Gram Parsons & The Flying Burrito Brothers: Paving the Way for Country Rock in the Sixties and Beyond

If there was one band that paved the way for country music to be blended with rock n' roll in the 1960s and beyond it was The Flying Burrito Brothers. The band formed in 1969 with guitarist and vocalist Gram Parsons and electic guitarist/bass guitarist Chris Hillman both of whom had quit their previously highly successful band The Byrds, who were actually declining in popularity as the 1960s progressed. The Flying Burrito Brothers other members included pedal steel guitarist "Sneaky" Pete Kleinow, and bassist Chris Etheridge. Chris Hillman switched to guitar from his usual bass which he played with The Byrds. The Flying Burrito Brothers debut album The Gilded Palace Of Sin released in April 1969. The songs on The Gilded Palace Of Sin were all incredible southern-sounding country songs with a tinge of rock in them, all being recorded by an L.A. band, which made it all the more amazing. Parsons and Hillman harmonised perfectly together on soulful tunes like "Dark End of The Street," and "Do Right Woman," showcasing their talent together. Still, despite great original songs like these, The Flying Burrito Brothers never took off as a band as The Gilded Palace Of Sin debuted at a woeful Number 164 in America. Still many popular musicians at the time, such as Bob Dylan along with Keith Richards and Mick Jagger of The Rolling Stones praised the album highly. Richards and Jagger would end up forging a friendship with Parsons and even offer to have him along on tour with them and on their recordings of albums like Exile On Main Street. Dylan who had also recorded his best country rock album that year titled Nashville Skyline said "Their record knocked me out!"

To truly understand the The Flying Burrito Brothers and their music one must understand the life of Gram Parsons, who was the genius behind the band. Parsons wasn't actually from L.A. but from a wealthy southern family in Waycross, Georgia, where he was raised.His family's wealth did not keep them from disintegrating when Gram was a child, as his father abruptly committed suicide two days before Christmas in 1958, which led to his Mother's rapid decline into alcoholism and death. Gram found his solace in music after attending an Elvis Presley concert in 1957 he picked up a guitar, and soon was in a southern rock n' roll cover band that played songs by The Kingston Trio and The Journeymen. Gram attended Harvard University studying Theology, but departed after just one semester. Ironically Gram was never really exposed to country music despite being from the South, and it wasn't until his time spent in Boston, Mass. at Harvard that he began to delve into country after attending a Merle Haggard concert. Soon after, Parsons formed The International Submarine Band and relocated the band to Los Angeles. The International Submarine Band released just one album Safe At Home which featured the song "Do You Know How It Feels," which Parsons would eventually re-record and release with The Flying Burrito Brothers on The Gilded Palace Of Sin.

By the time Safe At Home had been released though Parsons had already moved on to bigger and better things with The Byrds, who recruited him to replace David Crosby on the bands sixth record Sweetheart Of The Rodeo. Parsons was such a talent to have in the studio playing keyboards and recording vocals that he had a huge influence on bassist Chris Hillman, who sided with Parsons over guitarist/vocalist Roger McGuinn on how the album should sound. Parsons virtually took over the highly succesful band he had just joined writing the best song off the album "Hickory Wind". McGuinn was furious as he had always been band leader which had been proven when he fired Crosby. Still Roger McGuinn did somewhat get his way in the end when most of Parsons vocals on the album were erased off the album due to the fact he was not under contract with Comumbia but another label. This makes Sweetheart Of The Rodeo a much weaker record than it would have been and on it's release it was shunned by rock purists and country rock listeners alike who couldn't relate to what Parsons was trying to do in combining the two elements of country and rock. As time goes on though Sweetheart Of The Rodeo has only gained reputation as a classic Byrds album, it was only at the time that Byrds fans were expecting something more psychedelic and were in shock at the result of Parsons taking over The Byrds and changing their sound.

Gram Parsons with an acoustic guitar onstage


Eventually Parsons was fired from The Byrds because he didn't show up for a concert in South Africa in 1968. During this time Parsons was partying and jamming a lot with guitarist Keith Richards of The Rolling Stones near Richards house in Stonehenge. The two would listen to obscure country records and play guitar together for days. Parsons later claimed that he actually wrote "Honky Tonk Women" one of The Rolling Stones hits off their Let It Bleed album. Parsons was truly captivated by the glamor of meeting The Rolling Stones during The Byrds European tour, and his unique rock star personality began to emerge. Eventually Chris Hillman followed Parsons out of The Byrds joining him in forming The Flying Burrito Brothers. The band began recording some truly great songs such as "Sin City," "Wheels," and "Christine's Tune," which was about a well known L.A. groupie named Christine Frka whose company Parsons enjoyed.

The Burritos exuded a decadence that
was memorialized by Barry Feinstein's
cover photo. But that decadence
condemned the line-up to an early grave,
followed three years later by Parsons himself.


As Allmusic.com writes about The Gilded Palace Of Sin, "As a songwriter, Parsons delivered some of his finest work on this set; "Hot Burrito # 1" and "Hot Burrito # 2" both blend the hurt of classic country weepers with a contemporary sense of anger, jealousy, and confusion, and "Sin City" can either be seen as a parody or a sincere meditation on a city gone mad, and it hits home in both contexts." The lines Parsons wrote go,

"This old towns made of sin, it will swallow you in if you've got some money to burn. Take it home ride away. You've got three years to pay. And Satan is waiting his turn. This old earthquakes gonna leave me in the poor house. It seems like this whole towns insane. On the thirty-first floor a gold plated door won't keep out the lords burning rain."

"Hot Burrito # 1" was undoubtedly a killer ballad written by Parsons, possibly his best ever. With Parsons writing incredible lyrics and singing in the voice of a hurt country rocking weeper.

"I'm the one who showed you how to do the things you are doing now. He may feel all your charms, he may hold you in his arms, but I'm the one who let you in. I was right beside you then. Once upon a time you let me feel you deep inside. And nobody knew, and nobody saw. Do you remember the way you cried. I'm your toy, I'm your own, boy, but I don't want nobody but you to love me. No I wouldn't lie. You know I'm not that type of guy."

As Peter Dodgett wrote about The Gilded Palace Of Sin in Mojo magazine a few months back in a forty-year tribute issue to the music of 1969 , "Three decades later the album stands as arguably the finest country rock album of all time and the apotheosis of the willful, wasted but unique talent of Gram Parsons." At times it does seem that Parsons gets most of the accolades for forming the Burritos and composing their music though which is really not accurate as fellow ex-Byrd Chris Hillman was just as much a part of the creation of The Gilded Palace Of Sin as Parsons. Parsons moving voice singing isn't the only reason he gets most of the credit for being the genius in the band: but also the fate that he died at such a young age and left behind a body of work that was so incredible it has left many of his fans and rock historians to ponder how much more incredible country rock music he might have composed in a longer lifetime. Hillman commented in the Mojo article, stating, "I think Gram had some talent but no discipline. What made us all angry was he was seduced by all the trappings he hadn't earned. You know I'm gonna get a limousine. Why? We're playing five shows in a bar! And then he was romancing Mick and Keith. It was embarrassing." Parsons dedicated friendship with The Rolling Stones did pay off a bit though when The Stones booked The Flying Burrito Brothers to open for them at the historic free Altamont concert. This was supposed to be a Woodstock type concert in California featuring other great bands like Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, Jefferson Airplane, and The Grateful Dead.) It ended up being quite the opposite of peace and love as a young black man was stabbed by a member of The Hells Angels Motorcylcle gang who were acting as security guards at the event. At this point Parson's use of drugs and alcohol had increased to the point where he wasn't writing too many new songs and he was spending most of his time partying with The Rolling Stones, who were temporarily relocated in America to record Let It Bleed.

The Flying Burrito Brothers: Top left to clockwise:
Gram Parsons, Chris Etheridge,
"Sneaky" Pete Kleinklow, and Chris Hillman


A second album with The Flying Burrito Brothers album followed The Gilded Palace Of Sin and was titled Burrito Deluxe. It featured another member of The Byrds, Micheal Clarke, on drums and Bernie Leadon on guitar, which led to Hillman returning to his usual bass guitar. Burrito Deluxe had only one memorable song on it, a cover of The Rolling Stones "Wild Horses," which actually hadn't been released by The Stones yet. It eventually would appear off their Sticky Fingers album but The Flying Burrito Brothers version was the first to be released although not a lot of people had heard it since almost nobody bought the album and it failed to make the U.S. charts. Parsons was so disappointed with the sales of the first two Flying Burrito Brothers albums that he abruptly quit the band and tried to record a solo album. Because Parsons had began using heroin the sessions proved to be fruitless, with Parsons unable to record at all without sounding terrible.Parsons realized the sessions were amounting to nothing, so checked out the tapes, packed his bags and left America, moving in with The Rolling Stones. He stayed at the mansion Villa Nellcote, The Stones had bought in France to record Exile On Main Street. and avoid being taxed by the English government. During the sessions The Rolling Stones may have intended to use Parsons, but unfortunately he was constantly indulging in massive quantities of marijuana, psychedelic mushrooms, cocaine, heroin, and alcohol, so he was of little use. However, Parsons did claim he sang in as part of the back-up choir in one of the best songs off Excile On Main Street, "Sweet Virginia." Eventually Anita Pallengerg, Keith Richards longtime girlfriend did kick Gram out Villa Nellcote because of his constant drug use, and the fact Gram was always arguing with his girlfriend Gretchen Burrell.

