit Brown but his name is there on reissues.

Some rehearsal tapes have been released on Cosmic American Music (Magnum Music, 1995). On the cover, Magnum Force has put “Quality 6/10”, a remarkable thing to be putting on their product but presumably to say, “Okay, you’ve been conned, but we did warn you.” These are rehearsal tapes made in various hotel rooms and friends’ houses in 1972/3. Gram is working acoustically on various songs and the 10 minute A Song For You is unlistenable. The tapes were obtained in auction at Christie’s and were duly licensed to Magnum Force by the purchaser. Sid Griffin does his best for them in the sleeve notes, but even the most dedicated fans would have difficulty enjoying them. If these were the best bits, why do hear Gram complaining about room service? Some of the titles are misleading – Ain’t No Beatle, Ain’t No Rolling Stone is a jam between Gram on guitar and Ric Grech on fiddle and includes references to Ferry Cross The Mersey and not much else. Gram, Ric Grech and Barry Tashian sound the worse for wear on That’s All It Took.

Gram Parsons and the Fallen Angels were included on Warner/Reprise’s country-rock tour with Country Gazette, a reformed Kentucky Colonels (with Clarence White) and Gene Parsons. On 5 June 1973, Gram Parsons made what was to be his final live appearance. Gretchen was arguing with Gram but it’s hardly surprising: her movie career was on hold and she had no defined role on the tour. A medley of the Louvin Brothers’ Cash On The Barrelhead and Hickory Wind, recorded in Northern Quebec, was included on the posthumous album, Grievous Angel, albeit with heightened applause, taken from a Merle Haggard concert.

Back in Los Angeles, Gram and Clarence White worked together on stuff for their new albums. He liked the fact that Clarence had a family and he was beginning to think that the same way now that Gretchen was pregnant. In July 1973, Clarence was killed while he was loading equipment into a truck by a drunk driver. In yet another example of his appalling behaviour, Gram turned up wired or drunk to the funeral but he was able to sing the gospel song, Farther Along. Around the time, he told Crawdaddy magazine that many of his friends had died. “They wouldn’t want me to grieve. They would want me to go out and get drink and have one on them.”

Gram didn’t care for the lavishness of Clarence White’s funeral and he told his road manager, Phil Kaufman, “If I die, I want you to take my body to Joshua Tree and burn it.” We only have Kaufman’s word that he said this, but in any event he was intoxicated at the time, so it was more a figure of speech than a pact.

In late July 1973 a fire tore through Gram and Gretchen’s home at Laurel Canyon and they broke through a window to escape. Many of their possessions were destroyed including, it is said, the only copy of the tracks he had recorded with producer Terry Melcher. I doubt the veracity of this story: what record label would entrust master tapes to Gram Parsons?

The fire was the final straw, leading to a separation with Gretchen and she had an abortion. Gram was relieved when the sessions for the new album started. Emmylou was more to the fore on these sessions and they create an excellent honky-tonk album.

Herb Pedersen worked with Gram Parsons on his solo work: “I may have done some overdubs on GP, I can’t really remember, but I was certainly on Grievous Angel. I remember him showing up late for the first session. We were at Wally Heider’s studio in Los Angeles and he wandered in with Emmylou and that was the first time I had done any recording with him face to face. We had 12 tunes to record and very little time to record them. He had some talent and had his moments here and there, but I don’t think he was a great talent. There were a lot of great singers who contributed a lot more to country music scene as we know it. Gram got caught up in the whole glitz and glamour of the Hollywood scene.”

They had Michael Clarke on drums when they did $1,000 Wedding: “None of mine ended up that cheap. Johnny ‘Guitar’ Watson and Larry Williams were in the booth and they were hilarious. We were playing this stupid slow tune with them in the booth talking like Wolfman Jack.”

Not only had Gram lost his friend Clarence White, but Brandon de Wilde had been killed in a car crash and Sid Keiser from the Delaney and Bonnie band had also died. Although not mentioned in the song, Miss Christine from the GTO’s died from a heroin overdose in October 1972. This prompted his apocalyptic song, In My Hour Of Darkness.

