God’s Own Singer
David N. Meyer digs up Gram Parsons
By John
Hood
 |
|
The
Twenty Thousand Roads of Gram Parsons |
If there’s
a heaven, it’s a bet that Gram Parsons is up there raising hell
in it. Hollywood hillbilly, hardcore party boy, star-crossed
troubadour, Byrd, Burrito and archetypal outlaw genius, he was,
like his gravestone says, “God’s own singer” — whether he sang
so or not.
And he
didn’t (Bernie Leadon did); nor would he (that wasn’t his
style). He did, though, leave a legacy that encompasses what
most believe to be the best of The Byrds (Sweetheart of the
Rodeo), as well as the Flying Burrito Brothers (The
Gilded Palace of Sin) and two solo albums (G.P. and
Grievous Angel) that would indelibly mark the beginnings
of that thing called country rock.
Hitting
David N. Meyer’s Twenty Thousand Roads (Villard $29.95),
one again is reminded that without Parsons there might not have
been an Eagles (whom he rightfully hated), not to mention any of
the myriad country-rock superstars of the ’70s (this means you,
Poco and Firefall). There certainly would not have been a No
Depression, which means no Uncle Tupelo, let alone a Son Volt, a
Jayhawks or a Wilco.
Without
Parsons, there might not have been a Country Honk or a
Sweet Virginia (Gram was a frequent sidekick of Keith, from
Let it Bleed through Exile on Main Street), perhaps not even a
Wild Horses (its post-Altamount origin remains cloudy),
and definitely no Ryan Adams or Old 97s (who both owe Parsons,
whether they cite him or not).
Hell,
there might not have even been a
Nazareth,
not as we knew ’em anyway, because it was Gram who, with Emmylou
Harris, delivered the most poignant version of the Everly/Orbison/Cher-covered
classic, “Love Hurts,” their biggest hit.
But Gram’s
idea went well beyond some hybrid merger of hair short and long;
in fact, it went well beyond just about everything that had come
along before him — and it included it all.
Parsons
called it Cosmic American Music, and as Meyer so succinctly sums
up, it was “a holy intersection of unpolished American
expression: gospel, soul, folk, Appalachia, R&B, country,
bluegrass, blues, rockabilly and honky-tonk.”
Most,
though, know only the tragedy and the legend. Yes, Gram came
from loot (his grandfather was a citrus magnate who had ties to
Cypress Gardens), and, yes, he had a bit of schooling (Harvard,
for theology), though he dropped out of both. Yes, his father
was a suicide, his mother died under suspicious circumstances
and he himself checked out at the tender age of 26, overdosed in
a Twentynine Palms hotel. And, yes, his corpse was kidnapped
from LAX and half-burned in Joshua Tree before being buried by
his disgruntled stepfather in the outskirts of The Big Easy.
But it’s
the be-all that ended it all which really makes Parsons’ life
worth writing about — the glam, the guts and the glory — and
Meyer digs deep into the facts of the myth, without romancing
how stoned the grand man was throughout it all. This, of course,
is not the first instance of Gram getting his biographical due:
Rolling Stone’s Ben Fong-Torres and corpse-robbing road
manager Phil Kaufman both penned tributes (Hickory Wind
and Road Mangler, respectively), as did Sid Griffin (of
the Paisley cowpunk Long Ryders), Margaret Fisher (the former
high school sweetheart who was there at the end) and LA-based
’zinester Jessica Hundley, who collaborated with Parsons’
daughter Polly on Grievous Angel.
More
telling, though, is that the legend continues to live in
whispers and secrets and rumor and innuendo and still cannot be
contained within any book, no matter how astute the scribbler.
This is probably why it’s still sung, and why we need cats like
Meyer to ensure that the song remains as true to life as death
can get and still make some sort of sense.
