Two for Tuesday
Providing background information on music from popular genres like Country, Classic Rock, Southern Rock etc.
Two for Tuesday
Gram Parsons: Cosmic American Music & the Tragedy of Sin City
In this episode of The Two for Tuesday Podcast, we take a deep dive into the extraordinary yet brief life of Gram Parsons—the visionary who blended country, rock, gospel, and soul into what he called Cosmic American Music.
From the aching nostalgia of “Hickory Wind” with The Byrds to the apocalyptic warning of “Sin City” with The Flying Burrito Brothers, Parsons reshaped American music in just a few short years. We’ll uncover his friendships with The Rolling Stones, his legendary partnership with Emmylou Harris, and the tragic end that left him forever tied to the mystique of Joshua Tree.
Though he never achieved mainstream success, Parsons’ influence echoes through artists like The Eagles, Wilco, and Emmylou Harris. His story is one of brilliance, heartbreak, and a musical vision that outlived him.
Link to Michael's performance of these two songs on the 2nd Round Music YouTube channel:
Well, hello friends, and welcome to the Two for Tuesday podcast brought to you by Second Round Music. I'm your host, michael Puzan and today's focus is on a guy who very often gets overlooked and, to be honest, most don't even know who he is.
Speaker 1:And although his recording output is very small. His impact on both country and rock and roll music was enormous. We're talking about the grievous angel himself, graham Parsons, known as the father of country rock. Parsons preferred to call his creation Cosmic American Music. It's a blend of country, soul, gospel, rock and folk, and it blurred genre lines. Now he only lived to the age of 26, but his collaborations with the Byrds, the Flying Burrito Brothers and Emmylou Harris, among others, left an indelible mark. We'll retrace his life, the highs and the heartbreaking lows, and we'll spotlight two defining songs and two of my favorites Hickory Wind and Sin City. And we'll do that just on the other side of this message. Are you ready to take control of your finances and build a brighter future? Are you sick and tired of being sick and tired and feeling broke all the time? My name is Michael Pezent, a certified master coach, and I created Second Round Financial to provide personalized financial coaching based on the proven principles of Dave Ramsey's seven baby steps. Our services include, but are not limited to, one-on-one financial coaching through Zoom, conference or face-to-face budgeting strategies, debt reduction plans, emergency fund creation, retirement planning and investment guidance. But why choose us? Because we believe in empowering our clients with the knowledge and tools they need to achieve financial peace. With our guidance, you'll gain clarity over your financial situation, develop a realistic and achievable plan, and experience hope and confidence in your financial future. I have over 15 years experience teaching and guiding families in the Ramsey Principles, along with a degree in finance and work experience in the banking and insurance industries. So let's get started today. Go to secondroundfinancialcom and click book now to schedule your free consultation today. And click book now to schedule your free consultation today.
Speaker 1:Graham Parsons was born Ingram Cecil Connor III. He was born in 1946 in Winter Haven, florida. His family was wealthy. His grandfather was a citrus magnate who held extensive properties in Winter Haven and Waycross, georgia. But tragedy defined Graham's youth. His parents were both alcoholics and suffered from depression. His father, a decorated World War II flying ace, died by suicide when Graham was just 12 years old, and his mother, avis, who later married Robert Parsons, succumbed to alcoholism and died the very day Graham graduated from high school. Now, young Graham carried that grief with him the rest of his life. He briefly attended Harvard, but he left after one semester, choosing music over academia. At the age of 21, he began receiving $30,000 annually from a family trust. That's a lot of money in 1967 and would give him the financial freedom to pursue his art, but it also enabled him the excesses that would eventually take his life. Now.
Speaker 1:Graham developed a strong musical interest early in his life, particularly after seeing Elvis Presley perform in a concert in Waycross, georgia, in 1956. But his first serious project was with a band called the Shallows, and it was a folk group influenced by the Kingston Trio, and by 1966, he co-founded the International Submarine Band, moving to Los Angeles and signing with Lee Hazelwood of LHI Records. Now they recorded Safe at Home, an album considered an early blueprint of country rock. It featured songs like Luxury Liner. Now, though, the band dissolved before its release. Parsons' vision of blending honky-tonk with modern sounds had already begun taking shape. Now, in 1968, graham joined the Byrds and was originally supposed to be the band's jazz pianist, but he would soon become a rhythm guitarist and a vocalist in the band. Now, graham was never officially a member of the band. A quote from Chris Hillman, one of the founding members of the band, stated Graham was hired. He was not a member of the Byrds ever. He was on salary.
