Talk:Gram Parsons

I really didn't change it that much. Started out making sure he was credited with being born near where I was, went on from there. Ortolan88

Except, he wasn't. Waycross claim Parsons was born there, but he really was born in Winter Haven, and raised in Waycross. <<Someone---Waycross actually does not claim he was born here. We have an exhibit that clearly states that he was raised in Waycross, nothing more. Please, see to it that you correct yourself and your thoughts.

I was going by that Byrds web site in the link. Another web site says born in Winter Haven, but parents lived in Waycross. It's a lot more likely that a country-oriented singer would come from Waycross than from Winter Haven, believe me.

He was raised there from a few months to 13 years old, so his primary influences were Georgia (and why he is occasionally thought born there) -- User:GWO

Looks like it's the reverse of the Edward Said deal, where it's politically advantageous to emphasize his birth in Palestine even though his parents were really from Egypt and just there on a visit. I'll leave it be, but as a fellow south Georgian, born and bred in the briar patch, believe me I'll keep looking for Waycross evidence. That 'Dosta Flash, Ortolan88

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Hi, and please do forgive me. I'm not much of one to follow entertainers, and Gram Parsons is new to me. This article reads like I already know something about him - that he had something to do with a musig group "The Birds", for example. It would be helpful to explain in the first paragraph why Parsons is worthy of an article (that is, state the most important stuff first), then let the article weave the story together, including how he found fame. Please let me know if I can be of help with further comments as an outside observer. -- ke4roh 05:13, Jul 18, 2004 (UTC)

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Gram Parsons was an almost monotone singer who could strum a guitar, not really the stuff of musical legend. He was however a trust fund "hippie" in the 1960's who bought his way into any situation he pleased. The greed of the music industry was then as it is now-alive and well. Gram wanted to sing country music so he "bought" a band. It was that simple. His anemic voice would never have gotten him a record deal then or now, add to that his reckless use of cocaine, heroin, alcohol and other substances made him even less desirable as a companion or business associate. But he had money, and that made all the difference, especially in the shallow snake pit known as the music business. Gram was catered to by the gold-diggers and moneygrubbers who made "the scene" in L.A. at that time.

The chasm between country music and rock music at that time could not have been any wider. Crossing that line could prove dangerous if not deadly. Country singers were whiskey soaked gun-toting hotheads in clean pressed pants, rockers were generally middle-class youths dressed like clowns, childishly acting out and playing "revolution" while never having had experienced times any harder than perhaps running out of marijuana. Rock music lyrics were generally inane prattle invoking no more than the writer's nostalgia for long ago bedtime nursery rhymes. Country lyrics were often too real as its purveyors such as Merle Haggard had actually lived the hurt and heartache of which they sang.

Gram inadvertently helped to blur that musical and cultural battle line but not with his thin voice. It was his money that talked and in the confusion of greed and egotism the two forms of music intertwined. The major scale melodies of country music started to appear over the I, IV, V chord pattern rock had borrowed from the blues. Pedal steel guitars began to sing their sweet sometimes mournful sounds in places unheard of previously. The high lonesome bluegrass fiddle was soon joining in. All forms of indigenous music finally came together after a few hundred years of separation. It was all American, only from different parts of America.

Country-rock was a term used at the time. Gram in his drug induced haze called it "Cosmic American Music". The Grateful Dead started playing Hank Williams and Marty Robbins. Jerry Garcia was heard playing pedal steel and also renewed his interest banjo music. His contribution to the founding of The New Riders of The Purple Sage was perhaps the turning point along with the appearance and success of bands like Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen.

In the south, The Allman Brothers Band showcased lengthy well thought out and moving major scale twin guitar harmonies. Bob Wills' Texas Playboys had touched on the twin guitar or fiddle phrasing in the 1940's and 50's around the Texas and Oklahoma panhandles. Even the sparse blues sound southern blacks evoked some 50 years earlier was taken to new heights by The Allman Brothers talent and their amplifiers as evidenced in "Statesboro Blues" to name just one song (written in 1928 by Blind Willie McTell), wherein blues, country and rock all mixed and became southern rock. No stone was left unturned.

Gram Parsons turned one of those first Stones, befriending Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards to be precise. An Englishman, Richard's boyhood idol was Roy Rogers and while The Rolling Stones had already commandeered American Blues music, soon, under Gram's influence they were immersed for a time in American country-rock music also, complete with fiddles, drawls and "y'alls".

Gram Parsons role was integral but unintended and his legend now is larger than his talent ever was. American music has since homogenized down to incoherent nonsense and the old musical barriers are being erected again. The music business has returned to it's business-as-usual day-to-day sell the product mindset. Write the same song over and over. Country singers wearing duster coats on stage like fools and sing "punchline" songs, while over there, a new batch of white upper-middle-class kids sing about the angst they must endure caused by not knowing what to do with their hair. They have $5000 PRS guitars and every other modern tool at their disposal but no talent, no soul and nothing to say. Black music has become a sing-song tirade of rhyming complaints about street level racism and violence called "Rap Music" which is churned out by young black men who live in mansions and whose only burden is wearing too much gold jewelry. Muddy Waters started out with a guitar string.

Gram Parsons helped invent and change American music but it was by accident NOT BY DESIGN. It just happens that way and I just happened to be there and heard it all. - Bob Wyman —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 206.149.132.34 (talk • contribs) 11 Dec 2005.

