Shelter From The Storm » country-rock

The Flying Burrito Bros

Steve — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 23:19:44 +0000

You won’t find many bigger Gram Parsons’ fans than me. Well, I’m sure there are some true “fanatics” out there who are even more pathologically obsessive (and excessive) than I am. But, I’m up there pretty close to the top myself. Both his solo albums are in my Top 10 All-Time Albums. I have a cherished, framed, original poster from his run of shows at Liberty Hall in Houston with Emmylou and the Fallen Angel band in 1973. I’ve got a fair amount of bootlegs, vinyl, CD and CDR. I even compiled my own bootleg, The Genuine Early Years, with some material that I’ve never seen anywhere else. The first Flying Burrito Bros album, 1969’s The Gilded Palace Of Sin, is also in my Top 10. Gram only made two albums with The Flying Burrito Bros, The Gilded Palace Of Sin and Burrito Deluxe. Burrito Deluxe was a disappointment to everyone, partly because Gram had apparently lost interest in the band (and maybe music in general). He was fired from the band shortly after that release. And therein lies the first problem with the legacy of the Burritos. Many people tend to (unjustifiably) write off anything the Burrito’s did after Gram left. The two albums he made with them, along with a handful of outtakes, have been repackaged over and over and over. I mean we’re only talking about two albums here folks. The trend began with the vinyl issue of Close Up The Honky Tonks in 1974. At the time this was an excellent idea, collecting some of the best tracks from the original two albums, a couple of stray 45s and a bunch of unreleased outtakes. But the labels have continued to repackage and rerelease this same material ad naseum since them. The very first CD I ever bought was the 1988 compilation called Farther Along: The Best Of The Flying Burrito Brothers. There’s a 1997 single disc that combines the entire two albums. There’s a 2000 release on A&M called Hot Burritos! Anthology 1969-1972. I have a 2002 release on A&M Chronicles titled Sin City: The Very Best Of The Flying Burrito Bros. The exact same CD was released a few years later with the same cover, same songs, same booklet, same everything, just renamed The Definitive Collection. And don’t even get me started on the European anthologies and compilations. There’s another good half a dozen, all with the exact same material. As you may have guessed by now the labels keep putting these out because idiots like me keep buying them even though there’s absolutely nothing new. Enough already.

In addition to being a huge Gram Parsons fan and admirer I’m also very, very fond of Chris Hillman. In many ways, Hillman’s influences on the “country rock” scene of the sixties even outweigh Gram’s. Gram gets all the credit (and I do mean all the credit), but you could make a strong case that without Hillman a lot of the music that is credited to Gram might never have happened. Additionally, Hillman was a founding member of the Byrds, one of the most influential bands in American pop/rock history. And, he’s gone on another 30+ years after Gram died to continue to make outstanding music. The Chris Hillman catalog is far, far wider, deeper and more impressive than what Gram left behind. It really pissed me off to see the new reissue of the Flying Burrito Bros live in San Francisco in 1969 issued as “Gram Parsons with The Flying Burrito Bros.” Completely disrespectful to the rest of the band and especially Hillman. Hillman was as much responsible for The Burrito Bros as Gram.

After Gram was fired Hillman decided to keep the band alive. The third Burrito’s album was released in June 1971, simply titled The Flying Burrito Bros. It’s an album that, even though it sold better than Burrito Deluxe, has never gotten the credit and respect it deserves. A new, young upstart by the name of Rick Roberts was brought on board. I’d hate to say he was brought on to “replace” Gram Parsons, because that really wasn’t possible. But Hillman needed another voice in the group and Roberts fit the bill. He ended up being quite an integral part of the album, writing three of the ten songs and co-writing four more (with Hillman). In fact, Bernie Leadon left the band after this album, supposedly because he felt his songs and vocal contributions were being pushed aside in favor of Roberts. Still, you can’t feel to bad for Leadon. He did, of course, go on to be one of the co-founders of The Eagles.

