Gram Parsons & the Fallen Angels
Before his death from a drug overdose at age 26 in 1973, Gram Parsons spent most of his brief career trying to bridge the then seemingly unbridgeable gulf between country music and rock and roll. While his name is often invoked by later artists who realized his influential vision, precious little of his music is. Which is why the reissue of this 1973 Hempstead, N.Y., radio concert is so welcome. Assisted by a band that included his then diamond-in-the-rough protégée Emmylou Harris (their rendition of Roy Orbison's classic "Love Hurts" still stops time), Parsons is captured here in all his ragged glory, juxtaposing Merle Haggard's hit "California Cottonfields" with Larry Williams's "Bony Moronie" and even countrifying the J. Geils Band's bluesy "Cry One More Time." If ever there rode a true cosmic cowboy, this lost pioneer was it. (Rhino)
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