In my hour of need
Oh Lord grant me vision
Oh Lord grant me speed.”
__ “Return of the Grievous Angel,” Gram Parsons
Influence spread from Boulder to Birmingham in early '70s
By Rob Carrigan, robcarrigan1@gmail.com
Boulder was important to the development of country rock in the early 1970s but it was a dangerous, drug-addled scene, where survivors were lucky to get out alive. And just as Hunter S. Thompson noted, "the music business is cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free and good men die like dogs. There's also a negative side." Gram Parsons, and his experiences here in Colorado and the West, were evidence of that, and I think he, and his story, is in the running for the title of one of the saddest singers of all time.
Parsons was born in Winter Haven, Florida, and developed an interest in country music while attending Harvard University. He founded the International Submarine Band in 1966, but the group disbanded prior to the 1968 release of its debut album, Safe at Home. Parsons joined the Byrds in early 1968 and played a pivotal role in the making of the seminal Sweetheart of the Rodeo album. After leaving the group in late 1968, Parsons and fellow Byrd, Chris Hillman formed The Flying Burrito Brothers in 1969; the band released its debut, The Gilded Palace of Sin, the same year. The album was well received but failed commercially. After a sloppy cross-country tour, the band hastily recorded Burrito Deluxe. Parsons was fired from the band before the album's release in early 1970.
Emmylou Harris
Emmylou Harris assisted him on vocals for his first solo record, GP, released in 1973. Although it received enthusiastic reviews, the release failed to chart. His next album, Grievous Angel, peaked at number 195 on the Billboard chart. His health deteriorated due to several years of drug abuse culminating in his death from a toxic combination of morphine and alcohol in 1973 at the age of 26.
By 1968, Parsons had come to the attention of the Byrds' bassist, Chris Hillman, via business manager Larry Spector as a possible replacement band member following the departures of David Crosby and Michael Clarke from the group in late 1967. Parsons had been acquainted with Hillman since the pair had met in a bank during 1967 and in February 1968 he passed an audition for the band, being initially recruited as a jazz pianist but soon switching to rhythm guitar and vocals.
Although Parsons was an equal contributor to the band, he was not regarded as a full member of the Byrds by the band's record label, Columbia Records. Consequently, when the Byrds' Columbia recording contract was renewed on February 29, 1968, it was only original members Roger McGuinn and Chris Hillman who signed it. Parsons, like fellow new recruit Kevin Kelley, was hired as a sideman and received a salary from McGuinn and Hillman.
In later years, this led Hillman to say, "Gram was hired. He was not a member of the Byrds, ever. He was on salary; that was the only way we could get him to turn up." However, these comments overlook the fact that Parsons, like Kelley, was considered a bona fide member of the band during 1968 and, as such, was given equal billing alongside McGuinn, Hillman, and Kelley on the Sweetheart of the Rodeo album and in contemporary presscoverage of the band.
"Being with The Byrds confused me a little. I couldn't find my place. I didn't have enough say-so. I really wasn't one of The Byrds. I was originally hired because they wanted a keyboard player. But I had experience being a frontman and that came out immediately. And [Roger McGuinn] being a very perceptive fellow saw that it would help the act, and he started sticking me out front."said Gram Parsons reflecting on his time with the Byrds:
"Being with The Byrds confused me a little. I couldn't find my place. I didn't have enough say-so. I really wasn't one of The Byrds. I was originally hired because they wanted a keyboard player. But I had experience being a frontman and that came out immediately. And [Roger McGuinn] being a very perceptive fellow saw that it would help the act, and he started sticking me out front."said Gram Parsons reflecting on his time with the Byrds:
Sweetheart of the Rodeo was originally conceived by band leader Roger McGuinn as a sprawling, double album history of American popular music. It was to begin with bluegrass music, then move through country and western, jazz, rhythm and blues, and rock music, before finally ending with the most advanced (for the time) form of electronic music.
However, as recording plans were made, Parsons exerted a controlling influence over the group, persuading the other members to leave Los Angeles and record the album in Nashville, Tennessee. Along the way, McGuinn's original album concept was jettisoned in favor of a fully fledged country project, which included Parsons' songs such as "One Hundred Years from Now" and "Hickory Wind", along with compositions by Bob Dylan, Woody Guthrie, Merle Haggard, and others.
According to G. Brown, of Colorado Music Experience, in a Chris Hillman Profile, Hillman and Parsons were pivotal in the development of country rock.
