Secret History of Rock. The Most Influential Bands You've Never Heard (23 page)

When Hillman quit the Byrds soon after, the two decided to form their own group, the Flying Burrito Brothers. It was here that their vision of a country band with a rock setup and counterculture attitude was most consciously manifested. Along with bassist Chris Ethridge (from the Submarine Band) and steel guitarist “Sneeky Pete” Kleinow, the Burrito Brothers released a remarkable debut in 1969 called
The Gilded Palace of Sin
. The album cover perfectly conveyed the image they were after: The long-haired band was dressed in the gaudy Nudie suits that were fashionable among country stars, while Parsons’ suit was decorated with marijuana leaves. Inside, the record collected countrified soul covers (
Do Right Woman
), straight country originals (
Juanita
), and tunes about draft-dodging and war protests (
My Uncle
,
Hippie Boy
). Like many of today’s alternative country acts, the Burrito Brothers fans (though there weren’t many) came almost exclusively from the rock audience.

Jay Farrar, Sen Volt:

The Gilded Palace of Sin
album was pivotal for a lot of my ideas. At the time I had been playing rock music, but I grew up around country music. I never put the two together to do both, though.

By the time the Burrito Brothers released their second album, the similar but less successful
Burrito Deluxe
, Parsons had lost interest in the group. Hillman would soon follow, as would new guitarist Bernie Leadon (to join the Eagles), though the band would continue in name for decades.

Parsons, who by then had fallen in with the fast-moving drinking and drugging rock star crowd, took the next few years off. He spent his time hanging out with friends such as Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones, either at Richards’ French villa or in Parsons’ favorite getaway, Joshua Tree National Park. Inspired by Parsons’ music, Richards and Mick Jagger wrote the song
Wild Horses
(which Parsons recorded for
Burrito Deluxe
) and took a country-influenced approach on their album Let It Bleed (which Parsons helped arrange).

In 1972, after forming a singing partnership with up-and-coming country star Emmylou Harris, Parsons returned to writing and playing his own music. With Harris and a backing band made up of Elvis’ touring musicians, Parsons recorded two solo albums within a year of each other,
GP
and
Grievous Angel
. While the records included Parsons’ most soulful work yet, they toned down the rock elements in favor of a more traditional country sound.
Grievous Angel
featured covers of Tom T. Hall and the Louvin Brothers, as well as Parsons’ most sophisticated originals,
Return of the Grievous Angel
and
$1000 Wedding
. Standing out above all else, though, were Parsons and Harris’s heavenly harmonies; their vocal inflections and arrangements are still imitated by bands like the Jayhawks and Whiskeytown.

Matthew Sweet:

Gram Parsons is probably one of my biggest idols. I just love his songs, both solo and with the Burrito Brothers and International Submarine Band. I’ve listened to every little thing. I didn’t care about country music at all until I got into him. I think vocally he had some influence on me, sometimes I’ll bend notes in a way I picked up from Gram. It’s taken out of context, so it might not be easy to spot. But there’s other ways, like hearing Sneaky Pete’s pedal steel guitar made me want to use pedal steel on my records. I would be a good example of Gram’s influence even way outside the realm of country rock.

Before
Grievous Angel
could be released, Parsons overdosed on a mix of morphine and tequila; he was 26. When friends highjacked his coffin en route to New Orleans for burial and burned his body, as he had requested, in the Joshua Tree desert, the Gram Parsons legend had begun.

DISCOGRAPHY

(w/ International Submarine Band)
Safe at Home
(LHI, 1967; Shiloh, 1987)
; though hardly acknowledged, this was essentially the first country rock album.

(w/ the Byrds)
Sweetheart of the Rodeo
(Columbia, 1968)
; recorded during Parsons’ brief stay in the band, it strongly bears Parsons’ imprint in its country flavor.

(w/ Flying Burrito Brothers)
The Gilded Palace of Sin
(AGM, 1969)
; the fullest realization of Parsons’ “hippie country” vision.

(w/ Flying Burrito Brothers)
Burrito Deluxe
(AGM, 1970)
; a less-inspired follow-up to
Gilded Palace
, it features Parsons on his way out of the group.

(w/ Flying Burrito Brothers)
Close up the Honky Tonks
(ASM, 1972)
; a compilation.

G.P.
(Reprise, 1973; 1990)
; Parsons’ first solo album, with a slightly more traditional approach to country songwriting.

Grievous Angel
(Reprise, 1974; 1990)
; posthumously released, and reissued on one CD with
G.P.
, this last Parsons’ recording was his most sophisticated effort yet.

Sleepless Nights
(ASM, 1976; 1990)
; a mix of Flying Burrito Brothers songs recorded just before Parsons’ departure and outtakes from
Grievous Angel
.

Gram Parsons: The Early Years 1963-65
(Sierra, 1979)
; a collection of tracks from early Parsons bands such as the Shilohs.

Gram Parsons and the Fallen Angels Live, 1973
(Sierra, 1982)
.

(w/ Flying Burrito Brothers)
Dim Lights, Thick Smoke and Loud Loud Music
(Edsel, 1987)
; this collects all the band’s Parsons-era recordings not included on the two studio albums.

Warm Evenings, Pale Mornings, Bottle Blues 1963-1973
(Raven, 1991)
; a compilation covering Parsons’ entire career, both solo and as part of bands.

(w/ Flying Burrito Brothers)
Farther Along: The Best of the Flying Burrito Brothers
(ASM, 1988)
; contains nearly the entirety of
Gilded Palace
, plus an assortment of other songs from the Parsons-era band.

