Gram Parsons

Related Content

• Six New Times Contributors Name Their Top 10 Records of 2010
  December 30, 2010
• New Riders of the Purple Sage @ The Compound Grill
  November 18, 2010
• No. 9 Merle Haggard - Countdown of the Best Concerts of 2010
  December 21, 2010
• Toby Keith's Boot Still Fits a Lot of Asses
  August 5, 2010
• Dude Awakening
  June 30, 2011

More About

• Gram Parsons
• Chris Hillman
• The Flying Burrito Brothers
• Merle Haggard
• Buck Owens

Like this Story?

Sign up for the Music Newsletter: Keep your thumb on the local music scene with music features, additional online music listings and show picks. We'll also send special ticket offers and music promotions available only to our Music Newsletter subscribers.

Privacy Policy Cancel Continue

When Gram Parsons and Chris Hillman left the Byrds to start the Flying Burrito Brothers, they caused a seismic shift in the worlds of country music and rock. Until the Burritos, California country was Buck Owens, Merle Haggard, and the Bakersfield sound. The Burritos' first album, The Gilded Palace of Sin, invented country rock, a genre that mutated into today's Americana. These tunes, cut live in San Francisco in April 1969, capture the band around the time they were making their debut, and every track smokes. What is immediately evident is how "country" the band is. Several Parsons originals appear on this live album, including "Sin City," and "Hot Burrito #2," but the rest of the songs here are well-known country standards given a honky-tonk authenticity by Parsons' heartbroken tenor, a voice that always sounds one breath away from a nervous breakdown. Sneaky Pete Kleinow's pedal steel is the band's secret weapon, giving the music a bluesy, psychedelic spin that still creates a lysergic reverberation almost 40 years later. A home recording of Parsons singing "Thousand Dollar Wedding" is included, too, and its primal power makes us realize once again what a singular talent the man was.