Gram Parsons with his infamous "Nudie Suit"
with a marijuana leaf on it


Gram Parsons returned to the U.S. playing one final show with The Flying Burrito Brothers in Washington D.C. in 1972. After this show Chris Hillman recommended that Gram go see the country folk singer Emylou Harris perform in a small club in Washington D.C. Gram was so impressed that he invited Emylou back to L.A. with him to help him with another attempt at recording a debut solo album. It came as surprise when Reprise records immediately signed on Gram Parsons, once they learned he was planning to write a solo album. After all, his first attempt had been a complete failure. Parsons had also gained over thirty pounds in just the two years since his Flying Burrito Brothers days, as excessive alcohol consumption and eating too much fried southern food had taken its toll. Overall though, Parsons was in much better health now having kicked heroin with the help from his friend, former Blind Faith bassist Ric Grech.

A clean and revitalized Gram Parsons recorded GP with Emylou Harris, and Elvis Presley's backing band. They sounded terrific: this was by far his best work composed since The Gilded Palace Of Sin. As Allmusic.com writes about GP, "Parsons also discovered that rare artist with whom he can be said to have genuinely collaborated (rather than played beside), Emylou Harris; Gram and Harris' spot-on harmonies and exchanged verses on "We'll Sweep out the Ashes in the Morning" and "That's All It Took" are achingly beautiful and instantly established her as one country music's most gifted vocalists." Parsons "A Song For You" and "A New Soft Shoe" were also beautiful songs and are masterful examples of passion-filled love ballads, finding balance with understatement. Allmusic also points out that, "On GP, Parsons' ambitious vision encompassed hard-country weepers, wistful ballads, up-tempo dance tunes, and even horn-driven rhythm and blues. He managed to make them all work, both as individual tunes and as a unified whole. This album remains one that is hauntingly beautiful and has only gotten better with the passing years."

Gram Parsons during the GP era


Parsons soon hit the road with Emylou Harris although he was too poor to afford to take Elvis's bakcing band along. Parsons and Harris toured as The Fallen Angels with several successful performances including one in Houston, which was recorded and had guest apperances by Neil Young and Linda Ronstandt. Around this time Parsons hired a sketchy road manager named Phil Kaufman who had spent time in jail with Charles Manson on Terminal Island. Parsons had met Kaufman through The Rolling Stones and asingned him the job of keeping him clean while tourning. Kaufman did a good job of this disposing of any drugs he found Parsons had smuggled into his hotel rooms and also only letting him drink small amounts of alcohol before he went onstage so inebreation wouldn't affect his performance as it had in past tours with bands like The Byrds and The Flying Burrito Brothers. Despite a fairly succesful tour thanks to Emylou Harris who had forced Parsons to practice and had also helped organize the setlists with him, the record sales for GP remained low. It was unfortunate that audiences perceived Parsons music as being "too authentic" and prefered other country rock bands like The Eagles. This comparison was a particular thorn in Parsons' side, as The Eagles featured Bernie Leadon, his former bandmate in The Flying Burrito Brothers. Parsons also commented that he couldn't stand The Eagles sound and didn't understand why it was so big.

Gram Parsons next album was also recorded with Emylou Harris, was titled Grievous Angel. Unfortunately Parsons fondness for drugs and fast living were catching up with him again during the recording of this album, and he would never live to see it released. The album has attained classic status through the years, (even more than GP), although it is arguably not a better album than Parsons previous effort. Parsons may have been slowing down a bit as a songwriter, but he made that up for that by re-recording some of his older gems like "Hickory Wind," which he had written all the way back in 1968 and recorded on The Byrds Sweetheart Of The Rodeo. Parsons cover of "Love Hurts," sounded so incredible vocallly that you might forget Roy Orbisson sang it. Parsons also wrote three of his best songs ever off Greivous Angel, "Return of The Greivous Angel," "1,000 Wedding," and "Brass Buttons," where he showcased his still achingly, beautiful country-weeping voice, which along with the powerful lyrics can almost bring tears to the eyes they are so beautiful,

"Brass buttons green silks and silver shoes. Warm evenings, pale mornings, bottle blues. And the tiny golden pins that she wore up in her hair. Brass buttons green silks and silver shoes. My mind was young until she grew. My secret thoughts only known by a few. It was a dream much too real to believe again too soon. And all the time I think she knew. Her words still dance inside my head. Her comb still lies beside my bed. And the sun comes up without her now. It just doesn't know she's gone. And I remember everything she said."

Allmusic.com writes about Gram Parsons beautiful song, "In My Hour Of Darkness," off of Greivous Angel, "And while he didn't plan on it, Parsons could hardly have picked a better closing gesture than "In My Hour of Darkness." Grievous Angel may not have been the finest work of his career, but one would be hard pressed to name an artist who made an album this strong only a few weeks before their death — or at any time of their life, for that matter.

Gram Parsons on his mororcycle in Joshua Tree National Park,
California the site where he died on September 9, 1973 from a
lethal mix of heroin and Tequila.


At this time in his life, Parsons had separated from Gretchen Burrell, with whom he had had a tumultuous short lived marriage, after moving back to America from France. He spent most of his weekend time in Joshua Tree National Park in southeastern California, a place he had been infatuated with since the late 1960s. Parsons enjoyed going out there with friends and dissapearing with them in the desert for days, while wandering around on psychedelic mushrooms or LSD. Just before his 1973 tour was about to begin, Parsons decided to take one more trip to Joshua Tree but this time he would not return. Less then two days after arriving in Joshua Tree Parsons died from a lethal drug and alcohol overdose, a combination of heroin with tequila. Gram was just twenty six years old. Aparently before his death, Parsons had made a pact with his road manager Phil Kaufman that if he died he did not want to be buried in the ground. He wanted to be cremated in Joshua Tree and have his ashes spred over the famous Cap Rock. Parsons southern family planned to have his body flown back to Louisiana for a private funeral and burial but Phil Kaufman had other ideas. Kaufman was ready to stick to his pact he had made with Parsons.Probably he was also angry that he and many of his friends Parsons was closest to hadn't even been invited to the private funeral. Somehow Kaufman, with the help of a friend, managed to get hold of a hearse and steal Parsons' body from Los Angeles International Airport. They took Parsons back to Joshua Tree, where they poured gasoline over his body, and attempted to cremate him. Once the match was lit however it set off a huge explosion and was not a cremating process. The Police were on the scene in a matter of minutes and chased the black hearse, but somehow Kaufman managed to out run them on the highway. Days later Kaufman was arrested, but since there was no law at that time against stealing a dead body, he wasn't prosecuted for a crime and only fined $750 for stealing the coffin. There is a memorial site in Joshua Tree National Park for Gram Parsons at the exact rock where his body was set ablaze; it is known as The Gram Parsons Memorial Hand Traverse. Fans of Parsons still visit the site and write personal messages to him on the rock which the park service occasionally sand blasts clean.

One thing is clear: despite the tumultuous short lived life of Gram Parsons he belongs in the country music Hall Of Fame. Emylou Harris was inducted into The Hall Of Fame in February of 2008, sparking Parsons' fans to form The Gram Parsons Petition Project; an attempt to get him inducted but to no avail thus far. With all the music he wrote in such a short time with the International Submarine Band, The Byrds, and his best work with The Flying Burrito Brothers and later on with Emylou Harris as a solo artist. Gram Parsons is the definition of a cult country rock legend. It is surprising to hear that so few people have heard of him, and yet it makes sense when you consider that he never achieved mainstream commercial success with any of the albums he made in his lifetime. Death may have made him more of the legendary fallen greivous angel he is perceived to be by those who admire him, but in life is where he truly shined.