The album kicks off with a very soulful, very country version of Merle Haggard’s “White Line Fever.” It’s clear from the get go that things have taken a bit of a turn here. Roberts’ songs “Colorado” (later covered by Linda Ronstadt), “Four Days Of Rain” and “Why Are You Crying” are highlights. The four Hillman/Roberts songs are all very good. Also along for the ride is a nice cover of Dylan’s “To Ramona” and Gene Clark’s “Tried So Hard.” This is more “folk/singer-songwriter/country” than the “cosmic/country” of The Gilded Palace Of Sin. The album is nicely produced by Jim Dickson (who helped launch the Byrds and worked with numerous other LA sixties groups). It certainly isn’t the groundbreaking album that The Gilded Palace Of Sin was, but in it’s own way it more than holds its own against Burrito Deluxe.

The Flying Burrito Bros didn’t help the band reach any bigger audience than the two previous albums had. It managed to chart on the Billboard Top 200, which was something the second album had not done. Hillman soldiered on for another album, 1972’s Last Of The Red Hot Burritos, a bluegrass leaning live album with yet another lineup, before deciding to throw in the towel and join up with Stephen Stills in Manassas. Roberts made two fine albums for A&M (one of which Hillman produced) before striking it rich with Firefall. Raven Records, the superb reissue label out of Australia, has done us all a huge favor and packaged these two albums together on one disc. They’ve added a couple of bonus tracks (nothing new, but still nice to have here) and included some very nice liner notes. It’s nice to have both of these albums on one CD. It’s not the first time The Flying Burrito Bros has been available on CD: it was included in its entirety in the above mentioned two disc Hot Burritos! anthology (which is still available) and also released by Mobile Fidelity in 1991 (now out of print). Still, for us collectors, it’s nice to see these albums getting some attention rather than another repackaging of the first two.

Oh, the second problem with legacy of the Burritos is that an never ending parade of impostors has carried on the name, off and on, for almost forty years now! It’s a shame and an embarrassment. The name should have been retired with respect after Hillman closed things down in 1972.

Other Listens on July 8th:
Live At Leeds (Deluxe Edition) by The Who
Pat Garrett & Billy The Kid by Bob Dylan
Hot August Night by Neil Diamond
Striking It Rich by Dan Hicks And His Hot Licks

The Great Pretender

Steve — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 01:31:04 +0000

I spent my teenage years in Lancaster, California, a small town in the desert about an hour north of Los Angeles. I had lived there for many years when I was younger, before we moved to Ohio for about four or five years and then back to Lancaster when I was thirteen. We could get the Los Angeles FM radio stations, so this is where I was usually exposed to new music. And we got the Los Angeles Times newspaper. The music critic was a guy named Robert Hilburn. I think he stayed in that post until 2005, writing for the paper for almost 40 years. I would read his columns and reviews in the 70s almost religiously. He seemed to have very similar tastes to me so I was often encouraged to seek out and buy albums that he recommended. In 1974 that included three artists new to me: Waylon Jennings, Billy Joe Shaver and Michael Dinner. Waylon had recently released his breakthrough album Honky Tonk Heroes. Billy Joe Shaver, who wrote all but one of the songs on Honky Tonk Heroes had just released his first solo album, Old Five And Dimers Like Me. Shortly after that Michael Dinner released his first album, The Great Pretender. It was a long time ago so I am a little fuzzy on the details but I think I remember Hilburn had suggested that Jennings should record some of Dinner’s songs. (That never happened.) Regardless, Hilburn had great things to say about all three albums so it wasn’t long before I picked them all up. All three are still big time favorites.