TRIBUTE: Various Artists,
Conmemorativo: A Tribute to Gram Parsons
(Rhino, 1993)
; features Uncle Tupelo, Bob Mould, Victoria Williams, Steve Wynn, members of R.E.M. and the dBs, as well as Parsons’ daughter, Polly.

NICK DRAKE

Nick Drake, “Fruit Tree”:

Fame is but a fruit tree, so very unsound / It can never flourish, ‘til its stalk is in the ground.

The archetypal lonely songwriter who pours his heart into music, Nick Drake has been an inspiration for countless musicians. A dark and romantic troubadour whose thin frame and soft features convey vulnerability, Nick Drake is today the focus of a sizable cult attracted to his intimate music and enigmatic personality. While it could be argued that Drake’s example has created far too many self-indulgent guitar-wielding weepers, those who’ve grasped the purity and beauty in his songs are generally better songwriters for it.

An early admirer, Elton John recorded Drake’s music in the late ‘60s, and artists as diverse as Lucinda Williams, Run On, and the
Swans
covered his songs later. Drake has been the subject of tributes by three generations of performers, from Richard Thompson to Robyn Hitchcock to indie rock band Ida. In the ‘80s, English pop groups such as the Lilac Time (named after a Drake lyric) and the Dream Academy (who dedicated their hit “Life in a Northern Town” to Drake) were clearly influenced by Drake, as were other gloomy Brits such as Morrissey and the Cure’s Robert Smith. More recently, singer-songwriters like Jeff Buckley and folk-oriented bands such as Red House Painters and Bell and Sebastian have mined similar stylistic territory. Decades after his death, Nick Drake remains one of the most vitally inspiring musicians in popular music.

Gary Louris, Jayhawks:

Nick Drake’s stuff was an influence on us in the late ‘80s. He was a little off-kilter, in-between styles. And it was pretty emotional stuff, beautifully arranged. “Take Me With You” is definitely patterned after a Nick Drake song, even though it sounds quite a bit different.

The son of a British lumber industry executive stationed in the Far East, Nick Drake was born in Rangoon, Burma, though his family returned to Tamworth-in-Arden, a village in the English Midlands, while Nick was quite young. Along with his parents and older sister, Gabrielle (who would go on to become a well-known actress in the U.K.), Nick grew up in a house large enough to have a name – Far Leys – where he was exposed early on to classical music through his mother, a singer and composer. Though he’d played piano since childhood, and later tried saxophone and clarinet, it wasn’t until Drake was 16 and away at boarding school that he first started playing guitar. An exceptionally gifted musician, the shy and lonely teenager took to the instrument immediately and was soon comfortable with advanced fingering techniques and innovative open tunings.

Chris Cornell, Soundgarden:

Everyone talks about the introspective, shy, quiet, tragic Nick Drake, but if you listen to his records and the way he plays guitar, he was incredibly forceful and aggressive on it. He’d just pull on the strings. There was some underlying thing going on that was almost angry. I don’t know if a lot of people set that, but I got it and it was kind of a surprise. For me as a guitar player, he’s someone I would think of as a guitar god.

While attending college in Cambridge, Drake became interested in the work of poets such as William Blake and the French Symbolists, and their influence began to show up in the songs he started writing. Soon he was performing in local coffeehouses, which had become a center for the blooming British folk revival of acts like Fairport Convention, Pentangle, and John Martyn. Drake proved to be a capable, if uneasy, performer of folk and blues standards, Dylan covers, and his own originals. He attracted the attention of Fairport Convention’s manager, Joe Boyd, who signed Drake to his Witchseason label (which was soon bought by Island Records). As he began to work on his first album, Drake dropped out of college to focus on his music.

Released in 1969,
Five Leaves Left
was an impressive debut for the 21-year-old musician. While the songs featured lush string arrangements or the light jazz-folk accompaniment of musicians from Pentangle and Fairport Convention (including guitarist Richard Thompson), the album remained predominantly acoustic and focused on Drake’s rich singing and guitar work. Songs like
River Man
and the eerily prescient
Fruit Tree
combined a romantic melancholy with wide-eyed enchantment, sung with perfect clarity and intimacy. Though
Five Leaves Left
was received warmly by critics, it failed to catch on with the public. Drake’s discomfort with performing made it difficult to promote the record through a concert tour, and by 1970 Drake gave up on playing live altogether.

Eric Matthews:

I had an immediate affection for his voice.
Five Leaves Left
is all solace and peace and quietude. The string arranging and the guitar, I think it had an influence on my direction. People think maybe I’m consciously trying to sing like him, though what I get from him mostly is the whole package, the string arranging. But if people think I’m influenced by Nick Drake, well they’re right.

Soon, Drake began work on a second album,
Bryter Layter
, which he released in 1970. It featured many of the musicians that had joined him on
Five Leaves Left
, with the addition of the Velvet Underground’s
John Cale
on keyboards and viola. The record fleshed out Drake’s songs with brighter, fuller arrangements that included horns and more prominent drums. Some of the songs, including
Hazey Jane H
and the title track, actually came closer to ‘70s light pop – a sound adopted by more recent bands such as Belle and Sebastian and the Cardigans – than Drake’s earlier folk compositions. Again, however, Drake’s music failed to connect with a large audience. Drake had long suffered from depression, and this perceived rejection of his work made the condition much more acute, to a point where it became debilitating. Following
Bryter Later
’s release, Drake left the flat he’d taken in London and, after a retreat to Spain, returned to his parents at Far Leys.

Moby:

I almost feel foolish counting him as an influence because so many people – at least among people making records – cite him as one. He had such a beautiful voice and was such a phenomenal songwriter. On
Bryter Later
especially, the arrangement and orchestration is wonderful. Very vulnerable and very emotional.