Gram Parsons with pink hat and tie-die ontage with Chris Hillman
with The Flying Burrito Brothers

The Dead at the Shoreline Amphitheatre, Mountain View, CA

Arriving at the parking lot at Shoreline, Amphitheatre in Mountain View, California at 4:00 pm in the afternoon approximately four hours before The Dead were to begin their set, I was struck with how many people had already arrived early as well. I knew there would be some sort of parking lot scene, but hadn’t imagined this. Lots of Chevy trucks were parked with their trunks open so people could sit inside, drink cold beer out of their coolers and smoke joints at their free will. There were Dead Heads walking around the parking lot with their index finger up in the air hoping for a miracle ticket that would allow them into the sold out show of 22,000 people.

As I walked around checking out the different items for sale I saw one guy getting kicked out by security for selling glass pipes. He was hysterical demanding to the security, “Why are you guys only kicking me out and not the other hundreds of people doing the same thing as me?” He did have a point as I walked around and saw countless other people selling pipes and other paraphernalia such as bongs and vaporizers. One guy I met in the parking lot was from a small farm town in Missouri and claimed he was taking donations for buttons in order to support his family and raise buffalo on a farm. Continuing my stroll around the lot I saw the countless hippies and the core of The Dead’s fan base. The men had their heavy beards, dreadlocks, Dead tattoos, bandanas and tie-dye shirts, and the women had their long hair flowing and dresses with psychedelic pattern. They were all peacefully hanging out drinking beer, smoking joints, and eating veggie burritos while listening to Crazy Fingers” blasting out of the sterio of somebody's psychedelic bus. Being at this concert made me realize no other band in the history of rock ‘n’ roll has ever fostered a greater sense of community than the Dead has done over its 45-year career. Some people may wonder how The Dead are still able to carry on so well and continue to pack arenas even without its most popular player, Jerry Garcia, who died in 1995, and can still sell some 40,000 tickets to its two shows at Shoreline. Even without Garcia living, people have not forgotten about The Grateful Dead; if anything they are even more worshiped now. I saw many people walking around the parking lot with “I Miss Jerry” signs, signifying their true-Dead-Head spirit. As Jim Harington writes for mercurynews.com, ”In these modern times, when people are known to text, instead of talk, to someone sitting in the very same room, the significance of feeling connected to something cannot be overstated. That’s why Deadheads don’t just attend shows – they live for them.”

The show began soon after I got inside the Shoreline Amphitheatre around 8:00 pm. The surviving members of The Dead (vocalist and rhythm guitarist Bob Weir, bassist Phil Lesh, drummers Mickey Hart and Bill Kreutzman) took the stage, along with post 2000 Dead tour members, Gov’t Mule and The Allman Brothers Band lead guitarist and vocalist Warren Haynes, and Ratdog keyboardist Jeff Chimanti. Until tonight, there hadn’t been much to live for if you’re a Dead Head in the Bay Area over the last five years, as this is the first time The Dead have toured since 2004, which surely factors into the huge ticket demand for this tour, and high prices that you would be extremely lucky to get for under $100.

The Dead opened their set with one of their most famous multi-song intertwined jams “Help On The Way,” into “Slipknot,” into “Franklins Tower.” Bob Weir sang the famous opening lines of “Help On The Way,” originally written by Robert Hunter and sang by Jerry Garcia off their 1975 Blues For Allah album, “Paradise waits on the crest of a wave her angels in flame. She has no pain. Like a child, she is pure she is not to blame. Poised for flight. Wings spread bright. Spring from night into the sun.” Weir sang the song in a much different voice then his usual country or his deep-raspy voice, instead sounding more like Jerry’s high pitched croon would have instead. During “Franklins Tower,” it seemed like everyone around me on the center part of the lawn was lighting up a fat joint and passing it around while making sure to dance and chanting the famous chorus of, “Roll away the dew.”

Mountain View Flashback: Bob Weir of The Dead performing at The Shorline
in one of the last Grateful Dead tours with Jerry Garcia in the early 90s.


A lot of what was played at this Dead concert seemed to be very meticulously picked out by the band to be in unison with what they had done at past showes at the same Shoreline Amphitheare before Jerry Garcia died. An example of this is when The Dead launched into “Good Lovin,” a song The Dead used play all the time at Shoreline. Bob Weir finally let out the his deep-raspy voice, (which most Dead Heads have always loved), and entire crowd hadn't forgotten despite The Dead's long break off touring. "Good Lovin" put a grat atmospher in the air as it was still a bit sunny out and Dead Head hippies danced and chanted the chorus, “Doctor! Doctor!”

Weir also took control of the next song "Cassidy," now and the purple and green stage lights illuminated the band members. This was not the first time I had heard Weir play “Cassidy,” as he had performed it at a free concert with Ratdog on Earth Day in Golden Gate Park during 2007, but seeing him perform it with The Dead was far more special. Weir took center stage with his heavy white beard, thick mustache that curls upwards, singing the opening lines, “I have seen where the wolf has slept by the silver stream. I can tell by the mark he left you were in his dream. Ah, child of countless trees. Ah, child of boundless seas. What you are, what you're meant to be speaks his name, though you were born to me. Born to me, Cassidy.”

Any Dead Heads at Shorline who may have had any lingering notion that The Dead might be past their prime without Jerry Garcia must have been blown away when they witnessed The Dead fly into “Bird Song,” an improvisational tour-de-force that has always been a concert favorite, appearing on successful Grateful Dead live albums in the past such as Reckoning and Without A Net. Haynes handled the lyrics beautifully to “Bird Song,” written in memory of Janis Joplin right after her heroin overdose in 1970. Haynes sang melodiously like Jerry would have if he was still with us, “All I know is that something like a bird within her sings. All I know is that she sang a little while and then flew off.” The Dead closed their first set to some of their biggest applause of the night with “Uncle John’s Band,” off of 1970s Workingman’s Dead, a song that keeps Dead Heads trucking around the country to each one of this bands shows. In fact numerous Dead Heads were raving about the previous nights show in L.A. where The Dead played "Black Peter,"and "New Speedway Boogie," both classics off Workingman's Dead.The lights on the stage shined out at the crowd as Bob Weir, Phil Lesh and Warren Haynes all shouted simultaneously, “Goddamn, well I declare have you seen the like? Their walls are built of cannonballs, their motto is don't tread on me. Come hear Uncle John's Band by the riverside. Got some things to talk about here beside the rising tide.” After the song Bob Weir did his usual set break announcement, “We’ll be back in just a few minutes don’t go anywhere.”

Bob Weir: The vocalist and Rhythm guitarist of The Dead
performing on the current 2009 tour.


A few minutes turned in to over half an hour but that didn’t bother Dead fans as they smoked copius amounts of marijuana or went off to the beer gardens before the people working at Shoreline could shut it down. Some people just sat around talking about what songs they thought would be played in the next set, trying to guess the exact order. Jim Harington from mercurynews.com describes these Dead Head games quite vividly when he writes “The Dead People wear their knowledge of the group like badges of honor, and just how much history you have with the act – which is illustrated by such seemingly oddball practices as being among the first to “name that tune” – really matters. It all comes down to people feeling like they’re part of something bigger than themselves, and each Deadhead believes he or she has played a role in the long, strange trip that took the band from the small Bay Area clubs in the ‘60s, through the Yale Bowl in New Haven, CT, and Chicago’s Auditorium Theatre in the ‘70s, straight to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in the ‘90s.”

The second set began with a stellar Phil Lesh song “Unbroken Chain,” with the classic Dead lines, “Looking for the secret, searching for the sound.” The crowd seemed amazed that The Dead would play this mid 70s classic. Once The Dead had jammed into "Unbroken Chain" and the crowd looked at one another as if, "Can it be?" Afterall "Unbroken Chain," is a song with a history to it at Shoreline Ampitheatre as it had been played there on the last Grateful Dead tour in 1995 the year Jerry Garcia died. As the song drifted more and more into the main riff the cheers became louder, swelling as more and more Dead Heads realized what was happening, and by the time the first verse rolled around, the place was going absolutely nuts, as hippies with dreadlocks danced with bolts of energy flying through the crowd.

The crowd continued to roar as the opening notes in “The Other One,” were picked. This was the second time I had seen Weir and Lesh compose the song together and would have to say it was not the best. Last year when they played it together at The Warfield with Phil Lesh & Friends, the song seemed a lot more cohesive. I couldn’t also help but notice that the band was using music sheets and Weir somehow couldn’t remember the final lyrics at the end of the song or he just chose to leave them out which bothered me a bit since I love those final lines...“Escapin' through the lily fields I came across an empty space. It trembled and exploded left a bus stop in its place. The bus came by and I got on that's when it all began. There was cowboy Neal at the wheel of a bus to never-ever land.” The Dead still did a sold job jamming on “The Other One” a song that ranks right up there with “Dark Star” as one of their early psychedelic masterpieces.

