The Flying Burrito Brothers - Together Again (1970)

Ian Dunlop and Mickey Gauvin, formerly of Gram Parsons' International Submarine Band, founded the original Flying Burrito Brothers and named it after Parsons informed them of his new country focus, However, this incarnation of the band never recorded as such, and after they headed East it allowed Gram Parsons to take the name. With the original incarnation of the band out of the picture, the "West Coast" Flying Burrito Brothers were founded in 1968 in Los Angeles, California, by Gram Parsons and Chris Hillman, with the addition of bassist Chris Ethridge, pedal steel guitarist "Sneaky" Pete Kleinow and session drummer "Fast" Eddie Hoh. Though Hillman and Roger McGuinn had fired Parsons from the Byrds in July 1968, the bassist and Parsons reconciled later that year after Hillman left the group. The Flying Burrito Brothers recorded their debut album, 'The Gilded Palace Of Sin', without a regular drummer, as Hoh proved to be unable to perform adequately due to a substance abuse problem, and he was dismissed after recording two songs. After trying out a number of replacements, they ultimately settled upon original Byrd Michael Clarke, just before the commencement of their first tour. Despite widespread critical acclaim upon its release in February 1969 for its pioneering amalgamation of country, soul music, and psychedelic rock, 'The Gilded Palace Of Sin' stalled at No. 164 on the Billboard album chart. 

The band did embark on a comprehensive train tour of the United States (necessitated by Parsons' fear of flying), but this ultimately ended in disaster due to drug and alcohol use. Dissatisfied by the band's lack of success and unable to fully reconcile his predilection for R&B with the more conservative tastes of Parsons and Hillman, Ethridge departed the group in the autumn of 1969, and Hillman reverted to bass after the band hired lead guitarist Bernie Leadon, a Dillard and Clark veteran who had also played with Hillman in the early 1960s bluegrass scene. With mounting debt incurred from the first album and tour, and a failed single in 'The Train Song', A&M Records hoped to recoup some of their losses by marketing the Burritos as a straight country group. To this end, manager Jim Dickson instigated a loose session where the band recorded several traditional country staples from their live act, contemporary pop covers in a countrified vein, such as 'To Love Somebody', 'I Shall Be Released', and 'Honky Tonk Women', and Larry Williams's rock and roll classic 'Bony Moronie'. This effort was soon scrapped in favoru of a second album of originals on an extremely reduced budget, and so 'Burrito Deluxe' appeared in  April 1970, juxtaposing the band's inability to develop compelling new material with prominent covers of the Rolling Stones's hitherto unreleased 'Wild Horses', Dylan's 'If You Gotta Go, Go Now' and the Southern gospel standard 'Farther Along'. 

Unlike their debut, the album failed to chart entirely, and a month later, Parsons showed up for a band performance only minutes before they were to take the stage, visibly intoxicated and singing songs that differed from what the rest of the band were performing. A furious Hillman (already incensed by the singer's penchant for showing up at concerts in a limousine and his increasingly Jagger-influenced showmanship) fired him immediately after the show, to which Parsons responded, "You can't fire me, I'm Gram!". According to Hillman, this incident was merely the final straw, with Parsons' desire to hang out with the Rolling Stones rather than focus on his own band's career also being a significant factor, mirroring his 1968 dismissal from The Byrds. For some fans this was the end of their association with the band, as they couldn't imagine a Burritos without Parsons, while others remained faithful until Hillman left in 1972. Over the years a number of out-takes have surfaced from the original incarnation of the group, and so to complete the Parsons-led era of the Flying Burrito Brothers' recording history, here are all the tracks recorded with him before he left the group, including singles, b-sides, out-takes, and an extended edit of the snippet that was available of 'I Shall Be Released'.

     

Track listing

01 Sing Me Back Home (Version 1)
02 The Train Song
03 Tonight The Bottle Let Me Down
04 Your Angel Steps Out Of Heaven
05 Close Up The Honky Tonks
06 Green Green Grass Of Home
07 Break My Mind
08 To Love Somebody
09 Just Because
10 Dim Lights, Thick Smoke (And Loud, Loud Music)
11 Crazy Arms
12 Honky Tonk Women
13 Six Days On The Road
14 Bony Moronie
15 I Shall Be Released
16 Together Again
17 Sing Me Back Home (Version 2)

Thanks to the it's lost it's found blog for this post.