“In my time of darkness,
In my time of need,
Oh Lord, grant me vision,
Oh Lord, grant me speed.”

The double meaning in the last line is often remarked upon, but actually it is a single meaning. Why would he want to move faster if he was depressed? It can only be a request for amphetamines.

Emmylou Harris: “I didn’t see this side of Gram as he had put that aside when I knew him. I knew him for only a very short time, only for a year, and at that time he was clean. I was also very naïve about all that stuff. I suppose that compared to LA, where I lived was the boonies and the backwoods, and Gram seemed so full of life and was such exerting such a strong influence on me that I didn’t see the danger signs. He was drinking, you know, and that’s like an excuse: people say it’s better to drink than do the other, and this is a gradual way to get off everything. Gram and I sang all the time and when we were singing, he didn’t do a lot of drinking so most of the time I saw him sober and so I didn’t believe that he was in the kind of trouble that obviously he was. Apparently, if you go back to bad habits after you have tried to give them up, you are a lot weaker than if you continue. His death was certainly a great shock to me.”

“We’ll Sweep Out The Ashes In The Morning”

Gram filed for divorce in September and he drove to Joshua Tree with a former girlfriend, Margaret Fisher, and the roadie Michael Martin and his girlfriend, Dale McElroy. They stayed at the Joshua Tree Inn and on September 18, after playing pool, Gram and Margaret took heroin in his room. He lost consciousness and the others believed that the best way to revive someone from an overdose was by pushing ice cubes up his bottom. Gram didn’t regain consciousness at he was pronounced dead at 12.15am. A cocktail of drugs and alcohol was found in his system, but the coroner’s report attributed his death to “heart failure”. Yes, but why did the heart fail?

Michael Clarke: “Gram and I were best buddies, poker-playing buddies together. He was intelligent and carefree. He didn’t care what anybody thought about him. He was well-educated and good with the ladies. He would go for it. I cried when he died, one of the few times in my life I have done that.”

Al Perkins: “Love Hurts was a great song. Warner had sent out singles of Love Hurts and they had sent one to me, just prior to me finding out that he had passed away. I listened to it that night and it was very moving. Still has that effect on me. I still have a hard time listening to it but it is a beautiful melody.”

Bob Parsons arranged for the body to be flown to New Orleans. It has been mooted that this would give him a greater right to Gram’s inheritance, but I have never seen a satisfactory explanation for this. He himself was undergoing treatment for cirrhosis so why was he even concerned? Nevertheless, he checked himself out of hospital and flew to Los Angeles Airport to accompany the body back to New Orleans.

On September 21, Phil Kaufman and his hippie friend, Michael Martin drove to Los Angeles Airport in a hearse and persuaded a Western Airlines baggage handler to release the body to them. They drove 80 miles to Cap Rock at Joshua Tree, put a can of beer in the coffin, doused the body in petrol and set it alight. The flames could be seen some distance away but they made a poor job of it, destroying only three-quarters of the body. They were arrested on September 26 and because bodysnatching had long since fallen off the statue books, they were arrested for stealing a coffin.

There had not been much coverage of Gram’s death, certainly not as much as that for Jim Croce, who had died the following day. Now Gram was headline news and Phil Kaufman an instant celebrity. Kaufman held a funeral party to meet their $300 fine. Bobby ‘Boris’ Pickett performed and there were bottles of ‘Gram Pilsner’ with the motto ‘Life’s Too Short’ on the label. Meanwhile, the remainder of Gram’s body was taken to New Orleans for burial in the Garden of Memories Cemetery in Metairie. The headstone reads, ‘God’s Own Singer’, the title of a song (but not one of his) on Burrito Deluxe.

Emmylou Harris: “There was no funeral and there was no way to get together with people who had known him. That is the point of funeral: that’s what happens when you lose someone that you care about.”