Phil Lesh got the crowd going with "Unbroken Chain,"
a song that was performed the final Grateful Dead show
at Shoreline during Jerry Garcia's life in 1995,


Another interlude followed with Mickey Hart and Billy Kreutzman using their twin kits on “Drums,” into “Space.” Many fans took this time to lie on their backs on the hilly lawn, and look up at the sky, feeling the first waves of sleepy-ness overtake them. Then they were back on their feet and dancing in masse to “Sugaree,” a signature Jerry Garcia Band song off his powerful debut album simply titled Garcia. Weir has taken over the song now, and even looked a bit like Jerry with that big white beard and his face, which has aged considerably over the last few years. It’s not a bad kind of aging like Jerry though where he looked overweight and somewhat burned out. Weir looked old and wise onstage, but his body movements onstage with his guitar were still young, and being in the center stage he was clearly leading the band on this night. Warren Hayens with a brooding look in his eye and his heavy set body trudged in front of the microphone, and took over next for a spectacular cover of The Rolling Stones song “Gimme Shelter,” from their Let It Bleed album. Haynes sounded very rock n’ roll, and there was hardly any jamming to it, just a blistering solo in the middle which was the best of the night for Haynes. “Sugaree” may have been Weirs highlight of the second set until he even topped that with “Sugar Magnolia,” which had the whole crowd chanting at the top of their lungs, “Sunshine daydream. Walk you the tall trees. Going where the wind goes. Blooming like a red rose. Breathing more freely. Light out singing I'll walk you in the morning sunshine. Sunshine daydream.” "Sugar Magnolia," has been a concert highlight thoughout The Dead's legendary career from the 1970s on, and usually appears late in the second set or as the final encore of the night.

Warren Haynes proved why he belongs in The Dead as he
mastered a stellar improvisation of "Bird Song," and ripped
up a cover of The Rolling Stones, "Gimme Shelter."


The Dead began their encore with “St. Stephen,” one of their best songs from their psychedelic sixties period. The song is also known to be played rarely live so everyone at the show felt fortunate to be there as Weir and Lesh sang at the same time “St. Sthephen with a rose, in and out of the garden he goes. Country garland in the wind and the rain. Wherever he goes the people all complain. The way The Dead played “St. Stephen,” sounded similar to the way they play it on their 1969 Live Dead album, as the song was even followed by “The Eleven,” another classic jam off Live Dead. Weir handled most of the vocals for “St. Stephen,” and “The Eleven,” as the clock struck nearly midnight, first waves of the crowd began to dwindle but the true Dead Heads stuck around.

Bob Weir and Warren Haynes jam long into the night.


The show closed with “Touch of Grey” as 22,000 fans chanted the lyrics that are every bit as relevant to the band and its community today as they were when the song was first released in 1987, “We will get by. We will survive.” “Touch of Grey,” was the first Grateful Dead song to nearly top the U.S. Billboard singles charts, and was written by Jerry in a time few wondered if he would ever recover from his diabetic seizure he had suffered at RFK Stadium while The Grateful Dead were on tour in 1985. While Jerry’s life may have been short-lived when all things are considered, his legacy with The Dead is nowhere close to diminished in the year 2009 fourteen years after his fatal heart attack from heroin withdrawal. Dead Heads will continue to flock to shows and travel across the country with this band as long as the members of The Dead continue to get along. This was obviously not the case in the last five years, as Lesh and Weir butted heads and had a big falling out over weather Dead songs should be available for free over the internet. Luckily now everyone seems to be getting along and we can only hope The Dead will come back soon before another five years fly by. Lets hope the people who go to Thursday’s show will have as much fun watching The Dead perform as The Heads who came out tonight did.

Set list:
Set 1:
“Help on the Way”
“Slipknot”
“Franklin’s Tower”
“Good Lovin’”
“Cassidy”
“Birdsong”
“Uncle John’s Band”

Set 2:
“Unbroken Chain”
“The Other One”
Drums/Rhythm Devils/Space
“Sugaree”
“Gimme Shelter”
“Sugar Magnolia”

Encores:
“St Stephen”
“The Eleven”
“Touch of Grey”

The Dead take a bow, left to right: Mickey Hart, Phil Lesh,
Bob Weir, Warren Haynes, Bill Kreutzmann, and Jeff Chimanti

Pat Nevins Interview and Upcoming Show at The Plough & Stars in SF

Pat Nevins will be playing at Cold Spring Tavern in Santa Barbara on May 8, and at San Francisco’s The Plough & Stars on May 22 (www.theploughandstars.com). The band also includes mandolinist Mike McKinley, who in the past played with Gillian Welch, and Amy Gabel, who is a member of Nevins band Ragged Glory and will be performing backing vocals at the show. For someone who has seen both Neil Young and The Grateful Dead hundreds of times in concert, and also been a musician for the last three decades, Pat Nevins has plenty of musical expertise as a performer. He has jammed with members of New Riders of The Purple Sage, as well as Anthony Crawford, who is a current member in Neil Young’s band. Nevins even knows Neil Young, as they met each other in 1999 backstage at the Paramount Theatre, in Oakland, after a solo acoustic performance by Young. Nevins explained his encounter with one of the most enigmatic figures in rock history. “Neil had been busting out rare cuts all evening, so after the show I asked him the name of one of the unreleased songs which he told me was called ‘Pushed It Over The End.’” From that day on Nevins has been in touch with Neil Young, and Young even granted Nevins permission to record covers of five of his original songs for Nevins album Shakey Zimmerman. The songs were, “Lookout Joe,” “Everybody’s Alone,” “Last Trip To Tulsa,” “Ambulance Blues,” and “When You’re On The Losing End,” all of which are obscure Young songs to cover, especially “Everybody’s Alone,” which was somehow discarded during the After The Goldrush sessions and has yet to be released to this day by Young. Also “Ambulance Blues,” is the song off the record On The Beach, which most people have long since forgotten, despite how beautiful a song it is with those classic lines, “It’s easy to get buried in the past.” Not to mention “Lookout Joe,” a song off Tonights The Night, an album that Young’s record label refused to release initially, because they claimed he was making music that didn’t resemble his style. Then there is the long drawn out song “The Last Trip To Tulsa,” which I will say hands down only a die-hard Neil Young fan knows about. “The Last Trip To Tulsa is on Young’s t self titled debut album that sold so poorly that Young changed his musical style from simple country folk to a more rocking second album with a new backing band Crazy Horse. Nevins does justice covering all these songs singing in a high, soft, country voice that brings a natural harmony into your heart and warms up your soul.

As for the Bob Dylan songs Pat Nevins records on Shakey Zimmerman there is the opening song on the album “You’re Going To Make Me Lonesome When You Go,” from 1975s Blood On The Tracks. It is strange to say, but Nevins voice sounds a whole lot better than Dylan’s voice sounds today. Other Dylan covers include the heartfelt “Tonight I’ll Be Staying Here With You,” as well as dynamic versions of “Things Have Changed,” and “I Threw It All Away.” On Shakey Zimmerman Pat Nevins does a great job of paying tribute to two of the best recording artists and songwriters of the 20th century, Dylan and Young, both of whom are still alive and recording original music today. Both are coming out with albums this year, and their relevance in today’s world is just as strong as it was when both musicians were at their peak recording music in the 1960s and 70s.

Pat Nevins Trio Performing at The Starry Plough in Berkeley during April.


Exclusive Pat Nevins Interview

Pat Nevins is a local Bay Area musician who sings and plays guitar in The Pat Nevins Trio, as well as his own Pat Nevins solo band, (which he released the album Shakey Zimmerman under), and a Neil Young cover band Ragged Glory. Nevins has an uncanny ability to sound like Young when singing. He has also been a member of three well-known Grateful Dead cover bands over the years: Workingmans Ed, Grapefruit Ed, and The Dead Beats. During a recent interview he named Neil Young, Bob Weir of The Grateful Dead, Gram Parsons, Muddy Waters, and George Jones as primary musical influences over the years. But talking to Nevins you get the sense his true musical muse is Neil Young.

