GP/Grievous Angel

Gram Parsons

album cover

Cosmic American Music

After helping the Byrds go country with Sweetheart of the Rodeo, and then founding the short-lived but brilliant Flying Burrito Brothers, Gram Parsons (1946–1973) went under the radar for a while in the late '60s. A free spirit who struggled with addiction—he died after overdosing on morphine and tequila in the desert near California's Joshua Tree National Park—Parsons lost a year or more partying. He spent time hanging out with the Rolling Stones during the making of Exile on Main Street, and performed occasionally, but wasn't inclined to write or record his own work until 1972, when he heard Emmylou Harris singing at a Washington, D.C., folk bar called Clyde's. Her sturdy, unaffected voice hit something in him: "I found a chick singer who's real good who I want to sing with," Parsons told an interviewer in the spring of 1972. "If you get a really good chick, it works better than anything because you can look at each other with love in your eyes."

Love, along with longing and a loner's isolation, defines what Parsons did next—GP, one of the most quietly visionary debuts of the 1970s. Parsons hated the term "country-rock." He described his patchwork of weepy country ballads, careening blues, and up-tempo rambles as "cosmic American music," and he worked to heighten those mystic elements, particularly when singing with Harris. On the two-stepping "That's All It Took" and "A Song for You," the duo sounds like veterans of the country road show; one soars while the other keeps a foot on the earth.

GP is the mother lode of Parsons's song-writing, a series of sketches from a wide-open stylistic frontier that would soon, with the arrival of the Eagles, become one of the defining sounds of the '70s. Though the follow-up Grievous Angel contains several originals, including the haunting closer Parsons and Harris wrote together, "In My Hour of Darkness," it primarily shows Parsons's knack for personalizing other people's music. Among its killers: a wrenching rendition of Boudleaux Bryant's "Love Hurts" (a song memorably cut by the Everly Brothers) and a raucous treatment of Tom T. Hall's "I Can't Dance."

Genre: Rock
Released: 1990, Warner Bros. (GP originally issued 1972, Grievous Angel 1973.)
Key Tracks: GP: "That's All It Took," "A Song for You," "Streets of Baltimore," "Kiss the Children." Grievous Angel: "Love Hurts," "Return of the Grievous Angel," "I Can't Dance."
Collector's Note: The three-CD 2006 The Complete Reprise Sessions offers upgraded sonics and alternate takes and demos.
Next Stop: George Jones and Tammy Wynette: Sixteen Biggest Hits
After That: Jackson Browne: Saturate Before Using
Book Pages: 581–582

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Comments:

#1 from Linda McGrew, Ashland, Virginia - 10/15/2008 2:02

I am so glad Gram Parsons was included on this list. This album is truly beautiful. He made a very big impact in a very short time. His influence on the Bryds, “Sweethearts of the Rodeo” as well as the Flying Burrito Brothers, “Gilded Palace of Sin” two omissions to the list, but not complaining. His most profound influence can be seen in Emmy Lou Harris who carried on his message and wrote a song a tribute to him “Boulder to Birmingham.” If you do feature him, don’t mention his death. Just talk about his music and the mucisians he influenced. A lot people on this list claim gram parsons’ as their muse.

#2 from Josh, Indiana - 11/08/2008 2:17

I’d love to see this as a featured recording because I’d be interested in Moon’s analysis of the two original albums (how they differ, possibly which one he likes more, the role of Emmylou) and of Parsons’s whole career—were these albums his peak? How do they fit into the legacy of other Parsons work like the Flying Burrito Bros.’ The Gilded Palace of Sin?

#3 from Adam Herbst, New Jersey - 11/12/2008 8:49

Left the Birds because he wouldn’t play South Africa, respect due!

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