All this is reminiscent of the death of the poet Shelley, whose body was washed ashore after a shipwreck in 1822. In keeping with his wishes, he was cremated on beach, but his heart was taken from the funeral pyre and given to his widow, Mary. His ashes were interred in a cemetery in Rome.

The Grievous Angel album was released in January 1974, but there was not a cult surrounding his career which would lead to instant success. That was to follow. Peter Doggett: “By the end of his life, he was in pretty rough shape whereas Emmylou was young and in fine vocal shape but they are still classic albums and again they didn’t sell at the time. I am pretty sure that if Gram had managed to live for another couple of years, he would have been dropped by his record company and he would be a very minor cult artist amongst Byrd fans instead of being this very influential artist.”

Emmylou Harris: “I feel it was just the beginning for us, but of course it was both the beginning and the end. We had definite plans to continue to work together. This was what I wanted to do. When I hear the albums there is a certain amount of sadness because Gram’s career was cut so very short and he had so much to offer. His vision is inherent in the records he’s left behind and it is carried on by musicians who are influenced and affected by those records. Certainly I am the most obvious one, but a lot of people in music today are affected by what he did.”

Make My Old Memory Come Alive

Emmylou Harris formed the Hot Band for both recording and touring purposes. She says, “It was Glen D Hardin who wanted to go on the road with me. We did a couple of dates and had a really good time. It was a wonderful group of people and we had a real affinity for each other. Rodney Crowell came in and we all knew that something special would happen when we got out on stage. I was lucky in that Elvis didn’t tour very much at the time so it was easy for the musicians to work around that. I doubt that Elvis even knew that any of his band was going out with anybody else. We weren’t keeping it from him but he was so cloistered that I doubt that he was even aware of it.”

How did Emmylou afford the band? “I didn’t. I went a quarter of a million dollars into debt with the Hot Band but I managed to recoup it through album sales. There was no guarantee that I would do that but here was an opportunity to work with the musicians that Gram had worked with. I wanted to put forward as much of Gram as I could and I wanted to carry on with them, plus the fact that they were terrific and that gave me a sense of confidence about what I should be doing.”

So many of Emmylou’s albums include Gram’s songs and she called one of the LPs, Luxury Liner. Emmylou wrote about her experiences in Boulder To Birmingham, Michelangelo and White Line (“I’ll be the keeper of the flame / Till every heart hears what you are saying.”). The album, The Ballad Of Sally Rose (1985), is a fictional account of their relationship. Emmylou Harris: “I was in Los Angeles as Linda Ronstadt had asked me to come out and sing with her, she was doing a few nights at the Roxy and she had been extremely supportive towards me after Gram died. She was instrumental in helping me to get a record deal. I was back in Los Angeles for the first time since Gram’s death and the whole city around me was on fire. It was an extraordinary thing to see as well as to be grieving.”

The homages to Gram include Richie Furay’s Crazy Eyes for Poco (which was written before he died), John Phillips’ He Had That Sweet Country Sound, Bernie Leadon’s My Man for the Eagles (“We who must remain must go on singing all the same”), Tom Russell’s Joshua Tree and Chris Hillman’s Heavenly Fire. Although Chris Hillman has not said so, I feel that he must take exception to all the attention lavished on Gram Parsons. He knows that they wrote many of the songs together and his own contribution to country-rock is just as significant. When I broached this with him, he said that it didn’t bother him because, after all, he is still alive.

Mike Brocken, a lecturer at the Institute of Popular Music at Liverpool University, says, “In an odd kind of way, Gram Parsons’ contributions to country music have been over-exaggerated because people get hold of the wrong end of the country-rock stick, as it were. However, I do think his contributions to US rock music are pretty hefty. Not only did he help to place the Byrds (a very important band, who are second only to the Beatles in my book) on a new musical direction, but he also laid down a musical template for what was or wasn’t acceptable in rock. The Rolling Stones’ use of Wild Horses is a case in point. They understood that they were dealing with something that was supposed to be outside of their generic area but nevertheless, they pursued it and befriended Parsons in the process because they believed he had something to say in a sonic sense.”