To say Pat Nevins has traveled a bit during his life as a musician would be an understatement. He was born in Philadelphia but moved to Lousville, Kentucky, for high school. There he was really into sports, playing lacrosse and street hockey. One afternoon, when Pat was fifteen, he had a life-changing experience, after a game of street hockey with his friend. He returned to his friend’s house and heard his sister playing Crosby, Stills, Nash, & Young’s Four Way Street album. Pat asked who it was playing the acoustic versions of the songs, “On The Way Home”, “Cowgirl In The Sand,” and “Don’t Let It Bring You Down.” “Neil Young” was the sister’s reply, and the next day Nevins was so inspired that he went out and bought his first guitar and immediately began learning Young’s songs. Nevins discovered that his voice naturally sounded like Young’s; he didn’t have to do any vocal stretching to hit those incredible high notes.

In April 1978, at the age of seventeen, Nevins saw his first Grateful Dead show at Rupp Arena in Lexington, Kentucky. He no longer remembers much about this first as he fell asleep halfway through the long set. It would be two years until Nevins went to his next Dead show in Athens, Ohio, as he was now attending college at The University of Ohio. The Dead were just entering a new era at the time of this not only because it was the turn of the decade, but also Grateful Dead keyboardist Keith Godchaux had died in a car crash, and had been replaced by Brent Mydland. Donna Jean Godchaux, Keith’s wife and a backing vocalist in The Grateful Dead also left the band after Keith’s death. According to Pat, he met Dead Heads at the show in 1980 who had tons of live Dead cassettes from gigs, and he thought that this was the coolest thing.

In December of 1981, Nevins went to a string of Grateful Dead shows. “I followed them from Dayton, Ohio, to Champaign Illinois, Indianapolis, Indiana, Chicago, Illinois, and Iowa City, Iowa, he said. “I went all over the Midwest that December and I definitely caught the bug of being on tour with The Dead. I started noticing stuff in the parking lot with people selling t-shirts and other merchandise and thought to myself this is cool. I learned how to play guitar from other Dead Heads who hung out in the parking lot all day before the show would start. I went from being in the parking lot to getting so connected with people who knew the members of the band that I would often stay in the same hotel with them.” Eventually, Pat got to know all the members in the band and would often hangout drinking with them in the hotel bar after shows.

In 1985, Pat Nevins moved to Chicago and started a band with some friends called The Dead Beats, which played mostly Dead covers. He said, “The Dead Beats were part of the Chicago Dead Head scene that was forming right before Jerry Garcia got sick with diabetes in 1985.” In this time period, The Dead Beats played over six-hundred shows and played every Dead song you can name.

In 1992, The Dead Beats broke up while Pat was living in Dear Creek, Indiana, and for a while Nevins musical career was dormant. Then seeing Jerry Garcia perform on the Summer 1994 Grateful Dead tour, Nevins knew something was up. “Jerry looked awful, the worst I had ever seen him. He wasn’t a three-hundred-pound balloon like he was in the 80s, but there was something in his face, and his body language, the way he hunched over his guitar and was messing up vocals, that I could tell he was back on heroin and on his last legs. There was death in his face.,” said Nevins. Garcia’s conditon prompted Nevins to move out to California, where he knew he could catch as many Dead shows as possible before Jerry’s demise.

As we wrap up our interview at The Missouri Lounge, Nevins orders another pint of Pilsner and begins to jam with some of the people in the outdoor tented area where the heaters are blasting. Nevins is handed an acoustic guitar and immediately rips into a steller version of Neil Young and Crazy Horse "Down By The River," from Young's second album Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere. This is followed by superb acoustic Young covers of "Old Man," where many people at the bar join Nevins in singing the chorus, "Old man take a look at my life, I'm a lot like you. I need someone to love me the whole day through. Oh just look at my eyes and you tell that's true." Nevins wrapped up the night with two more Young covers, "Tell Me Why," from After The Goldrush and one of his favorite songs, Young's "Like A Hurricane," from his late 70's bar-bender album American Stars N' Bars. It was great to meet such an experienced musician as Pat Nevins, who not only has a fascinating background, from all the bands he's been in, to all the places he's lived and traveled, but also he has a broad range of musical expertise. His next two shows this month will be worth checking out.

To See Pat Nevins online go to: http://www.myspace.com/patricknevins

Fairport Convention: The Best British Folk Rock of the 1960s

Anybody who first heard Fairport Convention's self-titled debut album when it was released in 1968 knew there was something truly original about this British folk rock band. While bands like The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Who, The Yardbirds, and The Kinks were coming out with big rock n' roll singles on both sides of the Atlantic and touring America in what would come to be known as the British invasion, Fairport Convention was completely different from these bands. Also most British invasion bands were highly influenced by southern African-American blues musicians, such as Muddy Waters and Leadbelly, meanwhile Fairport Convention was quite the opposite as they adopted their own unique British folk rock style. Fairport’s biggest influences were the San Francisco psychedelic rock band Jefferson Airplane, as well as L.A.’s The Byrds, Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell, Richie Havens, and Tim Buckley. Fairport Convention even adopted Jefferson Airplane's style of singing with a male and female vocalist combination with Judy Dyble, and Ian Matthews. The other members of Fairport Convention included mastermind guitarist Richard Thompson, guitarist Simon Nicol, bassist Ashley Hutchings and drummer Martin Lamble.

It is not surprising, given these musical influences guiding the band’s onstage style, that some people mistook them for American musicians when they first started playing at the UFO club in Britain. Fairport's self titled debut album, released in the middle of 1968 has often been dismissed as not worth listening to when compared to the band’s material on its next three 1960’s albums; but that is simply untrue. Fairport Convention’s debut LP was, as San Francisco writer Richie Unterberger writes, "To the contrary, a highly credible and enjoyable, if derivative, West Coast-styled folk rock album, owing much to the early Byrds and Jefferson Airplane, particularly the Airplane's male-female vocal harmonies and vocal tradeoffs. In fact, in Fairport's early days, some UK media even dubbed the band, 'the British Jefferson Airplane,' and Fairport were once billed as 'England's Top West Coast Group.'" The two Joni Mitchell covers onFairport Convention, "I Don't Know Where I Stand," and "Chelsea Morning," were the best songs on the album, and interestingly enough had yet to be released by Mitchell herself; thus they were obscure covers to the people listening to them on both sides of the Atlantic.

Fairport Convention's 1967 debut album cover


The debut album starts off with a classic Fairport Convention song, "Time Will Show The Wiser," with Ian Matthews sounding like a mix between Paul Kantener and Marty Balin from Jefferson Airplane as he sings, "And I don't know which to go by, my mind or my heart, and this is so confusing, it is tearing me apart. I wish someone would help me this decision is mine. And my morals and emotions are hard to combine. And there is no easy way out to live at the time. Till it takes till she finds out, for the love that I hide." This sequence is followed by Judy Dyble coming in to sing soprano sounding vocals, with Matthews falsetto on the chorus, "Time it will show the wiser." A Joni Mitchell cover follows, "I Don't Know Where I Stand," which easily ranks as Judy Dyble's best vocal performance with the band, as she captures the feeling of a dark rainy day not knowing exactly where one is heading in a relationship with a new lover. Dyble shows how one can be at a loss to express something to another, as she sings in a clear voice, and yet with a hint of mystic dreaminess to it. When you listen to this song on a rainy day, those last few melancholy notes at the end of the song hit you even harder than they would on a sunny day.

The third song on the album "If, (Stomp)," sung by Ian Matthews, asks the question "If I were rich enough, would it make you need me as much as I need you? If I could pitch enough, you'd realize what a little country bread could do." The song has a different feel to it than the rest of the album, probably because it is a bit more country, but it still has a fantastic originality listeners can't miss, because no British band at the time was doing anything folk or country oriented. As Allmusic.com writes on their review of the first album, "Fairport's chief strengths at this early juncture were the group's interpretations, particularly in the harmony vocals, of obscure tunes by American songwriters such as Joni Mitchell, Bob Dylan, Emmitt Rhodes, and Jim & Jean. Their own songs weren't quite up to that high standard, but were better than many have given them credit for, with "Decameron" and "Sun Shade" in particular hitting wonderfully fetching melancholic moods."

"Decameron" is the fourth song on the album and is softer than most of the other up-tempo, more rock-sounding songs. "Decameron," foreshadows the direction Fairport Convention would head in with their later three albums that would close out the 1960s: What We Did On Our Holidays, Unhalfbricking, and Of Liege & Lief. Its soft, saddening acoustic guitar sound and Matthews’ harrowing lyrics in the chorus, "See me fly, see me cry, see me walk away, every time the sun shines to me it's a rainy day," made "Decameron" one of the band’s best early songs. Even the dark lines about impending doom somehow sound so beautiful the way Matthews’ voice conveys them, "He didn't see the summer go. Though he knew what the shadows know. He didn't see his arm grow old. He didn't feel his blood run cold."

