Gram Parsons & The Byrds - Sweetheart Of The Rodeo (1968)

I saw a suggestion recently for a reconstructed album that piqued my interest, and that was what 'Sweetheart Of The Rodeo' would have sounded like if Gram Parsons hadn't left the band before it was released, resulting in nearly all his vocals being wiped and replaced by other members of The Byrds. 
In the end we only heard him on three of the songs on the album, but as the original idea of the album was his, he did actually sing nearly all the songs as they were recorded, with the exception of the two Dylan covers, Woody Guthrie's 'Pretty Boy Floyd', and the traditional 'I Am A Pilgrim'. Luckily these tapes still exist, and so this version of the classic album that started the whole Country/Rock sound can now be heard pretty much as Parsons intended.

Track Listing

01 You Ain't Going Nowhere
02 I Am A Pilgrim
03 The Christian Life
04 You Don't Miss Your Water
05 You're Still On My Mind
06 Pretty Boy Floyd
07 Hickory Wind
08 One Hundred Years From Now
09 Blue Canadian Rockies
10 Life In Prison
11 Nothing Was Delivered

Bonus tracks

12 All I Have Are Memories
13 Reputation
14 Pretty Polly
15 Lazy Days

Although Parsons sang his own composition 'Hickory Wind' on the original album, this is a stripped back version without the harmony vocals, but it's still a fine take. 'Lazy Days' is a Parsons original that didn't make the cut, while he'd been performing Tim Hardin's 'You Got A Reputation' for a couple of years before bringing it to the sessions.