I don’t know a lot about Michael Dinner. The Great Pretender is fabulous album, along the lines of Jackson Browne and some of the other LA singer-songwriters, but a little more country. The songs are first rate. The album is full of the LA players of the day: John Boylan, Michael Bowden, Ed Black, Don Felder, Sneaky Pete, Andrew Gold, Al Perkins, David Lindley, Larry Knechtel, Mike Utley and more. Linda Rondstadt, Herb Pedersen, Gail Davies and Ronee Blakely all sing hamony. John Boylan produced the album and his production is picture perfect for Dinner and his songs. Interestingly, the album was released on Fantasy Records which was not known for singer-songwriters, country or anything along those lines. Which is maybe why the album never went anywhere and why I never learned much about Dinner. I don’t know if he ever toured around this album, I never saw anything about him playing live and I tended to keep a pretty close eye out for those kinds of things.

The album kicks off with the title track: “All the boys in Mobile call you Jenny, all the boys in Memphis call you Jane, all the boys in this bar call you easy, but I’m the only one that knows your name.” It’s a great opening song. There are several fine ballads (“Jamaica,” “Sunday Morning Fool” and “Pentacott Lane”), a truck driving song (“Yellow Rose Express”), a straight ahead country barroom song (“So if you say your name’s Betty Grable, I’ll say I’m really John Wayne, When you’re five miles from nowhere with nothing, who gives a damn ’bout a name”) and a rocking tune about the “Tattooed Man From Chelsea” with Don Felder from the Eagles on great slide guitar. It’s a well-rounded disc with lots to offer. I listen to this album on a very regular basis. I never get tired of it.

Dinner made another album for Fantasy, Tom Thumb The Dreamer. It’s very good, but I like the first album better. Then he was never heard from again. At least in the music world. He’s one of the those “great lost” artists that made a couple of wonderful albums and then just disappeared. Many years later I was watching an episode of the TV show The Wonder Years and noticed that it was directed by Michael Dinner. Well, there’s probably lots of Michael Dinner’s out there I figured. Still, it stuck in my mind. Not too long ago I got curious and I did some searching on the internet and sure enough, it’s the same Michael Dinner.

Neither of Dinner’s albums have ever been released on CD anywhere in the world as near as I can tell. I’ve ripped both of them to CD, along with a 45 released prior to the second album with a different version of one of the songs on that album. I think he’s done a lot of TV directing including Karen Sisco, Chicago Hope, Kidnapped, Law & Order and many more. Too bad he never made any more music. Or maybe he did and it was just never released to the public. Hey, Michael, if you’re out there, maybe it’s time for another album. What do you say?

Other Listens on June 21st:
Beautiful Loser by Bob Seeger

Long Road Out Of Eden

Steve — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 13:04:10 +0000

I could be wrong, but I think the first “double album” of the rock era (and maybe of all time) was Bob Dylan’s Blonde On Blonde, released in May 1966. Since then, for every great two album set there have been three or four that should have been single albums. For whatever reason (ego, marketing, greed, etc.), the past forty years have seen way too many albums stretched from one disc to two. Given the choice, I’d rather have one disc of great material than two discs that also include lots of second rate, filler material. Sadly, such is the case here. But back to Bob Dylan for just a minute. Consider the fact that Dylan recorded and released three albums (four discs) in eighteen months. And not just any three albums. Bringing It All Back Home was recorded in January 1965 and released in March; Highway 61 Revisited was recorded in June, July and August 1965 and released in August; Blonde On Blonde was recorded in January, February and March 1966 and released in May. Two of these three albums are often found in all time Top 10 lists and Brining It All Back Home is usually not too far behind. Four discs of unbelievable, groundbreaking material in less than 18 months! I think it’s safe to say the world hasn’t seen a burst of musical creativity like that since. These days most major artists wait two to four years to put out one new album.

OK, back to the Eagles. I bought the first album when nobody knew who they were, long before they were stars. I fell in love with the album and band immediately. Their follow up album, Desperado, while not ranked as high by most fans, is one of my favorites. Every album was an event for me. I was very sad to see Bernie Leadon go and I was never a Joe Walsh fan, but Hotel California worked on every level. And it still does 30 years later. Don Henley’s first solo album Building The Perfect Beast is a masterpiece, one of my all time favorite albums. But, I never really “missed” the Eagles. They’d made a handful of great albums, I listened to all of them regularly, I was a fan of Henley’s solo work (Glenn Frey solo never did it for me). The reunion tours didn’t mean anything to me. I preferred to listen to the original albums.