Psychedelic rock comes out on Fairport Convention’s cover of Bob Dylan's, "Jack O' Diamonds," which has Matthews singing in a sly voice, "Jack O' Diamonds is a hard card to play. Jack O' Diamonds get open for riches." The song also has a great flute solo in the middle before it cranks back into an up-tempo beat that one can easily dance to. Many Fairport Convention fans rank "Jack O' Diamonds" as one of the band’s best early songs, along with the two Joni Mitchell covers on the album "I Don't Know Where I Stand" and the beautiful "Chelsea Morning." Just listening to "Chelsea Morning" puts you in a beautiful place, like the breakfast room at a ski resort inn in the Swiss Alps, where you can have your "milk, and toast, and honey, and a bowl of oranges too," followed by a beautiful day on the slopes with your girlfriend.

"Sun Shade," is another classic on Fairport Convention, with a softer psychedelic sound than the other tracks, and subliminal vocals by Ian Matthews that are so quiet they are hard to detect. Listening to "Sun Shade,” who could deny the internal beauty this band possessed to create some of the best music ever recorded in the 1960s. "Sun Shade" was also an example of Fairport adopting their own musical style and not relying on Bob Dylan and Joni Mitchell covers to complete their catalog of songs. Not only was the musical component of the song a tremendous leap forward for the band, but also the lyrics were majestically haunting:

“Dying's not easy today. Trying but can't get away. Feel just the almost touch of her hand and the trees in her hair. Lies float. The sun, she saw only me in the sky. What could be higher than we? Wind grows cold in the trees. She cries, so hard to please. My restless feet, the rain in the street and her vanity fair. Sighs in the eyes of the boarding-house lady who stares. Thinking I care. So, it's a long dusty road. Feelings I shouldn't have showed. Follow me with a sweet bird when I'm ready to fade. Lights like these burn so bright, keep me out of my shade. Just see me fade.”

"It's Alright Ma, It's Only Witchcraft," is another psychedelic-sounding song on side two of the record. It starts out with a slow bass solo, but then picks up to become one of the hardest rocking songs on the album. The chorus chants, "This is the season, stormy weather is on the way," after which Richard Thompson provides the two best guitar solos on the album, showing how his contribution to the band was so essential. This song definitely contains the San Francisco acid rock, Jefferson Airplane feel to it, and it is interesting to speculate how British fans took to it at the time, considering not many were keen on bands like The Airplane, Big Brother & The Holding Company, or The Grateful Dead. As Richie Unterberger writes in Eight Miles High, "Fairport Convention delved far more into psychedelic improvisation than many realize." This goes especially for Fairport Convention fans who have chosen to ignore the first album because they don't think it compares to the band’s more traditional folk rock style of music composed with Sandy Denny.

Another example of Judy Dyble's vocals with the band before her early departure after Fairport Convention was released was on "One Sure Thing," the second to last song on the album. The lyrics written by Harvey Brooks and Jim Glover, tell a brooding tale of a woman who no longer feels the same way about the man she once loved: "Look at me now, what do you see it isn't me. Look at me now just a leaf without a tree. He used to be my one sure thing."

Nobody would have guessed that Fairport Convention could find an even better female vocalist to replace Judy Dyble, but somehow they managed, as Sandy Denny proved to be a valuable replacement with one of the most beautiful harmonizing voices in the history of music. As Wikipedia writes, "Denny’s distinctive voice, described by Clive James as 'open space, low-volume, high-intensity' is one of the characteristics of two of the albums she sings on both released in 1969: What We Did On Our Holidays and Unhalfbricking." As Untenberger Unterberger writes, “These recordings marked the growth of much greater musicality and song-writing ability among the band." What We Did On Our Holidays was much more folk rock based and mellow in comparison to Fairpoint Convention, thus the band was doing the opposite of Jefferson Airplane, who slowly seemed to be abandoning their folk rock roots in favor of a more psychedelic/electric rock outfit. Meanwhile the first song off What We Did On Our Holidays, Sandy Denny's "Fotheringay" has her giving her haunting ethereal vocals that gave Fairport Convention a more mystical sound with this second record. What We Did On Our Holidays was divided between the original material and well-chosen covers, such as Joni Mithell's "Eastern Rain" and Bob Dylan's "I'll Keep It With Mine." The album also had several folk rock songs that can mellow the mind into the beautiful, harmonious purity of Fairport’s classic sound. Just listening to "Book Song" eases its way into the soft instrumental "The Lord Is In This Place, How Dreadful Is This Place," with Denny humming primal sounds that make one think of past memories. While this album may not be as highly regarded as either Unhalfbricking or Liege & Lief, it was a pivitol stepping stone into the sounds of British folk rock that Fairport Convention would only continue to develop on their later two 1969 albums. As Untenberger writes on Allmusic.com about What We Did On Our Holidays, "More than simply being a collection of good songs (with one or two pedestrian ones), it allowed Fairport to achieve its greatest internal balance, and indeed one of the finest balances of any major folk-rock group. The strong original material, covers of little-known songs by major contemporary songwriters such as Dylan and Mitchell, and updates of traditional material were reminiscent of the blend achieved by The Byrds on their early albums, with Fairport Convention giving a British slant to the idiom.” An example of the future direction of Fairport Convention can be heard in the way Denny sings the Bob Dylan cover ‘I'll Keep It With Mine,’ with such a tragic yet divine voice, that it makes her seem like some sort of mournful goddess. The best song on the record is "Meet On The Ledge," which is sung by Ian Matthews, but once the chorus chant of "We're going to meet on the ledge," kicks in, Denny joins him in a beautiful hippie chant that recalls the sounds and vibes of the 1960s, more than almost any other music out there. "Meet On The Ledge," is less folky than most of the other songs on What We Did On Our Holidays, and does not at all signify the direction the band would head in with their follow up album a few months later.

Sandy Denny: The best female British folk singer of all time.


On Fairport Convention’s third album Unhalfbricking it was clear that the band had reached a whole new level, as they dove even deeper into the realm of traditional British folk rock. Unhalfbricking was also an important transitional album for the band, which was still young at the time. This shift would not be completed until their next album Liege & Lief. Fairport Convention's shift began when Ian Matthews quit the band in the middle of the recording sessions for Unhalfbricking. There were signs of Fairport heading away from their early Jefferson Airplane and Byrds influences on What We Did On Our Holidays, with songs like "Nottamun Town," but now it was obvious where Fairport was going, especially when you heard the incredible Bob Dylan, seven-minute folk cover "Percy's Song." This song was an emotional ballad sung by Sandy Denny about a man who gets into a car wreck with four other people in his vehicle and afterwards is the only survivor. The judge sentences Percy to ninety-five years for first-degree manslaughter, even though he did not intentionally kill the people in his car. The song shows how something tragic can happen to anyone in the world, and how we have far less control over our lives then we actually realize. Other gems to listen to off Unhalfbricking include the opener "Genesis Hall," which Denny sings with great passion: "Well, one man he drinks up his whiskey. Another he drinks up his wine. And they'll drink till their eyes are red with hate. For those of are a different kind. Oh, oh, helpless and slow. And you don't have anywhere to go." Other Denny classics on the album include the underrated "Autopsy" and "Who Knows Where The Time Goes," one of the greatest British Folk rock songs that is still highly appreciated around the world. Some of the Bob Dylan covers on this album like "Si Tu Duis Partir," and "Million Dollar Bash," sounded much sloppier than some of the earlier ones Fairport Convention had recorded on their first two albums, but that didn't matter because the rest of the songs off Unhalfbricking were so beautiful and original. Even the band’s interpretation of the Bob Dylan penned, but The Byrds song, "Ballad Of Easy Rider," sounded so vastly different from the way Roger McGuinn of The Byrds had sung it in a country voice on The Easy Rider Soundtrack. The way Denny sang "Ballad Of Easy Rider" had some country elements but was much more British folk, The lines in the song could have been written about the one of the motorcycle hippie characters in the film: "All he wanted was just to be free, that’s the way it turned out to be. Flow river flow, let your waters wash down, take me from this road to some other town. Flow river, flow, flow to the sea." It is clear that on Unhalfbricking Sandy Denny and Richard Thompson shared most of the createive control, which was a huge shift from the first album when Ian Matthews and Judy Dyble shared power.

The cover to Unhalfbricking

Allmusic.com points out Dave Swarbrick’s contribution to Fairport Convention's transitional stage on Unhalfbricking, "The clear signpost to the future was their 11-minute take on the traditional song "A Sailor's Life," with guest fiddle by Dave Swarbrick, soon to join Fairport himself and make his own strong contribution toward reshaping the band's sound." Fairport Convention definitely created an incredible sound in their masterpiece "A Sailor's Life."

