Gram Parsons
GP

THE REVIEW

"I had just composed The Worst and thought: damn, once again I've copied Gram".

This phrase by Keith Richards marvelously encapsulates the influence of Parsons for anyone who has ventured into the rough trails of country-rock. A genre literally coined by Gram with the International Submarine Band, brought to prominence by converting the Byrds of "Sweetheart of the rodeo", and made perfect with the Flying Burrito Brothers. Brief and electrifying experiences like a flash of August lightning, for an author as brilliant as he was unstable and tormented. As if that weren't enough, shortly before being cut short at 26 by a fatal chemical mix, Parsons also gifted two solo works of unparalleled value, capable of sealing his own "cosmic American music" - a stunningly vibrant mix of country, rock, and soul - with the best songwriting. The foundation not only for the wild stone escapades of the Rolling Stones, but for all of the 90s alt-country, and beyond: you've probably seen this page's image on a t-shirt worn by Evan Dando, under a flannel shirt, in a Lemonheads music video during the height of the grunge era.

A worthy prologue to the masterpiece "Grievous Angel", "GP" marked in 1973 the artistic-existential partnership of Parsons with the chanteuse Emmylou Harris, his undisputed muse, and with a band of stellar roots musicians (from James Burton to Byron Berline). The electrifying opening "Still Feeling Blue" perfectly distills Gram's modernist essence. It's pure Nashville: pedal steel, fiddle, double voices, and choirs. The most reactionary genre existing, yet renewed through insidious sound streams, in a subcutaneous tension that makes it exciting and current. Listen in this sense also to the r'n'b jabs of "Big Mouth Blues" and "Cry One More Time" (watch out for Hal Battiste's sax!) or the feverish country-gospel of "Kiss the Children". Current, because it was maneuvered by the libertarian and rock spirit of the iconoclastic bohemian who loved to wander the California desert with his friend Richards, and who in "The Gilded Palace of Sin" had told with disconcerting depth the tensions of the vast America. Only Parsons, a southern boy with fresh and burning crooning, could therefore delve into these grooves in the reissue of standards like "We'll Sweep Out The Ashes In The Morning", "Streets Of Baltimore" and "That's All It Took" with Emmylou's soothing counterpoint to celestially mitigate his swashbuckling impulse. Without being pathetic, rather the brightest of innovators within the tradition's groove.

But we have talked about songwriting, and the remaining autograph tracks alone would suffice to establish Gram among the greats. Consider "The New Soft Shoe", imbued with melancholic confetti reminiscent of Neil Young's "After the Gold Rush", or the vivid confession of "How Much I've Lied", where the dusty spurs are polished in a western dance hall illuminated by a timeless melody. Up to the two undisputed peaks of the album. "A Song for You" dissolves in Glen Hardin's divine organ, in bronze guitar phrases and in the touching interweaving between Gram and Emmylou after a heart-stopping introduction, ideally engraved in the stones of the Mojave Desert: "Oh my land is like a wild goose /Wanders all around everywhere/ Trembles and it shakes till every tree is loose/ it rolls the meadows and it rolls the nails...". What to say then about "She"? In high school, we would have put this supreme composition in one of those selections on old tapes, aimed at melting the heart of someone capable of making us blush. Poignant organ blends and a violin shadow lead to that incredible "Hallelujah" with a gospel flavor launched into the sky. So different from Cohen's famous, earthly one: the sum of an angel's ardent desire to live, whose wings would soon be broken.

His ashes, scattered at Joshua Tree, however, continue to roam in the most diverse shores, driven by a warm and relentless wind.