According to G. Brown, of Colorado Music Experience, in a Chris Hillman Profile, Hillman and Parsons were pivotal in the development of country rock.
Staying with the Byrds for four years and six seminal albums, Chris Hillman then departed with Gram Parsons to develop acoustic country sounds in a new band dubbed the Flying Burrito Brothers. He remained with the band until its demise in 1971. At that time, he was the only remaining original member.
In 1972, Stephen Stills offered Hillman a partnership in the formation of Manassas, and he moved to Colorado. It seemed a comfortable solution to post-Burrito depression.
“Stills had showed up when the Burritos played at Tulagi in Boulder,” Hillman said. “After the show, we went up to his real nice cabin in Gold Hill and hung out.”
In Manassas, Hillman emerged as Stills’ musical foil, collaborating in the writing and contributing vocals as well as instrumental versatility. When Manassas disbanded after two years of road work and two albums (which he co-produced), Hillman produced Rick Roberts’ second solo album, “She Is a Song.” He then joined forces with J.D. Souther and Richie Furay in the Souther-Hillman-Furay Band. The group recorded two albums, the first earning a gold record, and toured nationally before splitting up in the summer of 1975.
Back in Colorado, Hillman prepared his first solo album, Slippin’ Away, a summation of his rock, bluegrass and country roots, aided by old Burrito, Manassas and S-H-F pals. It peaked at #152 on the Billboard album chart in June 1976.
Amidst the recording of Slippin’ Away, Hillman began to utilize his talents behind the board in the studio, producing the demo tapes which led to Firefall’s contract and Dan McCorison’s self-titled solo album.
“There were some good times in Boulder,” Hillman said. “On the plus side, there was a lot of interesting music coming up. There were a couple of clubs that were fun to play, and I had a lot of fun working with people.
Flying Burrito Brothers at Joshua Tree
“Unfortunately, there was a very heavy negative lifestyle prevalent. Drugs all over the place—a lot of cocaine. I think there was a dealer on every corner. It affected me. It affected everybody. And some people died. It was very excessive. I think the ’70s were a very strange time in the history of this country, but, boy, there was some bad stuff going on in Boulder then.”
Barney Hoskyns, the co-founder and editorial director of online archive Rock’s Backpages and the author of – among other books – Hotel California: Singer-Songwriters and Cocaine Cowboys in the LA Canyons.
Keith Richards, Gram Parsons, Anita Pallenberg, Phil Kaufman, Tony Foutz, in L.A. in 1969.
Barney Hoskyns, the co-founder and editorial director of online archive Rock’s Backpages and the author of – among other books – Hotel California: Singer-Songwriters and Cocaine Cowboys in the LA Canyons.
"Then along came Rolling Stones guitarist Mr Keith Richards, who was both the making and the unmaking of Mr Parsons," says Hoskyns.
"After a Byrds show in London in July 1968, when he joined the Stones on a late-night visit to Stonehenge, Mr Parsons embarked on a musical love affair with “Keef.” The tradeoff was a simple one: Mr Parsons was seduced by Mr Richards’ outlaw cool, Mr Richards by Mr Parsons’ Southern charm and deep knowledge of country. Rich-kid dilettante that he was, Mr Parsons immediately jumped ship from The Byrds, claiming Mr Richards and Ms Anita Pallenberg had urged him not to travel to South Africa with the group. The bromance continued when Mr Richards and Ms Pallenberg came to LA to finish work on the Stones’ Let It Bleed.
“Keith came in with Anita and this skinny Southern boy in crushed velour trousers and silk scarves,” recalled Phil Kaufman to Hoskyns, then working as a Jagger-styled “executive nanny” for the Stones. “They went out and spent a lot of money on country records, and I would sit there and play DJ.”
"Mr Parsons’ troubled past was always going to catch up with him. “Here was a kid with a lot of talent but zero discipline,” according to Hillman, and reported by Hoskyns, who eventually had to sack Parsons from his own band.
"Mr Parsons’ troubled past was always going to catch up with him. “Here was a kid with a lot of talent but zero discipline,” according to Hillman, and reported by Hoskyns, who eventually had to sack Parsons from his own band.
“Suddenly he had one foot in country music and the other in the rock’n’roll glamour world.” Compounding the problem was Sir Mick Jagger’s jealousy of the Richards-Parsons bond. When Parsons and teenage girlfriend Gretchen Burrell joined the Stones’ circus in their Côte d’Azur tax-exile, they were quickly asked to leave. “I really don’t remember the circumstances of the departure clearly,” Richards noted disingenuously in his bestselling Life. “I had insulated myself against the dramas of the crowded household.”
