GRAM PARSONS:ROCK & ROLL MARTYR

Gram Parsons is famous for being one of the first persons who have fused country and rock music in the same blend that Chicago and Frank Zappa shaped the jazz-rock genre.

Many considered Parsons as one of the few "lesser mortals" in the industry  who fell while their respective careers were just starting to boom.Like other people in the music biz,he indulged into drugs but somehow his body didn't seem to respond pretty well the way his friend Keith Richards did. Some of his albums if not critically acclaimed,were commercially disastrous but nevertheless his charisma and influence to latter-day bands like the Eagles is evident.Parsons somehow came into a status where hit singles didn't matter coz just like any other artists from the sixties,he catapulted into rock sainthood even after his death.


His work as a member of the Byrds on the band's 1968 album Sweetheart Of The Rodeo is very much impressive and the term country rock which was never heard before at the time first came into use.Just like Parsons' later efforts,the album wasn't that much of a commercial success but it did made a blueprint and landmark on the genre--a trend that was continued by other bands that would soon follow their footsteps namely Lynyrd Skynyrd, Kansas and the other band mentioned here before-the commercially successful Eagles.

The Byrds' 1968 album Sweetheart Of The Rodeo

Parsons' career as well as his life compared to the others is relatively short,for a man who was born Cecil Ingram Connor III in Florida in 1946,he got inspired by Elvis Presley during his teens,and then played with amateur bands in school and one serious gig with another band in the mid-sixties with no commercial success.He adopted his stepfather's surname and became the Gram Parsons we all know today.He got the attention of the rock n' roll business when he joined the Byrds and became an active contributor on the band's now legendary album.A short stint with the band regarding contract issues prompted him to form another group called The Flying Burrito Brothers.

He made a long term friendship with Keith Richards and was at this point accompanying the Rolling Stones on every gig during the band's 1969 US tour.His band,the Flying Burrito Brothers even opened for the Stones at the infamous Altamont concert during the winter of that same year.Perhaps he was eager for his own career to kickstart that he befriended Mick Jagger as well.Richards and Parsons crossed paths through a common friend and had shared a unique kind of friendship,sharing common interests such as the love for country music,love of drugs,women and all its indulgences.

The "common friend" mentioned here was none other than producer Phil Kaufman who got into fame by establishing himself as an executive nanny,chauffeur and concert promoter for the Rolling Stones.Kaufman would later make a huge impact on Parsons' life and even after his death.

Parsons(right) with Mick Jagger(left) and Keith Richards(center)

Parsons has been Keith Richards drinking buddy and whatever they were using in those days.Being described by music critics as the sad-voiced cowboy singer,he was noted to have lived with Richards at his house in Paris during the time the Stones were on their tax exile.A 1972 double album inspired by such event was released and was hailed by rock music journalists as one of the greatest rock albums of all time. 

Gram Parsons:country rock pioneer

Eventually,Parsons was said to have been banished in the house by Anita Pallenberg-Richards' long time live-in partner.He returned to the US and toured with the Burritos for a while.By the time the group had disbanded,Parsons made a few solo albums with little to no commercial success.It was during a promotional gig of one of his solo LPs that he became frail and unreliable.

The excessive drug intake had obviously took toll on his immune system that he died of an overdose in 1973 at a young age of 26.It was said that even before the time of his death,Parsons was still struggling for his solo career to be commercially successful.

Meanwhile,Phil Kaufman who also got famous by producing Charles Manson's 1970 album LIE,hi-jacked Parsons' body at the Los Angeles airport where it was about to be shipped to Louisiana for its intended burial there.In a later-mentioned mutual agreement,Kaufman was said to be drunk as hell when he poured gasoline on Parsons' coffin and burned his friend down to 'cremate' him.

Today,the site where Parsons' body was burned by Kaufman was marked with a stone and was visited by rock fans from all over.Though the National Park Service doesn't duly recognize the site as an official rock n' roll shrine despite of its sacredness uttered by loyal fans,the Joshua Tree,California landmark and memorial was marked with stones and several grafittis that would make it worthwhile for fans to visit.

And certainly Gram Parsons had indeed left his mark on rock music.He may have struggled to reach enormous fame and his life may have been short,but little did he know,his legacy lived on and the trend he had left on the genre will be followed from one generation to another.

(c) Keith Vernon Adagio

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