So, 28 years after their last “real” album (The Long Run) comes this double CD “reunion/comeback.” Available only at Wal-Mart. Well, OK, I’ll make a trip to Wal-Mart to get it if I have to. Who knows how and why this album came to be. There are many who see it as simply a chance to make a lot of money. But, I’m willing to give them the benefit of the doubt and assume it came to be because they wanted to write songs and play music together again. Maybe I’m naive. Regardless, it’s here. The results are mixed. Very mixed. Sure the CD has supposedly sold over 2 million copies, but I guarantee you it’s not based on the music, but on pure nostalgia. Hell, their Greatest Hits album is supposedly the best selling album of all time, selling something like 41 million copies worldwide. So, there’s quite a fan base out there. A lot of people who want to relive those “glory days” of the late 70s. I’d be willing to bet that not a lot of the people who bought this CD are listening to it over and over again.

Now, don’t get me wrong, there are some good songs on this CD, but I’d be hard pressed to include more than two or three in an iTunes playlist of my favorite Eagles songs. There’s nothing on this CD that can touch their classic material from the old days. “How Long” probably comes the closest (and it was written over 35 years ago by J.D. Souther!). This CD is a perfect example of a two disc set that should have been only one disc. Whittle this thing down to one disc and you’ve got a fine album (though it would still come in last in a list of my favorite Eagles albums). But the way it is now, there’s just way too much filler here, songs that just don’t make the cut. Songs that seem like they were probably included just so Joe Walsh could have a few songwriting credits. And the outside material covered here (most notably “I Love To Watch A Woman Dance”) is almost completely forgettable. I plan to give this CD a few more good listens and then burn a CDR of the best tracks, the ones that should have comprised the album in the first place.

Poco

Steve — Sat, 31 May 2008 00:01:07 +0000

I never got into Poco. Which is very, very strange, as on paper they are a perfect group for me. I’m a huge fan of Buffalo Springfield, The Eagles, The Flying Burrito Brothers, CSNY, The Byrds, Linda Ronstadt, Emmylou Harris, Gram Parsons… well, you get the picture. I really l like the two Souther, Hillman, Furay albums released in the mid 70s. But, Poco, they just never did it for me. I tried. I picked up an album now and then, gave it some listens, nothing. I bought a double CD best of package titled The Forgotten Trail (1969-74) when it was issued on CD in 1990. I figured, OK, here’s two discs of nothing but the best stuff, this should get me going. Nothing.

I recently read an excellent book titled Desperados: The Roots Of Country Rock by John Einarson. A really good read, outlining the birth of “country rock” and the LA scene in the mid to late 60s and early 70s. Poco was certainly a very integral part of that whole scene and they are covered in some depth in the book. So, I figured what the hell, let me pick up a few albums and see if I can finally get into them. Amazon had most of their early CDs for $7 or $8 so I ordered some. First I listened to Pickin’ Up The Pieces, their debut album. There’s some stuff on there that I like, but still, it’s not an album I see myself coming back to very often. So, now I’m listening to this, the 1970 self-titled follow up. Nope, it just doesn’t do anything for me. Sad but true.

For whatever reason, this “branch” of the early country rock tree seems to leave me flat. I never listened to any Loggins & Messina or solo Richie Furay either. Something about these two guys misses the mark with me. I’ve got two or three more CDs that I still plan to give a couple of good listens to, maybe something will stand out on those.

Other Listens on May 30th:
The Carnegie Hall Concert by Carole King
Hank Williams, Jr. & Friends by Hank Williams, Jr.
Matthew & Son by Cat Stevens
Children Of The Future by Steve Miller Band