It was unfortunate that the beautiful vocal combination of Ian Matthews and Sandy Denny could not remain intact once Matthews departed the band. And yet, it was clear Matthews was moving in a far different direction than the rest of the band. He didn't want traditional British folk rock as much as he wanted to explore the psychedelic sounds of the1960s, which he thought Fairport Convention had done a great job on with the first self-titled album. The rest of their material just wasn't jelling with his style. The band would continue on to record their best-known album to date...an album that many folk rock fanatics would rank as the greatest album of 1969: Liege & Lief.

Sandy Denny in Fairport Convnetion's hey-day


Coming soon: a review of Liege & Lief.

Love: Forever Changes; The Sound of 1967

Love started out as a house band at Bido Lito's, which was located in an alley off Hollywood Blvd. in Los Angeles. By the time their self-titled album was released on Elektra records they had already built up a strong local following. Love's music was a mixture of the British Invasion sound (most particularly The Rolling Stones) mixed with the L.A. folk rock of The Byrds, except having more of a dark sinister edge to it. They were also one of the first integrated groups, as two of their members, including vocalist and band leader Arthur Lee and guitarist Johny Echols, were African Americans.

The legacy of Love lies largely in the summer of love 1967, when they released their two most well known albums De Capo and Forever Changes. De Capo marked the end of Love's sounding like The Byrds, as they were replaced by melodic art songs with a jazzy and classical influence. Songs like "She Comes In Colors," "Stephanie Knows Who," and to the garage rock "7 and 7 Is" showcased Love's new musical style, which they were starting to turn towards. Still after De Capo, Love seemed to be on a downward spiral, as they were taking far too many drugs and not focusing on touring or recording their next album. It got to the point where Bruce Botnik brought in session musicians to record for Love. The band was so horrified that after just two songs with the session musicians they got rid of them, and in a tearful state pulled themselves together one last time to make one of the greatest records in rock history, Forever Changes.

Love: Forever Changes Album Cover


Love guitarist Bryan MacLean, who had been a roadie for the band prior to joining as a guitarist, stepped up to become a big songwriter alongside Arthur Lee. MacLean wrote the leadoff track on Forever Changes "Alone Again Or," which was actually the only hit off the album. With its flamenco break in the middle and layers of acoustic guitars and saxophone playing, "Alone Again Or" has come to be known as Love's most renowned recording. MacLean seemed to point the song in two directions, as his lyrics focused on "being in love with everyone and I think people are the greatest fun," while he would go on to say, "and I will be alone again tonight with you." This song proved that MacLean could write material right along the lines of the genius of Arthur Lee, as these two would power out all the great songs on Forever Changes. Love's producer and Engineer for Elektra Records Bruce Botnick comments in Richie Unterberger's book Eight Miles High, "Bryan brought another sensibility, as deep as what Arthur was writing, but coming from a different direction. He was very sensitive."

Forever Changes would come to be known for its cult status more than for its sales, as critics would hail it as a landmark album for a band and also a testament for something musicians could only capture once but never again touch upon in their recording careers. The album was surprisingly more popular in the United Kingdom then in America, but Love still had a cult following in places like L.A., where they were considered to be a cutting edge band just like The Doors. One of the reasons Love was never popular in the rest of America was their constant refusal to tour and support themselves as a band, as they scarcely played any shows in the 1960s outside of L.A. One of the reasons why Forever Changes was such a great album was it found Love getting back to its original folk rock roots as opposed to the 19-minute unfocused rambling of "Revelation" that was the only song on side two of the De Capo LP. As writer Richie Unterberger says in Eight Miles High, "Acoustic folk rock flavorings would resurface with a vengeance on late 1967's Forever Changes, a classic fusion of seductive melodies and gentle, shimmering guitar strums, with opaque psychedelic lyrics and Arthur Lee's choked Johnny Mathis with an intellect crooning. The Latin influenced fox hunting horns and brass added to the seductive oddity of a dreamy folk rock masterpiece. Every listen reveals new shades of good and evil struggling for the soul of Arthur Lee and the sunset strip hippiedom."

Arthur Lee; the vocalist and band leader of Love


Arthur Lee's lyrics on Forever Changes were extremely captivating and went along well with the glistening string arrangements. A great example of this is the second song on the album "A House Is Not A Motel." The song begins with wonderful acoustic strumming and then Arthur Lee's soothing voice comes in, "At my house I've got no shackles. You can come and look if you want to. In the halls you'll see the mantles. Where the light shines dim all around you, and the streets are paved with gold and if someone asks you, you can call my name." The third song off the album "Andmoreagain" is even more of an emotional ballad which, as Unterberber writes is, "so pretty on the surface, that it took awhile to get to the sad questioning, sometimes bitter observations underneath. The lyrics had a surrealistic ambiance quite different than Dylan's but rewarding and intriguing for those who took up the challenge of mulling over their meaning."

Other songs that really stood out on Forever Changes were "Old Man" and "The Red Telephone," which are built around interwoven acoustic guitars and subtle orchestration that is a sharp contrast to the sharp electric guitars that dominated Love's first two records. The lyrics in "Red Telephone Line," became Arthur Lee's most famous lines as he commented to Rolling Stone in 2003 , "When I did that album, I thought I was going to die at that particular time, so those were my last words." "Sitting on a hillside, watching all the people die. I'll feel much better on the other side."

Drugs were undoubtably ruining the band around the time Forever Changes was released, as both Bryan MacLean and Arthur Lee were addicted to heroin. Allmusic.com writes about the album, "While Arthur Lee and Bryan McLean wrote some of their most enduring songs for the album, the lovely melodies and inspired arrangements can't disguise an air of malaise that permeates the sessions. A certain amount of this reflects the angst of a group undergoing some severe internal strife, but Forever Changes is also an album that heralds the last days of a golden age and anticipates the growing ugliness that would dominate the counterculture in 1968 and 1969; images of violence and war haunt "A House Is Not a Motel," and the street scenes of "Maybe the People Would Be the Times or Between Clark and Hillsdale" reflects a jaded mindset that flower power could not ease."

"The Good Humor Man He Sees Everything Like This," was another beautiful composition off Forever Changes, and its lyrics vividly depicted what it was like living in the summer of love in 1967. "Hummingbirds hum, why do they hum. Little girls wearing pigtails in the morning, in the morning. La da da, da da da da. Merry-go-rounds are going around in and all over the town in the morning, in the morning. La da da, da da da da. Summertime's here and look over there, flowers everywhere in the morning, in the morning. La da da, da da da da." The last song on Forever Changes "You Set The Scene," was the only other single released on the album besides "Alone Again, Or," and despite the fact it was not a success on the charts it was undoubtably one of the best songs off the album. The song goes through several complex transitions and is definitely the start of what would become rock operas. Especially the ending where Arthur Lee goes into the final three verses and the bridge of the song singing:

"This is the time and life that I am living and I'll face each day with a smile. For the time that I've been given's such a little while and the things that I must do consist of more than style. There are places that I am going. This is the only thing that I am sure of and that's all that lives is gonna die. And there'll always be some people here to wonder why. And for every happy hello, there will be good-bye. There'll be time for you to put yourself on. Everything I've seen needs rearranging and for anyone who thinks it's strange, then you should be the first to want to make this change. And for everyone who thinks that life is just a game, do you like the part you're playing?"



Love never were able to re-generate the same kind of amazing album after Forever Changes was released, and Bryan MacLean soon departed from the band leaving Arthur Lee as the band's lone star. As Allmusic writes about the band's songs that definitely capture the state they were in, "The promise of the psychedelic experience decays into hard drug abuse in "Live and Let Live," and even gentle numbers like "Andmoreagain" and "Old Man" sound elegiac, as if the ghosts of Chicago and Altamont were visible over the horizon as Love looked back to brief moments of warmth." The article goes on to comment, "Forever Changes is inarguably Love's masterpiece and an album of enduring beauty, but it's also one of the few major works of its era that saw the dark clouds looming on the cultural horizon, and the result was music that was as prescient as it was compelling." It is hard to believe when you hear Forever Changes that Love would never be able to recapture the magic that was on that record, but as producer Bruce Botnik is quoted in Eight Miles High, 'The band was really at the end of the road by the time Forever Changes came out. It was really Arthur and Bryan's record. The other guys were just sidemen. Some of us have a short run. Some of us have a long run. Some of us have something to say in a very short period of time." The following albums Love released were much more hard rock and the folk rock component along with its classical acoustic melodies were all but forgotten. None of these subsequent recordings Arthur Lee composed with different musicians were well received, and his genius craft as a songwriter was somehow gone. Forever Changes may not have sold that well either but at least critics regarded it as a great album, and it is still thought of as one of the best psychedelic rock albums of all time, even being ranked #40 on the Top 500 Albums of all time in Rolling Stone. As Unterberger writes, "Forever Changes, in spite of its modest impact at the time of its 1967 release, became the biggest cult album of all time, its following just growing and growing through subsequent decades and generations. Several great folk rock/psych records have been discussed in this chapter and the preceding one such as Jefferson Airplane-Surrealistic Pillow, The Byrds Younger Than Yesterday, and Buffalo Springfield-Again. But Love-Forever Changes may be the greatest of them all."

