Posted on 01/15/2016 6:18:52 PM PST by WhiskeyX
The Byrds - Sweetheart Of The Rodeo (Gram's Version) (full album)
0:00 You Ain't Goin' Nowhere
2:41 I Am A Pilgrim
6:27 The Christian Life
9:01 You Don't Miss Your Water
12:56 You're Still On My Mind
15:26 Pretty Boy Floyd
18:06 Hickory Wind
21:44 One Hundred Years From Now
24:46 Blue Canadian Rockies
26:54 Life In Prison
29:45 Nothing Was Delivered
On the original album Parsons is featured singing lead vocals on the songs "Hickory Wind", "You're Still on My Mind", and "Life in Prison". Due to legal threat from Lee Hazlewood (who contended that the singer was still under contract to his LHI record label), Gram's vocals on the three songs "The Christian Life", "You Don't Miss Your Water", and "One Hundred Years from Now" were replaced by Roger McGuinn. Parsons' original vocals were finally released on The Byrds box set in 1990 (as well as Sacred Hearts & Fallen Angels: The Gram Parsons Anthology in 2001).
(Excerpt) Read more at youtube.com ...
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Byrds /ˈbɜrdz/ were an American rock band, formed in Los Angeles, California in 1964.[1] The band underwent multiple line-up changes throughout its existence, with frontman Roger McGuinn (known as Jim McGuinn until mid-1967) remaining the sole consistent member, until the group disbanded in 1973.[2] Although they only managed to attain the huge commercial success of contemporaries like the Beatles, the Beach Boys, and the Rolling Stones for a short period (1965–66), the Byrds are today considered by critics to be one of the most influential bands of the 1960s.[1] Initially, they pioneered the musical genre of folk rock, melding the influence of the Beatles and other British Invasion bands with contemporary and traditional folk music.[3] As the 1960s progressed, the band was also influential in originating psychedelic rock, raga rock, and country rock.[1][4][5]
The band's signature blend of clear harmony singing and McGuinn's jangly twelve-string Rickenbacker guitar has continued to be influential on popular music up to the present day.[1][6] Among the band's most enduring songs are their cover versions of Bob Dylan's "Mr. Tambourine Man" and Pete Seeger's "Turn! Turn! Turn! (to Everything There Is a Season)", along with the self-penned originals, "I'll Feel a Whole Lot Better", "Eight Miles High", "So You Want to Be a Rock 'n' Roll Star", "Ballad of Easy Rider" and "Chestnut Mare".
The original five-piece line-up of the Byrds consisted of Jim McGuinn (lead guitar, vocals), Gene Clark (tambourine, vocals), David Crosby (rhythm guitar, vocals), Chris Hillman (bass guitar, vocals), and Michael Clarke (drums).[7] However, this version of the band was relatively short-lived and by early 1966, Clark had left due to problems associated with anxiety and his increasing isolation within the group.[8] The Byrds continued as a quartet until late 1967, when Crosby and Clarke also departed the band.[9] McGuinn and Hillman decided to recruit new members, including country rock pioneer Gram Parsons, but by late 1968, Hillman and Parsons had also exited the band.[1] McGuinn, who by this time had changed his name to Roger after a flirtation with the Subud religion,[2] elected to rebuild the band's membership and between 1968 and 1973, he helmed a new incarnation of the Byrds, featuring guitarist Clarence White among others.[1] McGuinn disbanded the then current line-up in early 1973, to make way for a reunion of the original quintet.[10] The Byrds' final album was released in March 1973, with the reunited group disbanding soon afterwards.[11]
Several former members of the band went on to successful careers of their own, either as solo artists or as members of such groups as Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, the Flying Burrito Brothers and the Desert Rose Band.[1] In the late 1980s, Gene Clark and Michael Clarke both began touring as the Byrds, prompting a legal challenge from McGuinn, Crosby, and Hillman over the rights to the band's name.[12] As a result of this, McGuinn, Crosby, and Hillman performed a series of reunion concerts as the Byrds in 1989 and 1990, and also recorded four new Byrds' songs.[13][14]
In January 1991, the Byrds were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, an occasion that saw the five original members performing together for the last time.[15][16] McGuinn, Crosby, and Hillman still remain active but Gene Clark died of a heart attack in 1991, and Michael Clarke died of liver failure in 1993.[17][18]
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Byrds
Sweetheart of the Rodeo
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Sweetheart of the Rodeo is the sixth album by American rock band The Byrds and was released on August 30, 1968 on Columbia Records (see 1968 in music).[1] Recorded with the addition of country rock pioneer Gram Parsons, it was influential as the first major country rock album by an established act and represented a stylistic move away from the psychedelic rock of the band's previous LP, The Notorious Byrd Brothers.[2][3] The Byrds had occasionally experimented with country music on their four previous albums, but Sweetheart of the Rodeo represented their fullest immersion into the genre thus far.[4][5][6] The album was also responsible for bringing Gram Parsons, who had joined The Byrds prior to the recording of the album, to the attention of a mainstream rock audience for the first time.[6][7] Thus, the album can be seen as an important chapter in Parsons' personal and musical crusade to make country music fashionable for a young audience.[8]
