Entertainment For Lively Minds
Shuffle stories - gram parsons
First song today was song for you by gram parsons.
After becoming an alt country fan in the mid nineties and listening to stuff like Ryan Adams, wilco and the jayhawks I was constantly referenced across to Gram. The bits I listened to on iTunes seemed to be too much country and not enough alt so I continued to pass him up until the tribute album The Return Of The Grevious Angel was released and which made sense to buy as I was a fan of most of the contributing bands and singers.
Of course (and you're ahead of me here) I loved all of the songs and within a couple of months had GP and Grevious Angel as well as some Byrds and Burrito Brothers stuff.
This song however remains one of my favourites along with Hot Burrito #1. Its strange, considering how influential Gram is supposed to be, that his name does not come up more often with the massive.
- More from art vanderlay.
- Login or register to post comments
-
You may find
that few genres round here engender more disparaging remarks than country / new country / alt.country / Americana or whatever people choose to label it.
There are a few of us here who share our love of the music, but we tend to whisper it rather than shout it out loud.
Strange......
Because there are clearly big wilco fans here, Ryan Adams fans, elvis Costello fans etc. I can't say I've ever felt the dead hand of the massive on my shoulder when I've mentioned alt country before?
Dead hand of the Massive?
I wasn't suggesting it was quite that bad, but there have been many negative comments about the music.
One comment was that it is "horribly white". My response, asking whether the poster would find it acceptable calling any music "horribly black" went unanswered.
Country Rock
I like Gram Parsons, The (countryfied) Byrds - esp Clarence White, some of The Stones' country moments, some Everly Bros country records, Roger Miller bits of CSN&Y country, Neil Young's country bits - not Harvest, though.
However, I have no time at all for Wilco. I saw the film they did and I didn't like it at all. The leader of the band struck me as being a deeply unpleasant fellow.
Same for pretty much all the Americana I've come across. I just don't dig it. I know Uncut go bananas for it, but I genuinely don't see the connection between the new Alt. Country and GP et al in the late 60s.
I probably come at this the other way from you Buxton
Being a much bigger fan of alt country or Americana, which emphasises the alternative, rather then the sixties stuff which is closer in spirit to straight country.
I can however definitely see that many alt country bands are, if not influenced, then at least informed by the work Gram Parsons did.
I really enjoyed the film
I think Jeff Tweedy was going through a lot of personal issues at the time including an addiction to pain killers and then falling out with Jay Bennett, followed by Warner Bros.
How about this clip of Heavy Metal Drummer that starts with Tweedy trying to guess the name of one of his own songs as drummed out by his boy. Very sweet.
say it loud Americana and proud
no whispers here
shout if from the rooftops
Wilco are brilliant the melodies of Tweedy combined with the inventive effects and sheer dexterity of NelsCline is A1.
I'd put a 4 hour show they did , broadcast ,internationally over the interweb, as one of my all time great shows.
Check out impossible germany in particular.
That's absolutely beautiful!
.
Impossible Germany
You are so right, this is a magnificent song from a truly great band. I'm not sure what it is alt country, country or just roots based rock. Who cares really. As I get older I like songs and Gram Parsons, The Byrds, Ryan Adams and Jeff Tweedy have got them in spades.
A Gram / Emmy Lou
admirer here.
Like a bit of Hank Williams, Byrds, Burritos, Wilco, Jayhawks too.
Also partial to some Willie Nelson and Dolly Parton - admittedly in smaller doses.
The problem with country, for me, is that
after hearing Hank, the rest all seem a bit meh.
Four words
James, Burton, on and guitar.
saw james burton
with an elvis impersonator. Burton was a prick . Hardly played, ignored the singer ,snubbed him and let fall flat any form of interaction.
Yes a great guitar player but he shouldn't have taken the gig if he held the bloke in such contempt - andhe wasn't a bad singer actually.
Confederate
I saw James Burton play with Elvis and he seemed to join in at all the right places and filled in all the right gaps - it was a fabulous evening.
well he would wouldn't he
with the Big E himself.
my point was that he dudded a bloke who was paying him to play and treat him with a modicum of respect if only in performance
The C word
There's someone who posts on here who was very closely involved with kick-starting that whole alt.country / Americana movement in the late 90s.
He describes it as alt.success.
Timeline
I was listening to a Gram compilation only this morning (Warm Evenings, Pale Mornings, Bottled Blues 1963-1973) so I can't echo your enthusiasm more highly but there's something awry with your timeline. "The Return Of The Grevious Angel" was released in 1999 and the first version of iTunes (which won't have had a lot of users) came out in 2001 - there wasn't a Windows version available until around 2003.
John, all a long time ago now but....
Whilst i started listening to Alt country in the mid nineties it was probably 1999, as you say, when I bought that album. Either ways I listened to the The Return Of The Grevious Angel so much at that time and loved virtually every song (although could never enjoy the Chrissy Hind version of she, just something about her voice that disagrees with me).