Back in California, according to Hoskyns, Parsons moved into Sunset Boulevard’s Chateau Marmont hotel – then a den if not a gilded palace of iniquity – and began running around with fellow rich kid Mr Terry Melcher, son of Doris Day and producer of The Byrds.
“Gram thought he was too much of an artist to be understood by the industry,” Melcher said later. “He was one of these people who thought it was great to die young.” At the Chateau, Mr Parsons forsook heroin but drowned himself in tequila, becoming unfashionably fat in the process. Yet somehow he bestirred himself again, possibly motivated by the Top 40 of the Eagles, who’d smoothed the bittersweet pain of his alt-country music into massive commercial success.
Back in California, according to Hoskyns, Parsons moved into Sunset Boulevard’s Chateau Marmont hotel – then a den if not a gilded palace of iniquity – and began running around with fellow rich kid Mr Terry Melcher, son of Doris Day and producer of The Byrds.
“Gram thought he was too much of an artist to be understood by the industry,” Melcher said later. “He was one of these people who thought it was great to die young.” At the Chateau, Mr Parsons forsook heroin but drowned himself in tequila, becoming unfashionably fat in the process. Yet somehow he bestirred himself again, possibly motivated by the Top 40 of the Eagles, who’d smoothed the bittersweet pain of his alt-country music into massive commercial success.
“Nobody gave a shit about Gram, he never sold any records,” said Pamela Des Barres, another of Mr Zappa’s GTOs.
“No one took him seriously except people such as Don Henley, who was definitely watching him.”
Redemption came for Parsons via a folk singer he heard in October 1971 in a Washington DC bar called Clyde’s: a year later – playing Conway Twitty to her Loretta Lynn – he flew Emmylou Harris to California for the sessions that produced 1973’s wonderful GP. The backup musicians – paid for out of Parsons’ own pocket – included the core sidemen who played behind Presley in Las Vegas.
(They also played on Mr Parsons’ posthumous and equally gorgeous 1974 album Grievous Angel.)
“It all seemed pretty chaotic to me,” Ms Harris confessed to Hoskyns, 40 years after the GP sessions.
“Gram was drinking off and on throughout the sessions, but he was such a sweet, generous, kind person. There was no meanness in him at all.”
(They also played on Mr Parsons’ posthumous and equally gorgeous 1974 album Grievous Angel.)
“It all seemed pretty chaotic to me,” Ms Harris confessed to Hoskyns, 40 years after the GP sessions.
“Gram was drinking off and on throughout the sessions, but he was such a sweet, generous, kind person. There was no meanness in him at all.”
In the spring of 1973, Harris set off with Parsons and road band The Fallen Angels on a tour that took them from Boulder to New York City.
“I really felt Gram was on a road to recovery through the tour we did,” she said. “The drinking was going away and the fog was lifting.” Thus the popular song later by Harris, "Boulder to Birmingham"
Clearly it didn’t lift high enough. Parsons had just filed for divorce from Burrell when, in the early autumn of 1973, he drove out to the California desert town of Joshua Tree with three drug buddies. He overdosed on heroin on the night of September 18, and was pronounced dead in the early hours of the next morning.
“He’d cleaned up, and that was the reason he died,” said Keith Richards. “He was clean and took a strong shot. It’s the one mistake you don’t want to make.”
Phil Kaufman – by now The Fallen Angels’ road manager – honored Parsons’ express wishes when he intercepted the singer’s casket at Van Nuys Airport and drove it back to Joshua Tree in a stolen hearse. There at Cap Rock – where Parsons had once spent a peyote-fuelled night with Richards and Pallenberg – Kaufman soaked the corpse with gasoline and dropped a lit match on it. In the starry darkness of the desert night, the flames lit up Cap Rock like illuminations.
Since first performing with Gram Parsons in Boulder in the early '70s (and getting fired), Emmylou Harris has played in Colorado many times over the years. Two years after Parsons died from an accidental overdose in 1973, she wrote one of her biggest hits, "Boulder to Birmingham," about her life with Parsons, and on her most recent effort, Hard Bargain, she wrote another tune about Parsons called "The Road." Jon Solomon of Westward, spoke with Harris about her and Parsons getting "fired," the new album, writing songs in open tunings and working with the Fray on "Boulder to Birmingham," which appears as a bonus track on that act's new album, Scars and Stories.