The album was initially conceived as a musical history of 20th century American popular music, encompassing examples of country music, jazz and rhythm and blues, among other genres.[4] However, steered by the passion of the little-known Parsons, who had only joined The Byrds in February 1968, this proposed concept was abandoned early on and the album instead became purely a country record.[4][9] The recording of the album was divided between sessions in Nashville and Los Angeles, with contributions from several notable session musicians, including Lloyd Green, John Hartford, JayDee Maness and Clarence White.[10] Tension developed between Parsons and the rest of the band, guitarist Roger McGuinn especially, with some of Parsons' vocals being re-recorded, partly due to legal complications, and by the time the album was released in August, Parsons had left the band.[11][12][13] The Byrds' move away from rock and pop towards country music elicited a great deal of resistance and hostility from the ultra-conservative Nashville country music establishment who viewed The Byrds as a group of long-haired hippies attempting to subvert country music.[9]
Upon its release, the album reached #77 on the Billboard Top LPs chart, but failed to reach the charts in the United Kingdom.[14][15] Two attendant singles were released during 1968, "You Ain't Goin' Nowhere", which achieved modest success, and "I Am a Pilgrim", which failed to chart.[15][16] The album received mostly positive reviews in the music press, but the band's shift away from psychedelic music alienated much of its pop audience.[17] Despite being the most commercially unsuccessful Byrds' album to date upon its initial release, Sweetheart of the Rodeo is today considered to be a seminal and highly influential country rock album.[4]
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweetheart_of_the_Rodeo
Ping
Gram’s gravestone is outside New Orleans (off Airline in Metarie). The body was burned in Joshua Tree, but transported to Louisiana for burial. Was some power play by the family thinking it would give them rights to his music or something.
I like the McGuinn vocals better. I don’t think it’s just that I’m used to them, Parson’s vocals sound loose and under-rehearsed. I think if they had really used them, they would have tried to get better takes.
He did the strange song "Some Velvet Morning" with Nancy Sinatra, which Art Bell used to play. (Nancy was "Phaedra.")
I like this LP. Surprising for a blues, blues rock person.
But Gram Parsons was no big deal to me.
“Some Velvet Morning” got a lot of airplay locally in January, 1968.
The GP to get is “Live, 1973” on Sierra. It’s a full live broadcast set from WLIR in Long Island.
This album is the one that got me to play pedal steel guitar. Lloyd Green’s stuff is beautiful! I became a builder, working for the late Jerry Brightman, at Performance Steel Guitars. RIP Jerry. One day Jerry, knowing my hero was Lloyd, called me into the office. He said I had a phone call. He had called his good friend Lloyd, and put me on the phone with him. We talked for an hour, mostly about Shobud Fingertip guitars, as I had just gotten one. I was struck by Lloyd;’s friendliness, and extreme intelligence. I also spent time with John Hughey. How many guys get to meet their guitar hero
players? I feel very lucky!
I see on wikipedia that the song peaked at #26 on Billboard’s Hot 100 in January 1968.
I don’t remember it from then, and it is memorable.
JayDee Maness who played pedal steel guitar on the Byrds Sweetheart of the Rodeo was later a member of Rick Nelson’s Stone Cayon Band.
Yeah, I know. I’ve spoken to JayDee through Jerry. But Lloyd has always been my guy. I have bugged Dr Z for 25 years to build a steel amp. He has finally done t!! And it’s amazing!
I have the album downstairs with the rest of my vinyl (Standing in upright position of course.) I do not listen to too much music anymore. I enjoy the silence, like to think. My introduction to country music sound, that, and the WGN Barn Dance.
My Byrds Rock story: we were touring the Record Plant Studio to see about recording there -—literally missed Babs Streisand who was recording there. Anyway I was walking close to a wall and a door I really didn’t see opened and McGuinn popped out and I knocked him over. He good naturedly jumped up and left.
“Some Velvet Morning” made quite an impression on me as a kid when I watched the 1967 Nancy Sinatra TV special “Movin’ with Nancy.” Lots of other groovy song on that show, including guest appearances by Nancy’s dad and fellow Rat Packers Dean Martin and Sammy Davis Jr. I made by parents get me the soundtrack album.
You can watch the whole special on YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bydSevpkXQ0
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