Speaker 1:That was the only way we could get him to tune up. So Graham's influence on the Byrds truly started when he convinced Roger McGuinn and Hillman to go to Nashville to record a record. And the result was Sweetheart of the Rodeo, often cited as the birth of country rock. Now the concept of this album was a brainchild of Roger McGuinn's. Now he wanted to record an album that told the history of American popular music. It was to begin with bluegrass, then move through country and western jazz, rhythm and blues and rock music, before ending with what he called electronic music. But by the time they got to Nashville that idea had fallen apart and it turned solely into a country project.
Speaker 1:So the recording of the album started on March 9th of 1968 at Columbia Records and it was at their recording studio on Music Row in Nashville. But about halfway through the project it moved back to Columbia's Hollywood studio and the album would be completed by the end of May of 1968. Now there's a story behind that move. So it goes that on March 15th, just days after starting the recording of the Sweethearts Project, the Byrds were invited to appear at the Mother Church of Country Music, the Grand Ole Opry, and they were scheduled to perform two Merle Haggard covers Sing Me Back Home and Life in Prison and they played the first, but in lieu of the latter they played Hickory Wind, and the Nashville establishment was none too happy. So, due to the backlash, the band decided to finish the project in a more friendly confine.
Speaker 2:In South Carolina there are many tall pines. I remember the oak trees that we used to climb, but now that I'm lonesome I always pretend that I'm getting the feel Of Hickory Wind.
Speaker 1:Now Graham co-wrote Hickory Wind with former international submarine band bandmate Bob Buchanan on a train ride from Florida to California, and it's widely considered Graham's signature song. It expresses his longing for the South, his childhood innocence and the ache of displacement. Johnny Rogan, in a book that he wrote called the Birds Timeless Flight Revisited, offers the following interpretation of the song. The alluring hickory wind serves as a powerful image of Parsons' bittersweet nostalgia as he imagines an Edenic childhood of simple pleasures like climbing trees. During successive verses he reflects on the pursuit of fame, the curse of wealth without spiritual satisfaction and the perils of city life. And what really makes the song, however, is Parsons' aching vocal performance set against a superb steel guitar backing, whose whining combines with his yearning voice to create a mood of unbearable poignancy. Now recorded in Nashville with session greats Lloyd Green on the pedal steel and John Hartford on fiddle, parsons sang lead and played rhythm guitar and piano on the final version, despite contract disputes that led to some of his vocals being erased. Now more on that. Later, byrd's bandmate Chris Hillman would play bass and Roger McGuinn played banjo and Kevin Kelly played the drums.
Speaker 1:Now another backstory during post-production of the album, many of the lead vocals of Graham's was removed and they were replaced by Roger McGuinn.
Speaker 1:The widely held theory was due to a legal dispute between Graham and Lee Hazelwood due to his contract with LHI Records. Now, album producer Gary Usher held a different belief. He stated that the changes were due to creative concerns, that Graham held too much of the dominant presence on the project. Now, though Sweetheart was initially a commercial disappointment and Hickory Wind was never released as a single, it has become Parsons' signature song and it would be re-recorded in 1974 on Graham's Grievous Angel album. Now, graham would quit the Byrds that same year while touring in England, famously refusing to perform in South Africa, which was where the tour was headed next in protest of apartheid. Now, chris Hillman didn't believe Graham's reasoning. He believed that he just wanted to stay in England because during that time he struck up a close friendship with Keith Richards and Mick Jagger of the Rolling Stones, and Graham would actually move in with Keith and his then wife for a short period of time where he reintroduced the Stones to country music.
Speaker 2:And this old earthquake's gonna leave me in the poorhouse. Seems like this whole town's insane. And on the 31st alone you're going to play the door. Won't keep out the Lord's burning rain.