As well as new compilations, there have been several tribute CDs and concerts. In 1993 there was the tribute CD, Conmemorativo: A Tribute To Gram Parsons (Rhino), and the artists included his daughter Polly with The New Soft Shoe, Carla Olson, Clive Gregson and Victoria Williams. Gram’s sister, Avis, died in a boating accident in 1993, and it is Polly, who continues with his legacy. She says that she has been “battling some of the same demons”.

I was misled by the Magnum Force CD, Tribute To Gram Parsons And Clarence White, which was released in 1996. This features nine tracks from a tribute night at the Cannery (misspell as Canary on the CD package) in Nashville in 1988, and you might wonder where the audience is. Larry Murray, Freddy Weller and Bobby Bare are backed by Swamp water. The only two songs associated with Parsons are Miller’s Cave and Streets of Baltimore, both performed by Bobby Bare. Bare tells a shaggy dog story about being with a host of naked country stars and as the last life is mumbled, I don’t know what the punch line is. The album is completed by two songs from the Flying Burrito Brothers when they opened for Hank Williams Jar in 1989. The link is the guitarist John Bland, who played guitar with both Swamp water and the Burritos and licensed these tracks.

In 1998 Sid Griffin’s band, the Coal Porters, recorded The Gram Parsons Tribute Concert (Prima Records) at the Garage, Islington, but this is a carelessly produced CD. Sid tells the audience that time is short and he has to drop a couple of songs but later he says he is closing with Six Days on the Road, which has been played earlier – well, on the CD, it hasn’t. It’s a shame because Sid is an engaging front man and I did enjoy his comment that they weren’t the Bootleg Beatles but the Bootleg Burritos.

The tribute concert, Return to Sin City, recorded at the Universal Amphitheatre in Los Angeles, was released on DVD in 2004. Dwight Yoakum loses the plot with Sin City, but his Wheels are much better. Steve Earle is a bit old for the draft-dodging My Uncle but he is fine for Luxury Liner. I loved Raul Milo doing Hot Burrito No 1 and I wish he had done a couple more. The concert also features Norah Jones, Lucinda Williams, John Doe, Jim James, James Burton, Al Perkins and Jim Lauderdale, often wearing Nudie suits, and it is extremely well filmed. Once you get past Keith Richards’ opening verse, the ensemble Wild Horses is terrific. The show was staged by the charity, the Gram Parsons Foundation for the Musician’s Assistance Program of which Steve Earle is a director. However, the audio commentary by Polly Perkins and her friend Shiloh Morrow is unbearable. It sounds like two girls who have come back from the pub and are having a very silly, girlie talk with the film in the background. Still, it’s not without interest. Their initial wish-list sounds like they wanted to stage Woodstock.

In 1999 the CD, Return of the Grievous Angel, a Tribute to Gram Parsons (Alma Sounds), was produced by Emmylou Harris with the proceeds for a landmine free world. Alma Sounds is owned by Herb Alpert and Jerry Moss, the owners of A&M Records, who signed the Burritos. The CD concentrates on Gram’s compositions with the exception of Sleepless Nights, performed here by Elvis Costello. The insidious Ooh Las Vegas from the Cowboy Junkies brings out the despair in the song. Gillian Welch contributes a lovely Hickory Wind, while Lucinda Williams and David Crosby combine forces for Return of the Grievous Angel. Chris Hillman was glad to record High Fashion Queen with Steve Earle as he felt they could improve on the original.

