Gram Parsons belongs to a few exclusive clubs in the pantheon of popular music. One, sadly, is Those Who Died Young, the rolls of which are dotted notably with names like Cobain, Hendrix, Joplin, Holly and Redding. Another, with a much shorter list of members, might best be called the Inverse Proportionists.
An oft-told anecdote claims that while the Velvet Underground hardly sold any records back in the day, everyone who did buy a V.U. album started a band. The Velvets, Big Star, Parsons, to name a few — these artists demonstrably influenced musicians who followed them far in excess of their own contemporary popularity and output.
In Gram’s case, beyond the fact that he never cut anything remotely approaching a hit — Grievous Angel spent three weeks in the Top 200, peaking at #195; the Flying Burrito Brothers’ self titled album and The Gilded Palace Of Sin hit #176 and #164, respectively — his canon clocks in at less than four hours of recorded music: one album with the International Submarine Band, his contributions to the Byrds’ Sweetheart Of The Rodeo, the first two Burritos albums, and two solo records. Did I mention he only wrote perhaps half the songs on those works?
Yet from that slender c.v., Parsons has come to be viewed as one of the most influential artists of his era, or even, some say, the father of a musical movement (country-rock, alt-country, Americana…label it what you will, or, as he did, “Cosmic American music”). Why that might be is something The Complete Reprise Sessions helps to address.
Produced by James Austin and Emmylou Harris, the three-CD set re-presents Gram’s solo albums GP (1973) and Grievous Angel (1974) along with sixteen newly uncovered alternate takes, plus a handful of interview clips and acoustic radio performances. For fans, over an hour of previously unissued recordings from this era is something of a holy grail.
In his producer’s note, Austin writes that when session guitarist James Burton recently heard these “tracking vocals” he felt they sounded even better than the released versions. In truth, they are not radically dissimilar from the takes on the albums (save for Rik Grech and Barry “& the Remains” Tashian sharing the vocal with Gram on “Kiss The Children”), offering something akin to an alternate camera angle aimed more squarely on Parsons and Harris than different arrangements or interpretations.
Most of the takes are stripped of overdubs and move the vocals to the center (instead of Gram in the left channel and Emmylou in the right as on the albums). This unadorned state allows us to appreciate anew Parsons’ unaffected singing, especially in the ballad territory of “The New Soft Shoe”, “She” and “”Brass Buttons”. With the burden of hindsight, it’s difficult not to reach for words like purity and fragility to describe these performances, but even when the tempo steps up on “I Can’t Dance” and “Ooh Las Vegas”, Parsons is spinning tales as much as he’s singing — never the shouter, never the belter.
That distinction may be why Gram never really bought into the idea of “country-rock.” Here’s a guy who spent the summer of 1971 with Keith Richards and the Rolling Stones as they were making the darkest albums of their career, only to come back to the States and sing about “a calico bonnet from Cheyenne to Tennessee.” If “pure country includes rock ‘n’ roll,” as Parsons says in one of the set’s insightful interview snippets, why aspire to be a rock star? GP and Grievous Angel are country records through and through, save for Gram’s haircut.
One tangible the alternate takes yield is more Harris vocals. She comes in right away in the first verses of “I Can’t Dance” and “Return Of The Grievous Angel”, making them even more complete duets than the released versions. On the flip side, “In My Hour Of Darkness” strips down its arrangement and its chorus of singers in favor of a tentative Gram vocal eventually joined by Harris.
In terms of Parsons’ lasting influence, the male-female dynamic captured here between Gram and Emmylou seems a musical archetype in and of itself. While surely rooted in the great country and soul partnerships that preceded it, there’s something deeply and palpably vulnerable expressed that feels previously uncharted. “She’s got fantastic eye contact,” Gram says in an interview clip by way of explaining how they connect (but not why). “She can sing anything that you’re doing in perfect harmony as long as you look at her.”
The interview excerpts and in-studio radio performances (most first heard on, and likely lifted from, the landmark bootleg Under Your Spell Again) provide a glimpse of who Gram was in the period. He comes off charmingly unpretentious in the segments and reveals, in both tone and comment, that the music he makes isn’t contrived at all, but simply what moves him.
That spirit is reflected in a delightful little exchange when WBCN DJ Maxine Sartori asks, “Are you gonna do something off the album?” referring to the record they are on tour to support, GP. Gram responds humbly, “Well…not exactly.” Emmylou chimes in: “These are bus songs we’re gonna do, songs we sing on the back of the bus…” He slides in to finish her sentence, “…for our own amusement.” With that setup, they perform the Burritos’ “Sin City” and the as-yet unrecorded “Love Hurts”, which would become a centerpiece on the GP follow-up, Grievous Angel.
In the set’s fine liner notes (by Holly George-Warren and Parke Puterbaugh), there’s a quote from Harris about how unexpected Gram’s death was to her. “Other people said, ‘You must’ve known this was going to happen,’ but I said no. I really didn’t have any idea.”
With 30-plus years of over-reflection and the fraternal connection to Hendrix, Joplin, et al, it’s been easy to mythologize Gram as somehow doomed to his tragic demise — another fallen angel. The Complete Reprise Sessions offers the opportunity to shake off that legend and hear why Emmylou felt “we were at the beginning, almost,” not some fated ending. Even more so, it’s a chance to appreciate the influential power of this marvelous music from an illuminating new angle.
