Gram Parsons

In early 1973 Gram Parsons embarked on a tour to promote his recently released first solo album GP. He put together a skilled band, including the then unknown Emmylou Harris as his singing partner. The shows were a bit uneven at first, but by mid-tour the band started to find it's groove. One show stood out to pedal steel player Neil Flanz - the 3rd night at the Bijou Cafe in Philadelphia. Neil felt that this was the best show of the tour and requested a copy of the soundboard recording. He saved it for almost 40 years before it was acquired by Amoeba Music for a future release. It then disappeared in the vault for another 10 years before being rediscovered when Amoeba moved to a new location in LA. A 50 year old soundboard cassette offers unique challenges, but thanks to the efforts of some of the worlds best archival sound restoration engineers, the beauty and energy of Gram, Emmy and the band shine through.

Gram Parsons may have been one of rock's first great trust fund hippies, but he couldn't match the kind of paycheck Elvis Presley was able to offer for a Vegas gig. So when he hit the road in 1973 to promote his superb solo debut, G.P., James Burton, Ronnie Tutt, and most of the band that anchored that album were otherwise engaged. He instead threw together a rough-and-ready crew of roadhouse pickers he dubbed "the Fallen Angels" (Emmylou Harris, thankfully, was available to make the trip), and they began making their way through America's rock clubs and honky tonks. Live 1973 was recorded live for radio broadcast in the midst of that tour, and if you imagine it sounds a good bit rougher and leaner than G.P. (which includes six of the 12 cuts featured here), you'd be right. On "We'll Sweep Out the Ashes" and "Cry One More Time," the Fallen Angels aren't quite up to the task of re-creating the studio arrangements, but they're surprisingly strong on the quieter numbers, especially "The New Soft Shoe" and "Love Hurts" (the latter of which earned a Grammy nomination), and when they pick up the tempo for some end-of-the-set covers (including Merle Haggard's "California Cottonfields" and Dave Dudley's "Six Days on the Road"), guitarist Jock Bartley and pedal steel player Neil Flanz sound like the core of a great bar band.

The 18 previously unreleased, solo acoustic performances on this collection were recorded between March 1965 and December 1966. These show Parsons not as a country singer, rock singer, or even folk-rock singer, but very much as a mid-'60s folkie, in the mold of so many artists to be heard in the Greenwich Village scene. There's no straight country music in his repertoire, comprised largely of covers of songs by then-contemporary writers such as Buffy Sainte-Marie ("Codine"), Tim Hardin, Tom Paxton, and Fred Neil, along with high-caliber compositions that would be popularized by rock groups (Billy Wheeler's "High Flyin' Bird" and Hamilton Camp's "Pride of Man"). There are also five Parsons originals, a few not available elsewhere, and others recorded at other points either by himself ("Brass Buttons" and "Zah's Blues") or different performers ("November Nights," placed on an obscure single by Peter Fonda). A bit of R&B pokes out in his covers of "Searchin'" and "Candy Man." This disc is definitely of historical interest, if only to demonstrate that Parsons' roots were certainly not country-soaked, but largely indebted to '60s folk as well. As music, it's very average (though certainly not bad) mid-'60s folk, of the kind you might hear by numerous coffeehouse support acts. He sings best on the jazzy "Zah's Blues," where he seems to reach further into himself than he does on most of the other material here.