 

James Burton - ...and on guitar (1978)

James Burton was born 21 August 1939 in Dubberly, Louisiana and began playing guitar at a young age, influenced by Chet Atkins, Elmore James and several others, using fingerpicks with a flatpick instead of the more conventional thumbpick. At the age of only 14 he became a professional musician, working club gigs and private parties, and in 1954 he became the youngest staff musician on the weekly radio show Louisiana Hayride in Shreveport, where he grew up. The first record that he played on was 'Just For A While'/'You Never Mention My Name' by Carol Williams in 1956, and in addition to his work on the Hayride, he played in Dale Hawkins' band, with whom he recorded and co-wrote 'Susie-Q' in February 1957. While working with Bob Luman, he came to the attention of Ricky Nelson, who invited him and Luman's bassist, James Kirkland, to meet his parents, and Nelson's father Ozzie Nelson offered Burton and Kirkland a regular spot on his son's television show 'The Adventures Of Ozzie And Harriet'. Before long James was living with the Nelson family in Hollywood, and playing on Ricky Nelson's 1957 single 'Stood Up'/'Waitin' In School', and then on every Ricky Nelson record after that for the next seven years. By 1965, Nelson was only on the road one month a year and Burton got bored, so he accepted an invitation from TV producer Jack Good to become a regular on the weekly 'Shindig' show, and to recruit a group, which he called the Shindogs. While working with Nelson, he had hardly done any session work for others, but after his exposure following a year on Shindig, he was soon doing five or six sessions a day, sometimes seven days a week, recording with such varied acts as Merle Haggard, Frank Sinatra, the Monkees, Judy Collins, the Everly Brothers and Johnny Mathis. In November 1967 he released his first album 'Corn Pickin' And Slick Slidin'', which was a collaboration with steel guitarist Ralph Mooney, and in 1969 he recorded the high point of his work with the dobro guitar, which he'd taken up in 1963, on Merle Haggard's tribute album to Jimmie Rodgers, 'Same Train, A Different Time'. In 1969, Elvis Presley asked Burton to be his lead guitarist and manage his band, to which he agreed, and so he moved to Las Vegas, remaining with Presley's touring band until the singer's death in August 1977. Through the last five years with Elvis, Burton also worked with Gram Parsons and Emmylou Harris, and then after Presley's death he went on the road with John Denver and stayed with him for fifteen years, continuing to do session work, and playing with Jerry Lee Lewis's touring band in the early 1980's. There is an excellent anthology of his work out on CD titled 'James Burton: The Early Years 1957-1969', and so this collection seamlessly carries on from that, mainly concentrating on his work from the late 60's to the early 70's, and because he played on so many, many records during that period I narrowed it down even further by only selecting records on which he played his dobro guitar. As well as a slew of superb country tracks, this also includes the outro on The Beach Boys' 'Cabinessence', and some superlative work on Buffalo Springfield's 'A Child's Claim To Fame'. 

Track listing

Disc One
01 A Child's Claim To Fame (from 'Buffalo Springfield Again' by Buffalo Springfield 1967)
02 Mama Tried (from 'Roots' by The Everly Brothers 1968)
03 Poor Immigrant (from 'Who Knows Where The Time Goes' by Judy Collins 1968)
04 Midnight Wind (from 'Closing the Gap' by Michael Parks 1969)
05 Little Piece In D (from 'John Hartford' by John Hartford 1969)
06 Song Of Sad Bottles (from 'Mark Spoelstra' by Mark Spoelstra 1969)
07 On The Natural (from 'My Griffin Is Gone' by Hoyt Axton 1969)
08 Living On The Corner (from 'Who Knocked The Brains Out Of The Sky' by 

                                                                                                           Eric Von Schmidt 1969) 
09 Cabinessence (from '20/20' by The Beach Boys 1969)
10 Snake Mountain Blues (from 'Our Mother The Mountain' by Townes Van Zandt 1969)
11 Hoboin' (from 'Rock Salt And Nails' by Steve Young 1969)

Disc Two
01 Makes You Beautiful (from 'Sings About People' by John Hurley 1970)
02 Apple Tree (from 'Slim Slo Slider' by Johnny Rivers 1970)
03 Topanga Canyon (from 'John Phillips (John The Wolfking Of L.A.)' by John Phillips 1970)
04 Big T Water (from 'James Hendricks' by James Hendricks 1971)
05 Train Of Life (from 'Someday We'll Look Back' by Merle Haggard and The Strangers 1971)
06 Sunstorm (from 'Sunstorm' by John Stewart 1972)
07 The Moon Is Stone (from 'Raised On Records' by P.F. Sloan 1972)
08 Streets Of Baltimore (from 'GP' by Gram Parsons 1973)
09 Boulder To Brimingham (from 'Pieces Of The Sky' by Emmylou Harris 1975)
10 Bet On The Blues (from 'I Want To Live' by John Denver 1977)
11 Song For The Life (from 'Ain't Living Long Like This' by Rodney Crowell 1978)
12 Come Early Mornin' (from 'Nicolette' by Nicolette Larson 1978)

Thanks to Martin for the suggestion.

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.