While at their popular peak in the mid-‘60s, The Byrds were one of America’s counterparts to The Beatles, misspelled animal monikers notwithstanding. But as the decade labored on, and the Fab Four continued to release one brilliant LP after another, The Byrds began to fall apart. David Crosby, who many thought to be the strongest songwriter of the lot, left the group in 1967, casting a serious shadow over the band’s future. Surprisingly, remaining members Roger McGuinn and Chris Hillman decided to stick together, and instead of attempting to rehash the harmonious, sunny pop that made them famous, they took one of the boldest artistic leaps of the 1960s.
When Sweetheart Of The Rodeo was released in 1968, a new standard was set for rock bands and pop groups trying to channel the sweet spirit of country-western music. Enlisting the multi-faceted talents of singer/songwriter Gram Parsons, The Byrds were unexpectedly rejuvenated, and the music they were making was drastically different and just as significant as their biggest hits. Thanks to Parsons, who would find fame as a solo artist before his drug-induced death in 1973, the songs on Sweetheart Of The Rodeo are irresistibly genuine, exhibiting only rare traces of modern influences. In fact, Parsons penned the only original tunes on the record; a majority of the tracks are carefully selected covers of classic country artists, along with a few Dylan and Guthrie numbers tossed in for good measure. It’s true that both McGuinn and Hillman had an interest in shifting to country-western before discovering Parsons, but when listening to Sweetheart, it’s obvious that the southern wunderkind was the driving force behind the record, as well as the incredible revitalization of The Byrds.
The resounding influence of Gram Parsons is the focus of Columbia/Legacy’s two-disc “deluxe edition” of Sweetheart Of The Rodeo. It’s hard not to be sold just by listening to the album itself–McGuinn’s trademarked 12-string guitar shimmer is nowhere to be found, replaced by singing pedal steel leads and bouncing, 3/4 time signatures–but the expanded format gives listeners a valuable peek behind the scenes, from the gestation of the idea to its execution. After listening to both discs from beginning to end, there’s no doubt about it: This was Gram Parsons’ Byrds.
Thanks to contractual issues surrounding the Columbia Records debut of Parsons’ very first outfit, The International Submarine Band, McGuinn was forced to overdub vocals on songs originally sung by Parsons. This put a bit of a cloak on the original project, and this deluxe edition removes it. All of Parsons’ original vocal tracks are here, along with six excellent International Submarine Band songs that showcase why McGuinn and Hillman went after Parsons in the first place.
You’d have to be mildly insane to listen to the previously unreleased cuts (such as takes 13 and 48 of “You’re Still On My Mind”) more than once, but for Byrds fanatics, this package is quite a gift. Sweetheart Of The Rodeo is possibly the greatest country-rock album of all time, and this lengthy sonic history lesson is a long-overdue homage to its importance.