Regarding listening to the Gram samples before that, it must have been via another streaming source or was all a bit later, can't remember either way the albums are great
Love Gram Parsons
No embarrassment here. Anyone who wants to talk about his music? I'm up for it. I couldn't care less that it's become a genre in the hands of another magazine. And, yes. JAMES BURTON.
Love it
Big fan of Gram, Americana, alt-country, etc. Wish there was more of it in Word. Incidentally I discovered from a rival mag that The Jayhawks have a new album coming out with Mark Olsen back in the fold! And the Gin Blossoms are back on the road.
Influence on Keef
As was confirmed in Keef's book, there was a deep friendship between him and Gram Parsons.
Indeed GPs influence is cited for Country Honk (from Let It Bleed), Wild Horses & Dead Flowers (from Sticky Fingers). GP is also said to be responsible for the continuing use of 5-string open G(?) tuning adopted to this day by the indestructable one.
I think
it was probably Ry Cooder more than GP. Ry has a long running grudge against Keef. Ry's of the opinion that Keef nicked all his tunings and 'licks' (I cringed when I typed that, I hate people saying 'licks') and used them on Let It Bleed.
It sounds fairly likely, but Keef was, to my mind, at his very best during 68-69, before Brian got the elbow and before they got Mick Taylor in. Let It Bleed and Beggars Banquet are almost exclusively Keef in terms of guitar playing - see sleeve for exceptions - and he's immaculate. Some of which was 5 string, some wasn't. He's great at both, before he got lazy on Exile. Gasp. I don't like Exile On Main Street, I think it's a dip after the previous two. I don't dig boogie woogie.
hush your mouth
you dont like boogie woogie? reminds me of that old long john baldry
as for the Ry thing, Keef says yeah I got it from Ry but everyone gets everything from everyone else and I've spent most of my life showing people tricks of the trade.
I love Ry but he is a grumpy old bastard.
Gram
He is an absolute God... Single handed he turned me on to all sorts of country music. There was a rumour going around quite a few years ago, which if I remember correctly was endorsed by Emmylou, that he actually wrote "Wild Horses" and gifted it to The Stones as a way of getting favour from Mick, who was apparently jealous of his influence over Keef. Anyone else heard this story?
Wild Horses
I don't think that's right. I'm pretty sure that GP never claimed to have written it. It did appear on Burrito Deluxe, The Flying Burrito Bros' second lp, before Sticky Fingers came out. Which I took as Keef gifting it to GP, not the other way around.
Keith's always said it was about Marlon.
Emmylou
I once asked her about this and she said "Did I? That's not right."
So there you go.
Nice lady, by the way. Remarkable eyes.
Emmylou?
Well my postman assures me that Gram did write it, and he has a nice pair of Doc Martins.
Saved by alt.country
As I've noted here before, I missed the whole Britpop scene in the 1990's, as it simply wasn't played on the radio or MTV in the US. By the late 90's the music available here was terrible, I was listening to things like Sugar Ray. Then one day in 1999 I picked up a copy of U===t that had a alt.country compilation CD called Sounds of the New West. Suddenly I was hearing The Flying Burrito Brothers, Emmylou Harris, Lambchop, The Pernice Brothers, Josh Rouse... It was a whole new world.
I honestly think that exposure to alt.country saved music for me. It gave me something I could really enjoy as an adult. It led me to Gram Parsons,Calexico, and many others. My tastes have expanded in the decade since, and I've moved from U===t to The Word following those tastes ( I thought the Best of 2010 Word CD last month was great ). But I shudder to think where I'd be today musically had I not discovered that alt.country CD all those years ago.
Strange to say.....
That I arrived at alt country via, of all places, counting crows. I think there were a couple of slide guitar parts and sufficient slabs of melancholy on august and everything after to point me in the direction of the jayhawks etc.
Strange then that while looking for the GP video clip of song for you on the OP one of the first things I came across was a video of Adam Duritz and Emmy Lou Harris singing Return Of The Grievous Angel together.
I know the crows are ridiculed in most quarters but to be fair they did lead me to some very cool places.
similar path
Art, interestingly, I went from Sounds of the New West to the Gram Parsons tribute album you mentioned, Return of the Grievous Angel, as my next stop in exploring alt.country. What a great CD. All that lovely Gram Parsons music, sung by a host of delightful singers. I still get shivers when I hear Gillian Welch sing Hickory Wind, or The Rolling Creekdippers do In My Hour of Darkness. Good stuff.
Late 90s? Ha!
I was in a band that attempted to get, er, some alt country off the ground in the mid-80s. While we worshipped at the Gram/Burritos/Byrds altar and received a fair degree of critical acclaim it was hard to get audiences switched on to any view of country other than the obvious Nashville cabaret references. I don't think it's that different today in that you'll find few mentions of Parsons as an influential figure. Shame, lovely singer and fine songwriter.
For me,the cover of Wasn't Born to Follow on Notorious Byrd Brothers is a fine a piece of 'alt country' or whatever as there's ever been.