Gram Parsons: Grievous Angel (Reprise, 1974)

As the chief architect of country rock, Gram Parsons epitomized fusing the thing and not the thing which means Grievous Angel was bound to be greeted with indifference by the audiences for both country and rock in 1974. Indeed, it peaked at a pitiful 195 on the Billboard albums chart, better than the previous year's outing, GP, which missed the chart altogether, but 24 places below The Velvet Underground and Nico's high of 171. Now, of course, it's long since entered classic status even though the most country thing about it is how it emulates the mishmash quality of the average country album - covers, originals, live cuts, filler if you want it. But what it lacks in gestalt, it more than makes up in originals that outshine the covers. The masterpieces are "Return of the Grievous Angel" and "$1000 Wedding." Both feature lyrics and song structures as knotty as anything in Steely Dan's oeuvre, e.g., Genius thinks "supposed to be a funeral" is the latter's chorus, and yet both remain super catchy (also like Steely Dan); you don't know whether to hum "Out with the truckers and the kickers and the cowboy angels" or "And I remembered something you once told me" once the album is over. And while "In My Hour of Darkness" concerns the recent deaths of several Parsons contemporaries, including the beautiful actor/country music hopeful Brandon DeWilde, it sounds like it was written alongside "Will the Circle Be Unbroken?" in 1907. 

Grade: A