Speaker 1:So, on returning back to Los Angeles, Graham looked up Chris Hilton and they both formed the Flying Burrito Brothers, along with bassist Chris Etheridge and pedal steel player Sneaky Pete Kleinow. Their 1969 debut, the Gilded Palace of Sin, was revolutionary Psychedelic country rock dressed in rhinestone nudie suits and embroidered with marijuana, leaves and pills. It was a modernized variant of the Bakersfield Sound that we recently talked about and what Graham had envisioned. A Sin City was written by Parsons and Hillman, and it portrayed Los Angeles as a modern-day Babylon corrupt, dangerous yet irresistible. With its biblical imagery, the song warned of destruction and moral collapse. It's been said that this song was influenced by the music of country music legends, the Leuven Brothers. The song is a slow, mournful, hymn-like tune. Sneaky Pete's pedal still crying behind Parson's vulnerable voice, and it felt like both a sermon and a lament. Sin City was recorded during the Gilded Palace of Sin sessions at A&M Studios in.
Speaker 1:Hollywood, and the track reflected the band's gospel and soul influences as much as honky-tonk traditions. The song had a couple of interesting references the lyric A Gold-Plated Door was a reference to the Byrds' manager, larry Spector, and the lyric Tried to Clean Up this town was a reference to Robert F Kennedy. Now the album was a flop commercially, but Sin City became one of Parsons' defining works and it's been covered by Emmylou Harris, beck, dwight Yoakam and Uncle Tupelo, securing its place in American music history. And the album's influence is far-reaching. It's influenced the likes of the Eagles, traditional country stars Clint Black, steve Earle, vince Gill, emmylou Harris, alan Jackson, randy Travis, travis Tripp and Dwight Yoakam, who covered the song with KD Lang on his Just Looking for a Hit album back in 1989. So, to be honest, the version of this song that you'll hear me play is a mix of the Burrito Brothers and Dwight. Structurally it's like Graham's version Verse, chorus, verse, chorus, instrumental break, verse, chorus, tag, but now, vocally, my version will sound a lot more like Dwight's than it will Graham's.
Speaker 1:So, though a brilliant artist, graham's time with the Burrito Brothers was plagued by drug use, poor touring and commercial disappointment, and by 1970, he left the group on a mutual agreement with Hillman. Now, after failed attempts at solo work and a turbulent stint living with the Stones' Keith Richards, parsons finally found stability with Emmylou Harris in 1972. The two met while Graham was playing a one-off concert with his old band, the Flying Burrito Brothers in Washington DC. Now together they recorded GP in 1973 and Grievous Angel in 1974, and these albums featured several members of Elvis's TCB band and they blended honky-tonk tradition with aching harmonies from Emmylou and in my opinion this is her strength as a vocalist. Though neither sold well, the records are now hailed as masterpieces of country rock. Harris's career would soar afterwards and she's called Parsons her greatest musical influence.
Speaker 1:But in September of 1973, after finishing Grievous Angel, graham went to Joshua Tree National Monument at his favorite desert retreat located in southeastern California. So about a month from starting another tour, he decided to go on a recuperative excursion with a few friends. So while they were there he overdosed on morphine and alcohol and died September 19, 1973. Again, he was just 26 years old. In one of rock's strangest stories, his friend phil kaufman, and another friend stole a hearse and parson's body in an attempt to cremate him at joshua trees cap rock parking lot. To honor graham's wishes, so they poured gasoline on his coffin and they lit it, which also created a huge fireball. Now they were arrested and fined, and Graham's remains would be buried in a cemetery in Louisiana. So this bizarre event would continue to cement Parsons' mythic legacy.
Speaker 1:Hey guys, thank you for listening today and I hope you're enjoying this podcast. If you are, please subscribe or follow the podcast. Click the like button, share it with other music lovers and please consider giving a five-star rating so we can reach a bigger audience. Now back to the show.
Speaker 1:Now, though, graham Parsons never found mainstream success. His vision transformed American music. He influenced the Eagles, linda Ronstadt, will Coe, uncle Tupelo and generations of Americana artists. Emmylou Harris honored him in songs like Boulder to Birmingham, and festivals such as Graham Fest and the Graham Parsons Guitar Pool continue to celebrate his work. As Keith Richards once put it, his recorded music output was pretty minimal, but his effect on country music is enormous, and that's why we're still talking about him today. So that's the story of Graham Parsons visionary, restless soul and architect of cosmic American music. From the haunting beauty of Hickory Wind to the apocalyptic power of Sin City, his songs speak across time. If you enjoyed this episode, subscribe to or follow the Two for Tuesday podcast and remember we love you and we need you, and sometimes the most influential artists are the ones who burn the brightest and the shortest. And we'll see you next week and God bless you.