"Oh gosh, I'm trying to remember. I should know the name of the club. But we asked to play this bar in Nederland on the night we were supposed to play in Boulder, and then we had our next date in Austin. So we just went there early since we got "fired," and since we had time to work out beginnings, middles and ends and we got so many encores, we didn't have any extra songs. So we just started the set over again. Then, as we would travel along in the bus we would start working up more songs and hit them at sound check and add a few songs here and there. But that was quite an adventure."
Phil Kaufman – by now The Fallen Angels’ road manager – honored Parsons’ express wishes when he intercepted the singer’s casket at Van Nuys Airport and drove it back to Joshua Tree in a stolen hearse. There at Cap Rock – where Parsons had once spent a peyote-fuelled night with Richards and Pallenberg – Kaufman soaked the corpse with gasoline and dropped a lit match on it. In the starry darkness of the desert night, the flames lit up Cap Rock like illuminations.
Since first performing with Gram Parsons in Boulder in the early '70s (and getting fired), Emmylou Harris has played in Colorado many times over the years. Two years after Parsons died from an accidental overdose in 1973, she wrote one of her biggest hits, "Boulder to Birmingham," about her life with Parsons, and on her most recent effort, Hard Bargain, she wrote another tune about Parsons called "The Road." Jon Solomon of Westward, spoke with Harris about her and Parsons getting "fired," the new album, writing songs in open tunings and working with the Fray on "Boulder to Birmingham," which appears as a bonus track on that act's new album, Scars and Stories.
"Oh gosh, I'm trying to remember. I should know the name of the club. But we asked to play this bar in Nederland on the night we were supposed to play in Boulder, and then we had our next date in Austin. So we just went there early since we got "fired," and since we had time to work out beginnings, middles and ends and we got so many encores, we didn't have any extra songs. So we just started the set over again. Then, as we would travel along in the bus we would start working up more songs and hit them at sound check and add a few songs here and there. But that was quite an adventure."
I can still remember every song you played
Long ago when we were younger and we rocked the night away.
How could I see a future then, where you would not grow old?Such fire in our belly, such a hunger in souls.
I guess I've grown to love you in those words so often tired
Seen that we were traveling under some old lucky sign
I know I didn't say it then and no one was to blame
But the road we shared together once will never be the same.
Hey all along the way
Won't be coming round again.
Hey was a song I played.
And on the wings of a song, I'll fly away.
I wondered in the wilderness for a while I was so lost.
To everything there is a season and every blessing has it's cost.
So I took what you left to me and put it to some use
When looking for an answer with those three chords and the truth.
I come down from the mountain I come walking in your shoes.
I was taken for a glambler when I had no more to loose
For he put me on that path and how could I refuse.
And I would spend my whole life out here working on the blues.
Hey... Ay Hey. Hey. Ay. Hey. Heeeeeeeeey.
So I carried on, you can't be haunted by the past.
People come people, go and nothing ever lasts.
But I still think about you wonder where you are.
Can you see me from some place up there among the stars?
But down here under heaven there never was a chart
To guide our way across this crooked highway of the part?
And if it's only all about the journey in the end
On that road I'm glad I came to know my old friend.
Hey all along the way
Won't be coming round again.
Hey was a song I played.
And on the wings of a song, I'll fly away. I'll fly away.
I guess I've grown to love you in those words so often tired
Seen that we were traveling under some old lucky sign
I know I didn't say it then and no one was to blame
But the road we shared together once will never be the same.
Hey all along the way
Won't be coming round again.
Hey was a song I played.
And on the wings of a song, I'll fly away.
I wondered in the wilderness for a while I was so lost.
To everything there is a season and every blessing has it's cost.
So I took what you left to me and put it to some use
When looking for an answer with those three chords and the truth.
I come down from the mountain I come walking in your shoes.
I was taken for a glambler when I had no more to loose
For he put me on that path and how could I refuse.
And I would spend my whole life out here working on the blues.
Hey... Ay Hey. Hey. Ay. Hey. Heeeeeeeeey.
So I carried on, you can't be haunted by the past.
People come people, go and nothing ever lasts.
But I still think about you wonder where you are.
Can you see me from some place up there among the stars?
But down here under heaven there never was a chart
To guide our way across this crooked highway of the part?
And if it's only all about the journey in the end
On that road I'm glad I came to know my old friend.
Hey all along the way
Won't be coming round again.
Hey was a song I played.
And on the wings of a song, I'll fly away. I'll fly away.
__From "The Road," Emmylou Harris
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