The Flying Burrito Brothers
The Flying Burrito Brothers

After two years, Gram Parsons has already grown tired of his band, leaving Chris Hillman amidst a whirlwind of session men. What could have been an intrepid companion for Gram in musical adventures, would soon end up accompanying Stephen Stills in his Manassas project.

In retrospect, however, it was what Hillman deserved, given that he was the first to leave the "poor" Roger McGuinn in the lurch, forcing him, for the survival of the Byrds, to team up with a series of musicians of excellent quality but less inspired, if not of inferior compositional skills.

A more in-depth look at Hillman's career in general, the various supergroups (gradually less super over time), the bands, duos, trio projects, quartets, and the relatively few albums in his name, reveals that instead of continuing to be a sidekick to the first one that came along (and still comes along), and therefore often seeing his name overshadowed by the star of the moment, our bass guitarist could have contributed to keeping the average quality of Byrds' releases high. Perhaps by continuing to keep people like Clarence White or Gene Parsons in session man roles, without involving them in the creative process, just as it happened with the excellent "The Notorious Byrd Brothers," the last masterpiece of the Byrds, crafted by McGuinn and Hillman without the contribution of the visionary Parsons, dreamlike Clark, or even the lysergic Crosby.

Ethridge out for a year already and Parsons flew away before the sessions; Leadon, as was in Dillard and Clark's Expedition, in his second presence went from lead composer to pure and simple performer... In short, in this 1971, Hillman is the only vocalist and the only pen available. The band is practically over, and the only former member besides him is Sneaky Pete Kleinow on pedal steel. In my opinion, this condition would have been intolerable to keep the combo alive, but for the two survivors, it wasn't yet, and so instead of Parsons arrives a little-known Rick Roberts (who would later create Firefall), making his debut.

The result? No matter what is said, although Parsons literally embodied the early country rock and was the boldest innovator of the musical genre even when compared to other pioneers, the flight of the Burritos can continue reasonably well thanks to this young man's verve. Assuming that people like Dylan, Clark, and Parsons are not of this planet, what is in this album is the best one can ask from the "depowered burritos." And it indeed seems to serve a light version of the famous Mexican dish. The Dylan and Merle Haggard covers glide smoothly but lack the brilliance we have been accustomed to by Grievous Angel; Roberts' voice is less cheeky, less of a faux innocent, less carefree and enchanting, but overall also friendlier and more reassuring, like a good country lad and rocker.

For everything else, the self-titled Burritos album is the second, even more decisive, step forward towards root rock, maybe a bit radio-friendly, where country is almost more a flavor of playing than a composing style, more a point of arrival than a starting point. "Colorado," for instance, is less of an epic Nashville ballad and more the country version of the famous "A Whiter Shade Of Pale" by Procol Harum; "Four Days Of Rain" is almost pure rock, indebted to the musical genre of the fathers only in the choruses. "Just Can't Be" is a mid-tempo that could be found on any root rock band LP of that era. Rather than the Stones of country, in "Can't You Hear Me Calling," it seems like dealing with the cow-boy version of a proto-punk band, and I know it borders on the absurd, but the more I listen to it, the more I am inclined to think so.

Roberts's approach to country is inevitably less brilliant but also less amused and less airy, cosmic. More intimate and perhaps folk, in the splendid "Hand To Mouth" and the concluding acoustic ballads "All Alone" and "Why Are You Crying," he reigns sentimental and affectionate, while the band provides heartfelt performances but practically outside of the country rock as we have listened to it. As a seal, in the name of this "fake" country rock, or better put in the name of the country rock contemporaneous to Parsons but not "parson(s)ian," I would set the splendid, Gene Clark-branded "Tried So Hard," a sensational banjo-driven jewel, perhaps ending up on the pavement due to a dent on the road taken by the sidecar.

Rick Roberts was perhaps the least bad found on the market at the time; the covers of the best authors of the genre are there; the standard of one of the most famous and talented protagonists of old-style country is there too; the musicians are top-notch. So, for a normal band, this cannot be considered anything but an excellent album, of which to be more than satisfied. The awareness, however, is that in 1971, the Flying Burrito Brothers have become a normal band and no longer the extraordinary band they once were.

And Chris Hillman? What's Chris up to? What went through the mind of someone who had until then been alongside Clark, Crosby, McGuinn, and Parsons? What did it feel like co-signing four tracks of this "The Flying Burrito Brothers" along with a, albeit valid, Mr. Nobody? The fact is that after this work, even Leadon and Kleinow jumped off the Burrito, leaving Hillman as the sole former member and the only big shot in the lineup. And this, for someone always used to follow a leader, was really (and finally) too much.