What happened to the members of Love in their lives after the 1960s ended is extremely sad when you consider the promise they once showed as musicians. Arthur Lee did absolutely nothing in the 1980s, withdrawing from the public eye and caring for his father who was dying from cancer. Lee was also arrested in California on three separate occasions, one for assault, another for drug possession and possession of an illegal firearm. He served six years in prison during the late 90s as part of the California "three strikes you're out" rule, and refused to have any visitors or contact with anyone whom he had known while incarcerated. Bryan MacLean died of an unexpected heart attack in 1998, while Lee was in jail forever ending any possibility of an original Love reunion. Arthur Lee was finally released from prison in 2001 and immediately began making up for lost years by reforming Love with original guitarist Johnny Echols. The band began performing Forever Changes in its entirety at live performances and toured all over the U.S, Europe and Australia, even releasing a 35th Anniversary Live Forever Changes album from UCLA in 2003. Love could have kept touring and bringing fans back to that special time and place they were a part of but Arthur Lee's health would not permit it as he had been diagnosed with acute myloid leukemia and died in 2006 in Memphis, Tennessee. Despite the fact Love no longer exist we will always have that music to hang on to, and if we listen to it and connect with it, it will always remain a part of us.

Arthur Lee with his good friend and fellow genius musician of the 1960s Jimi Hendrix photograph: Jeff Eisen

Elliot Smith New Moon Review

Elliot Smith’s newest album New Moon has been posthumously released in 2007. Written and recorded between 1994 and 1997, New Moon offers two discs of unreleased material, that Smith mostly recorded by himself with a four track recorder. Some of Elliot Smith’s songs on this album sound a lot like the songs on his self titled Elliot Smith album or even Either/Or back when he was on the Kill Rock Stars record label before signing to Dreamworks and producing his albums heavily with intruments on albums like XO and Figure 8. This album was recorded in the height of Smith’s musical recording productivity as all twenty four songs on this album had never been released during his lifetime amazingly enough and plenty of them are better then the material that was on his debut album Roman Candle.

The opening track “Angel In The Snow,” has that sad, quiet sweetness of Elliot’s voice that recall many of his other best songs, along with the clean strumming of the acoustic guitar. The second song on the album “Talking To Mary,” is said to be about Elliot’s mother whom he had a rocky relationship with growing up in Texas. Smith sings this song in his usual soft pensively brooding voice “Taking to Mary, you know you don’t have to shout. She can hear what you’re thinking like you were saying it right out loud. Sure she sees behind that dirty look. It was her that followed down every step and turn you took.” Other songs recall similar themes in other Smith albums such as being a junkie, or “Going out in my car, straight to the bar where my sweattie pours the beer,” in “New Monkey.” Smith paints pictures of both hope and depression in “New Monkey,” closing out the song with the verse, “Anything is better than nothing.”

The best song on New Moon is “Looking Over My Shoulder,” with its great guitar hook and Smith’s incredible harmony in his voice. As allmusic.com states, “It’s catchy in that monotonously melodic kind of way Smith knew how to do best.” Smith sings the song with a slight anger in his voice, “You’re always coming over with all your friends and all their opinions I don’t want to know. And I’m looking over my shoulder, booking away with nowhere to go.”

The next song on the album “Going Nowhere,” follows a similar theme to “Looking Over My Shoulder,” in the sense that Elliot seems lost somewhere with nowhere to go and nobody to turn to. According to allmusic “There is a depth in New Moon that is more than pure sadness, that reveals a kind of self pity for Smith’s subject.” The lyrics in “Going Nowhere,” seem more sentimental of Smith longing for a more innocent time in his life full of an old lover, daydreams and old records, where things were more simple.

“The clock moved a quarter of a turn. The time it took a cigarette to burn. She said you got a lot of things to learn. Going nowhere…The steps made a pattern I'd never seen. I felt like a kid of six or seventeen. I was off in some empty day dream. Going nowhere.
It's dead and gone matter of fact. Maybe for the best, said some things you can't take back. The old records sitting on the floor. The ones I can't put on anymore. He walked over to her like before. Going nowhere.”

Elliot Smith strumming his acoustic guitar at a live show


The end of Disc One of New Moon features the original version of “Miss Misery” the song that launched Elliot Smith into stardom when he re-recorded a second more produced version for Gus Van Zant’s 1997 film Good Will Hunting. Smith was eventually nominated for an Oscar for the song and played at the Academy Awards wearing a sharp white suit. Disc Two is not nearly as strong as Disc One of New Moon as it features the song “Either/Or” which is also the name of Smith’s third album that helped get him signed to a major record label Dreamworks. Also a rendition of Ray Charles’s “Georgia, Georgia” sounds alright but not nearly on the same caliber as some of Smith’s recordings that made it on his studio albums. The same can be said for his alternate rendition of “Pretty Mary K,” which would eventually be re-recorded and sound much better being released on 2000’s Figure 8. While New Moon may not be Elliot Smith’s best recorded album, lacking some of the musical complexity that made some of his later material such as XO and From A Basement On The Hill two of his best albums, allmusic does point out that Smith’s songs were far more positive in these early 90s recordings, than they would later be towards the end of Smith’s life as he battled depression, as well as serious drug addiction and alcoholism. Allmusic writes, “That’s the overall feeling that New Moon gives, a sense of opportunity, of possibility, of life within the bleak reality. The album portrays a more stable Smith and promises something brilliant to come, full of words and chords that will touch thousands, alluding to the future and the past, but mostly, in its own quiet way, screaming to show off the immense talents of one man and his songs.” In this sense it is quite fitting that New Moon may be the last album of original Elliot Smith material to ever be released.

Elliot Smith playing "Miss Misery" live at the Oscars in 1997

Marcy Payground Concert Preview

This Sunday Marcy Playground will be playing The Red Devil Lounge on Polk St. in San Francisco. Marcy Playground may be best known for their 1998 radio smash hit “Sex and Candy” which was on their self titled debut album. “Sex and Candy” absolutely blew up the charts when it was first released, as it spent fifteen weeks at number 1 on the Billboard Modern Rock Tracks charts. Eventually Marcy Playground the album went platinum and two other hit singles were released, “St. Joe and His School Bus” and “Sherry Fraser.” Marcy Playground were highly influenced by nineties grunge music, especially their vocalist John Wozniac, who claims Kurt Cobain and Nirvana had a huge influence on him. Wozniac went to Evergreen State College in Olympia, WA at the height of when the Grunge movement was penetrating Seattle, so he was more than exposed to the great music coming out of the Northwest side of America.
Marcy Playground songs run in different styles and tones throughout their incredible debut album. Some of of Wozniac’s songs have a folk element to them, while others have undertones that they could be childrens songs. Some are just plain drug references, such as the first song on the album “Poppies,” and “Opium.” In “Ancient Walls Of Flowers” the sound of psychedelia makes an appearance as Wozniac sings,

“Ancient walls of flowers tumbling down, black cat petals and a smiling clown. I like to keep to keep them in a jar inside. Just enough to mess my mind inside. But I never heard you calling from the sun. Did you ever care to to shoot your silver gun. No one ever heard you calling from the moon. Did you ever care to sing your free love to.”

Such lyrics as these paint a picture that many of the songs Marcy Playground sound like. It is not surprising that the cover of the album featured a dummy face of a man with yellow flowers circling around his head in what vividly shows you what type of psychedelic songs will be on the album.

The Marcy Playground debut record cover.


While Marcy Playground may not have done much since the release of that 1998 debut album that promised so much for this future band, they should not be missed at The Red Devil Lounge. Their last two albums “Shapeshifter,” and “MP3” have not sold nearly as well as their debut album but something about this band still remains relevant today. Maybe it is because they are actually better than a lot of the other bands out there dominating the current pop music charts. They bring back good memories of a time in the late 90s when you could show up to a festival and Marcy Playground would be somewhere in the middle of the bill of a ton of great alternative acts and they were just one of a ton of great bands back then, but today we lack a lot of that great music that was coming out in that time in America.