I can't argue too much with that (except that I don't think he was near-monotone, and I could do without the kids-these-days condescension towards the end), but (1) being an ambassador across musical cultures is no small achievement and (2) "Hickory Wind", "Sin City", and several other songs of Parsons' seem to me to stand up pretty well after almost forty years. But mostly, a good corrective to the tendency to idolize a fuck-up. -- Jmabel | Talk 19:21, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

That's a pretty interesting perspective that doesn't really get considered much now, in retrospect. Seems a bit like sour grapes in a way... I think it's funny that this link is at the top of Bob Wyman's site, but I'm not really even sure what the tone of that comment was supposed to be. Gram Parsons didn't really have a very strong voice, sure, but he was undoubtedly emotive, and the separation between country and rock in today's homogenized mainstream probably isn't his fault at all. I don't really know why it's especially important that his contributions were "by accident NOT BY DESIGN" but thanks for the interesting comment. --SchnappM 18:32, 25 December 2005 (UTC)

Birth name

Online sources seem to be about 50-50 on "Cecil Ingram Connor" vs. "Ingram Cecil Connor". Does anyone have a solid citation, like from a well-researched biography? - Jmabel | Talk 04:09, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

Imbalance?

While I agree with the author in their assessment of Parsons' legendary status, the article could be a bit more critical as regards his integrity. For example, the legend goes that Keith Richards dissauded Parsons from going to South Africa by telling him about Apartheid, rather than Gram making a conscientious decision himself. His fellow Flying Burrito Brother Chris Hillman goes as far to say in Fallen Angel that it was merely an excuse for Parsons to hang out with the Stones. Either acccount could be untrue but it would help a newcomer to "Cosmic American Music" understand Parsons in their own way, if both were considered alongside the article's version of events. Just a thought...

What?

Gram Parsons may be the Patron Saint of Folk Rock and Country and Western, but as great as he was, I sometimes wonder if Parson's morphine overdose death wasn't the Fallen Angel's perverse way of ducking a legacy that would inspire so many country singers to fancy themselves rock stars and so many rock stars to fancy themselves country singers. Parsons was one of those rare creatures who is anything and everything all at once, a visionary with the magentic charmisa of a heartbreaking and the sense of artistic risk of a true genius. A romantic easy rider who comfortably wore his bible belt next to his gun holster, Parsons remains the spiritual heart and soul of folk-rock and country and western, two genres that, in the 1960s, were never supposed to collide. It took a talent as soul-stirring and brave as Parsons' to electrify the Newport Folk Festival with the Byrds in 1964, to storm the gates of the Grand 'ol Oprey in 1966, to turn the Rolling Stones into a blues band in 1968 and to pluck an angel-voiced waitress from obscurity to sing his Applachian gospel in 1970. Since his untimely death and gloriously insipiring funeral in Joshua Tree Desert, an entire cottage industry of Gram worship as mushroomed around him and Columbia Records recent reissue, Gram Parsons: Wasn't Born to Follow, cashes in on the man's unmatched legcacy and undeniable appeal. While most Gramophiles probably won't need to hear another alternate take of "Mr Tambourineman," the addition of some wildly inspiring outtakes will certainly be of interest. From the - mind-bending geography of 8 Miles High (aka The First Psychedelic Song Ever) to the pining nostaligia of Hickory Wind, Parsons had more musical range than the Smokey Mountains. But ragged demons lurk within even his most optimistic of songs, Turn! Turn! Turn!: Gram, it would seem, must have been born under a dark star. Heir to a Southern aristocracy, both of his parents committed suicide before he was 17, as did a number of other family members (both of his grandmothers shot themselves, while an aunt and an uncle hung themselves in a gruesome, duel suicide); his stepfather, a notoritously ruthless fortune-seeker, forciably adopted Gram in order to secure a piece of his inheritance before having Gram's beloved but vocal sister committed to a New Orleans mental hospital. It took Gram two years of legal battling to gain custody of her. However, the - music-making began when Parsons was a divinity student at Harvard, writing powerful, topical songs for a number of folk singers, including his future partner Mary Travers of Pete Paul and Mary. Parsons adopted Traver daughter, Polly, and today she is the posesser of his legacy. And most of that legacacy can be heard on WASN'T BORN TO FOLLOW, a collection that gracefully compiles Parsons's many styles, all immaculate, captivating and timeless. Though Gram Parsons died tragically young, his legend comtinues to shine brighter than his peers who have had the time, money and technology to make music. Genius is an elusive thing but the Fallen Angel had it in spades. Long may he ride.

-- Fascinating. Please continue to update your personal website about Gram Parsons with this kind of thing - not wikipedia.

Contradictory chronology

Born in 1946 he saw "…Elvis Presley perform in concert, in 1957. Five years later…" (that would make him about 16) "but while barely in his teens" (that would make him not about 16), "he played in rock and roll cover bands such as the Pacers and the Legends, headlining in clubs owned by his stepfather in the Winter Haven/Polk County area. By the age of 16" (hmm. He's 16 again) :he graduated to folk music, and in 1963" (about 17) "teamed with his first professional outfit, the Shilohs." I'm guessing that the problem is with "five years later, but…", which seems to be a recent addition, but there are no cited sources. Can someone sort this out? - Jmabel | Talk 22:25, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

Good Article

This article may have been rejected for the featured article criteria, but I still think it's a good article. Everything is well arranged, at a reasonable length, and everything seems to be factual. I do think it's a good article and should be used as a template for other articles.