Gram Parsons

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Chart positions
Explanation of the data
Albums
Grievous Angel
  US 195 02/16/1974 (3 weeks)

Gram Parsons (* 5. November 1946 as Cecil Ingram Connor III in Winter Haven , Florida ; † 19th September 1973 in Joshua Tree , California ) was an American musician and composer. He is considered one of the pioneering representatives of country rock .

biography

Beginnings

Gram Parsons came from a wealthy, but emotionally shattered, traditional southern family. His mother, Avis, came from the wealthy Snively family who had made a fortune trading lemon and orange in the 1950s. Snively Groves was considered the largest fresh fruit shipper in all of Florida. Gram's father, Cecil "Coon Dog" Connor Jr., the son of a wealthy merchant from Columbia, Tennessee, died by suicide when Gram was twelve years old. His mother then married Robert Ellis Parsons, who adopted Gram and his little sister Avis. The mother died of alcohol poisoning in 1965.

Gram took piano lessons at nine and played in a local rock and roll band at 14 . During his high school years , Gram was a member of the bands The Pacers, The Legend and The Shilos. After finishing school, he studied for a semester theology at Harvard University . His main interests, however, were music and drugs. During this time he founded the International Submarine Band with John Nuese, Ian Dunlop and Mickey Gauvin , with which he soon moved to New York and in 1967 to Los Angeles.

Career

In Los Angeles , the International Submarine Band recorded their only album Safe at Home , which was produced by Lee Hazlewood . Due to lack of success the band soon broke up and Gram Parsons was hired by the Byrds as pianist and keyboardist through the mediation of Chris Hillman ; In fact, he mainly played guitar, sang and delivered songs. During this time the legendary album Sweetheart of the Rodeo was created , which is considered the first country rock album ever and was significantly influenced by Parsons.

After a few months, he left the Byrds and founded the Flying Burrito Brothers with Chris Hillman and Sneaky Pete Kleinow , Jon Corneal and Chris Ethridge . In 1969 her debut album Gilded Palace of Sin was released , which was commercially flopped, but had a major impact on other musicians, including the Rolling Stones .

Parsons befriended Keith Richards , whose passion for hard drugs he shared, and he spent a lot of time with the Stones. Richards got to know different country styles thanks to Parsons. Conversely, Richards introduced Parsons to his old blues heroes like BB King . Parsons only worked half-heartedly on the Flying Burrito Brothers' second album, Burrito Deluxe , and was then fired because of his drug addiction-related unreliability (especially on stage). For a while he toured and worked with the Stones, where he strongly influenced them with his interest in Country (e.g. in the Stones songs Country Honk or Wild Horses , which the burritos were even allowed to bring out earlier than the Stones).

In 1971 he moved back to Los Angeles, where he put together his own band, the Fallen Angels Band , and hired the then little-known Emmylou Harris as a duet partner on the recommendation of Chris Hillman . A year later, despite increasing drug addiction, his debut album GP was released . This was followed by a short live tour and, in the late summer of 1973, the recordings of Grievous Angel . The album was released posthumously in 1974.

Room 8, "Gram Parsons Room" at the Joshua Tree Inn

death

At the age of 26, he presumably died of a heroin and alcohol overdose - the exact circumstances of his death have never been clarified - in the small town of Joshua Tree, California, in a room at the Joshua Tree Inn Motel, which he had occupied two days earlier.

There was no autopsy because the body, which was to be transferred to his stepfather in New Orleans , was stolen by his manager Phil Kaufman at Los Angeles International Airport and at Cap Rock in Joshua Tree National Park in California's Mojave Desert was burned. Allegedly, Kaufman thereby fulfilled the last will of Gram Parsons, who had had a problematic relationship with his family.

Kaufman had underestimated the amount of gasoline needed to cremate a corpse, so that after the unsuccessful cremation at Cap Rock , the police found a body only half-burned and the remains were then transferred to New Orleans, which is now the grave of Gram Parsons finds. Since California law did not regulate the theft of a corpse, Kaufman was only charged with stealing the coffin.

The grotesque circumstances surrounding his death just weeks after the completion of Grievous Angel finally made Gram Parsons a legend. The story of the theft of the coffin and its burning in the desert is the subject of the feature film Grand Theft Parsons .

meaning

Posthumously, Gram Parsons was recognized as a very influential artist, one of the founders of country rock and the godfather of alternative country . Some bands named themselves after his work - e.g. B. The Grievous Angels or the German band The Calico Bonnets (after a line from Return of the Grievous Angel ); the country duo Sweethearts of the Rodeo even took the title of the Byrds record, which was significantly influenced by Parsons, as the source for the name. The Swedish singer-songwriter duo First Aid Kit celebrates Gram Parsons alongside Emmylou Harris, June Carter and Johnny Cash in the song Emmylou on their album The Lion's Roar . The accompanying video was shot on Cap Rock with clear allusions to the circumstances surrounding Parsons' death.

In 2010, Rolling Stone listed Parsons as 87th of the 100 greatest musicians of all time .

Discography

Albums

year title Label Remarks
1968 Sweetheart of the Rodeo (The Byrds) Columbia Legacy Edition (2CDs) Sony / BMG 2003
1969 The Gilded Palace of Sin (Flying Burrito Brothers) AT THE
1970 Burrito Deluxe (Flying Burrito Brothers) AT THE
1971 Flying Burrito Brothers (Flying Burrito Brothers) AT THE
1973 GP Recapitulation
1974 Grievous Angel (UK:goldgold) Recapitulation, A&M
1976 Sleepless Nights (Gram Parsons & the Flying Burrito Brothers) AT THE
1982 Live 1973 (Gram Parsons & the Fallen Angels) Rhino
1968 Safe at Home (International Submarine Band) AT THE
2000 Another Side of This Life: The Lost Recordings of Gram Parsons Sundazed
2001 Sacred Hearts & Fallen Angels: The Gram Parsons Anthology Rhino
2006 The Complete Reprise Sessions Rhino
2007 Gram Parsons Archives Vol.1: Live at the Avalon Ballroom 1969 (with The Flying Burrito Brothers) Amoeba Records

Tribute album

year title Label
1999 Return of the Grievous Angel: a tribute to Gram Parsons Almo

Movie

motion pictures

documentary

  • Fallen Angel: Gram Parsons (D / GB 2004, director: Gandulf Hennig)

literature

Web links

Commons : Gram Parsons  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ The Billboard Albums by Joel Whitburn , 6th Edition, Record Research 2006, ISBN 0-89820-166-7 .
  2. ^ Christian Düringer: Cosmic American Motel: Looking For Gram Parsons. popspots.de, accessed on June 13, 2015 .
  3. ↑ Mysteries in the Museum , episode Even Presidents Die Agony , TV documentary, USA 2013
  4. ↑ Grand Theft Parsons in the IMDb
  5. ^ Website of The Calico Bonnets
  6. ↑ Christian Düringer: The Sound Of Joshua Tree In: get happy !? Magazine. No. 5, 2013, pp. 52-57
  7. ↑ 100 Greatest Artists of All Time. Rolling Stone , December 2, 2010, accessed August 8, 2017 .
  8. ↑ Music Sales Awards: UK
  9. ↑ Review with tracklist and audio samples on allmusic.com
personal data
SURNAME Parsons, Gram
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Connor, Cecil Ingram (real name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American country rock musician
DATE OF BIRTH November 5, 1946
PLACE OF BIRTH Winter Haven , Florida , USA
DATE OF DEATH 19th September 1973
Place of death Joshua Tree , California , USA