Burritos, Byrds and the Golden Age of Country Rock

Good morning, welcome to Viking Twang. My name is Randy Black. I’ve been reading a couple of books about the birth of what’s been called country rock: “Twenty Thousand Roads,” David Meyer’s biography of Gram Parsons, and “Hot Burritos: the True Story of the Flying Burrito Brothers,” by John Einarson with Chris Hillman. It’s a pretty interesting time in twangy history, so I’m going to play a bunch of music from the Burritos and other associated groups. In the first set we’ll play some country rock pioneers, with a live Flying Burrito Brothers set in the second segment, and some Byrds, Burritos and solo Gram Parsons in the final set. But I promise, I won’t play any Eagles songs!

1 – Turkey Red; W.C. Beck & the Portland Country Underground.
2 – Go And Say Goodbye; Buffalo Springfield. Chris Hillman suggested this opening lick from “Salt Creek” to Steven Stills. From the 1966 album, with Richey Furay, Steven Stills, Neil Young, Dewey Martin and Bruce Palmer.
3 – Country Pie; Bob Dylan. From Bob’s 1969 country rock album, “Nashville Skyline”, that included Norman Blake and Charlie Daniels playing on it.
4 – Strong Boy; International Submarine Band. Gram Parsons’ early band, from their 1967 album “Safe At Home,” which had future Burrito Brother Chris Ethridge on bass.
5 – One Night Stand; Rick Nelson and the Stone Canyon Band. From his 1974 album, “Windfall”.
6 – Train Leaves Here This Morning; Dillard & Clark. This was Gene Clark from the Byrds and Doug Dillard from The Dillards bluegrass band; from their 1968 album “The Fantastic Adventures of Dillard & Clark,” with Chris Hillman and future Burrito Brother and Eagle Bernie Leadon playing on it.
7 – Bicycle Song (Soon Now); Stone Poney. From their 1967 debut album; that’s Linda Ronstadt on a song written by the band’s guitar players, Ken Edwards and Bob Kimmel.
8 – The Love Gangster; Manassas. This is Stephen Stills’ 1972 solo double album. Bill Wyman cowrote and plays drums on this track.

Second Set
These songs are from a live Flying Burrito Brothers show at San Francisco’s Avalon Ballroom on April 4, 1969. The band is Gram Parsons and Chris Hillman, with Sneaky Pete Kleinow on pedal steel, Chris Ethridge on bass, and Michael Clarke from The Byrds on drums.

9 – Close Up The Honky Tonks; the old Buck Owens hit written by Red Simpson.
10 – Undo The Right/Somebody’s Back in Town; The first an old Hank Cochran-Willie Nelson song; the second another country classic from Don Helms and the Wilburn Brothers.
11 – Hot Burrito #1; a Chris Ethridge melody with lyrics from Ethridge and Parsons.
12 – Sweet Mental Revenge; A 1966 Mel Tillis song.
13 – Sin City; Hillman and Parsons wrote this about their former manager, and the music business in general.

Third Set
14 — You Ain’t Going Nowhere; The Byrds. The Bob Dylan song from “Sweetheart of the Rodeo”.
15 – Hickory Wind; also from “Sweetheart of the Rodeo”; written by Parsons and Bob Buchanan in 1969, considered Gram’s signature song.
16 – Hot Burrito #2; another Parsons/Ethridge collaboration.
17 – Christine’s Tune (Devil In Disguise); Written by Hillman and Parsons about a woman they knew; they decided to retitle it after she died in an auto accident.
18 – In My Hour of Darkness; Parsons wrote the song and Emmylou Harris arranged it during the recording of his second solo album, “Grievous Angel”, in 1973 – an album Parsons wouldn’t live to see released. He died of a heroin overdose Sept. 19, 1973.
19 — Twang Theme; Countrypolitans.

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