Although there hasn’t been a bio-pic, there has been Grand Theft Parsons (2003), directed by David Caffrey and starring Johnny Knoxville (star of Jackass), Michael Shannon and Christina Applegate about the mayhem surrounding his death. Knoxville plays Phil Kaufman and he wears the ‘Sin City’ jacket that Kaufman wore when he buried the body. The byline on the DVD rental box says, “One of the funniest films of the year”, which took me by surprise. How do you make a comedy out of stealing a body and burning it in the desert? Strangely, it almost works as one mishap follows another and the soundtrack, which includes original tracks, Bruce Springsteen and even some of the Emmylou-produced tribute CD, is impressive. Phil Kaufman adds an audio commentary and he says that at first the wrong body was delivered to him at Los Angeles Airport: there was an old lady in the coffin and he comments, “I knew Gram looked bad from drugs, but not this bad.” Gabriel Macht plays Parsons in a fantasy sequence, but there is nothing in the film to suggest his importance, and making Carry On Cremation hardly gives his legend any gravitas.

For the ghoulish, you can stay at Room 8 of the Joshua Tree Inn and you can also visit where his body was burned. The stone tablet says, “Safe at home” and there is an annual Gramfest there. Rather more tastefully, you can see the display for Gram at the Country Music Hall Of Fame. There are also some excellent websites including www.gramparsons.doc and www.gramparsonsproject.com,which features interviews with many key figures.

The latest tribute is the BBC documentary, Fallen Angel, which has been shown at least three times and now is available in an expanded version on DVD. The classification says “contains drug references” – oh no, surely not. This film has been put together by the German director Gandulf Hennig working from a script by Sid Griffin. In the past, Sid has been quick to attack those who sensationalise Sid’s death, but this film could hardly be more sensation seeking and as there are no complete performances, we are not able to judge his musical ability. Maybe it’s me getting old, but time and again, I was shocked by how young Gram looked in several of the clips. The only special feature is an interview with Hennig in which he reveals of the difficulties of getting some of his contributors. He doesn’t say it but I would guess that the real difficulty was people saying, “You can interview me providing you don’t talk to so-and-so.” Still, it is a very impressive list and he secured over 100 hours of interview for the 100 minute film. That being the case, couldn’t some of the interviews have been DVD extras? What happens to them now?

Both Grand Theft Parsons and Fallen Angel reveal that Phil Kaufman never had a second doubt about the validity of what he did. He has wrecked several lives by his actions and yet he appears unaware of the pain that he caused. He comments in Fallen Angel, “If Gram were here today, he’d still be dead.”

I began this feature with an open mind. I regarded Gram Parsons as a tragic figure who made some good records but through the nature of his death, was hailed as the instigator of country-rock. However, Parsons didn’t create country-rock as many musicians had put country and rock together before him, some of them – Roy Orbison, Michael Nesmith, Rick Nelson – creating something similar to his own work. However, Parsons undeniably created the image of country-rock: asking Nudie for that specially designed suit was a masterstroke, akin to Elvis donning gold lamé. Furthermore, his political views were in line with the youth of the day and against the prevailing right-wing attitudes of Nashville.

Gram Parsons’ musical legacy is influential but it is also patchy and he wasted strong ideas by messing about. This is why Emmylou Harris was good for him as it was a meeting of the sensible with the senseless. She was the junior partner but she realised he was throwing it all way, and she had the discipline and I presume the authority to make him work. I can’t recall any instances of irresponsibility in Emmylou Harris’ career so maybe in time she would have changed Gram’s life. He was 26 when he died and though there is little evidence that he was becoming more dependable, it could have happened.

What I can’t take about Gram Parsons is his personality. Right from the start, he was letting others down, be it his family, his teachers, his girlfriends, his daughter or his band members. Nothing lasted for long because as soon as there was any hint of commitment, he was away. His studies are a good example: he found school work easy and had the intelligence to go to Harvard, but once he was there, it was too much like hard work, so he didn’t do anything. Several of the books and articles say that the Parsons family is typical of Tennessee Williams’ melodramas and that Gram was doomed from the start. That is not so: you can learn from your parents’ bad examples and as he had both the intelligence and the wealth to sort out his life, it is difficult to feel sorry for him.

Gram Parsons acted like a spoilt child most of the time, and yet he had charm as several people, notably Chris Hillman, forgave him time and again. The solipsism is very marked and in a world of monstrous egos, he must be among the most self-centred of all music stars.