Gram Is My Angel

I knew I was born during the wrong time. I figured it out that 1973 was not the best year in the world. One problem with being born in 1973 was the fact the new Mustang for that year was a total flop. It basically looked like a small car of today. The size of maybe a Toyota Corolla. Also in 1973 Watergate happened and some guy named Nixon got impeached. In Sports Ken Norton beat Mohammad Ali. The DH rule starts in Major League Baseball. Also, in that year the battle of the sexes between Billy Jean King and Bobby Riggs in a tennis match that should have happened long before to show that both sexes are equal. In music news Jim Croce died on my birthday and the Rolling Stones issue Goat Head Soup a week after I was born. In one of the most important death's near my birthday (not that Jim Croce is) was Gram Parsons. The man who changed the music world as we know it. The man who fused Country Music with Rock and Roll and Folk. This is otherwise called Country Rock. He did this in the summer of 1968. He changed the music world upside down. Somehow a bit of his spirit came over to see me. I am a pretty good Gram Parson's fan. I have a few of his CD's, a couple live shows and a 2CD set of live and a CD of out-takes.

Gram Parson's was a genius for a few reasons. He was a genius writer for one. For two, he came up with the fusion of County and Rock and made it sound great. I mean the Byrds and Buffalo Springfield did a good job, but he just polished it and made it more better. I do have a soft spot in my heart for this stuff. I mean I think if I was not for Gram then we would have no Wilco or Son Volt, The Jayhawks or Ryan Adams. I mean Mick Jagger and Keith Richards thought he was on of the most important people of his time. The song Wild Horses was basically about him. Gram was the first to record it for the Flying Burrito Brothers. Gram Parson's was a great inspiration to a lot of people. Emmylou Harris was a huge fan and had the opportunity to work with him and you can see his influence on her.



What I like about Gram is his influence on the music he loved and the influence on other people. Beside Jagger and Richards, Chris Hillman and The Byrds thought he was great and the album Sweetheart of the Rodeo is considered a classic. If you don't own that, then you should really pick it up. His lyrics are amazing and should be considered classic and really interesting for their time. Gram knew what he was doing. He was extremely intelligent and even for a short time went to Harvard. Sadly he clashed with Roger McGuinn and his tenure with the band was short lived. He moved on to bigger and better with the Burrito Brothers and finally went solo.

I started liking him in High School because I was a Byrds fan by then and one of my teachers told me that I should listen to his stuff. My teacher was not a fan of his period with the Byrds, but told me he thought he was quite important. I believed him and when I listened to Sweetheart of the Rodeo I could see why. Took a bit to catch on with me, but I loved it after a while.



When I went to check on his solo stuff the only thing back then and now is the two albums. GP and Grievous Angel they were released separately back in 1973 and 1974, but they come together as one CD now. They are both wonderful examples of his work. Both had that mix of Country, but he added a bit of Southern Soul to and it sounds wonderful. Even his voice was great. His expression was wonderful and showed he could have been a force not to be messed with. Both albums have aged very well. They would hold up very well in both Country music and in Rock and Roll camps if they came out today.

If you are looking to not impress your friends with music, then this is the album. I don't mean that in a bad way I think they would not understand how important this album is. I mean every time I play this stuff, my friends think I put on some wrong album on and thought it was my mothers or something. If you start talking about Gram you too might turn into some music geek. This stuff is great and it's influence is a mile long take a listen and I am sure you will feel the same way I do. It's got classic written all over it. Enjoy!