The Byrds and the Birth of Cosmic American Music

1968: Back to the Basics

The Byrds were one of the most influential groups of the 1960s. They influenced the direction of their contemporaries as well as bands that came after. The Byrds are best known as one of the foundational groups of folk-rock. It’s difficult to think of that genre and not hear the plangent chime of Roger McGuinn’s Rickenbacker guitar. This blend of folk and rock combined with chiming guitars was hugely influential on a number of artists, including seminal power pop band Big Star, Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers, and Athens, Georgia’s R.E.M.

While that side of The Byrds is very important, their output in the late 60s tends to be forgotten by the listening public. Which is a shame, because The Byrds turn towards country material would prove tremendously influential on some of the more popular artists of the 1970s, such as The Eagles, Linda Ronstadt, and The Doobie Brothers. Sweetheart of the Rodeo is arguably the most important influence on the development of country rock as a genre. While there were certainly rock artists who dabbled with a country sound, such as Buffalo Springfield, a contemporary of The Byrds in Laurel Canyon, it’s really with Sweetheart of the Rodeo that country rock really takes off as a genre. A lot of that has to do with timing, both in terms of musical trends as well as current events.

Sweetheart of the Rodeo was released in 1968. That year was tremendously important in terms of developments in music as well current events. Concerning the latter, it’s where the hippie dream starts to die, where cynicism starts to set in, drugs become a problem, and the politically active youths realize that nothing will really change.

The year 1968 was a monumentally important year; the events of that year had a fundamental impact on what was to follow politically, socially, and culturally. While many attribute the so-called death of the 60s to the events at Altamont, a free concert on December 6, 1969, organized by The Rolling Stones with security provided by biker gang, The Hell’s Angels, I’d argue that the cracks in the hippie dream appeared much earlier. 1968 was the year the love generation began to realize that their dreams of changing the world were unlikely to come to fruition.

1968 was the year of the Tet Offensive, an event that turned the tide of public opinion against the war. While the U.S. prevailed, the Viet Cong was severely weakened; it was a Pyrrhic victory as public opinion towards the war began to shift. Isserman and Kazin note the racial tension between black and white U.S. troops stationed in Vietnam, highlighting ideological differences reflected in music choices of the troops: country & western vs. soul music. These racial tensions would continue to be inflamed as the year progressed, with the murder of the Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King, Jr. in Memphis on April 4, 1968, the riots that followed, the rioting at the 1968 Democratic convention, and the dog whistling employed by Richard Nixon in his bid for presidency with promises of “law and order,” code word for cracking down on undesirables that challenged the status quo, such as hippies, black activists, or anyone not rich, male, and white.

Popular music responded to the horrors of 1968 with a retreat from the day-glo hippy lifestyle and sound. One need only look at The Beatles output for 1967 and 1968 to note the stark difference. 1967 was the year of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band and “All You Need Is Love, ” The Beatles dressed in brightly colored military uniforms, a subversive gesture. They donned a new identity for the album released in June of 1967. The name of the album was inspired by the elaborate and lengthy names of musical acts from the bay area. The Beatles were weary of touring, especially after a brutal 1966 tour that saw them receive death threats in the United States for John Lennon’s comments about Jesus and to be detained in the Philippines for refusing to perform for President Ferdinand Marcos and Imelda Marcos. The Sgt Pepper idea was born out of an idea of sending out facsimiles of the group. One can view this idea of an amorphous identity as a result of The Beatles’ experimentation with LSD.

1968 saw The Beatles return to their musical roots, 50s rock & roll, with songs like “Hey Bulldog” and “Lady Madonna.” While The White Album does employ the trickery of the studio, it is a very different beast from Sgt. Pepper. Gone are the military outfits. Most of the songs were written on acoustic guitars while the group was on a transcendental meditation retreat with the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi in Rishikesh, India.

This back-to-the-basics approach can arguably traced to Bob Dylan, who did not release a psychedelic album. Following a motorcycle accident in 1966, Dylan crept away from the public eye. He spent 1967 holed away in a house in West Saugerties, nicknamed Big Pink, playing music with the band. The music wouldn’t be released in an official capacity until 1975, as The Basement Tapes. Dylan returned to his folk and blues roots and turned away from “that thin wild mercury sound” of Blonde On Blonde. The material that Dylan did release in 1967 had a major impact on the musical direction of 1968. It was an album titled John Wesley Harding and it was released on December 27, 1967.

“In the music industry, the reconsumption process is showing up in the form of parody. Pop groups have forsaken the electronic soup The Beatles have lured them into and are busily redigesting the remnants of the fabulous 50s as well as searching out their own musical roots. Bob Dylan’s solo trip to Nashville to record John Wesley Harding started the latter trend. The backup band he originally hired to record with him was left behind in Woodstock, and have since cut a superslick ‘purist’ album of their own called Music From Big Pink. It was reviewed favorably in these pages a few weeks ago.”[1]

Gram Parsons and The Byrds

Which brings us to The Byrds’ 1968 album, Sweetheart of the Rodeo. The Byrds were already avowed Dylan acolyte, they rose to success on the back of a cover of Dylan’s “Mr. Tambourine Man” But they were also followers of The Beatles. The Byrds’ early work was blend of Dylan’s folk poetry and Merseybeat rock & roll. Like The Beatles, 1968, would see The Byrds shed their psychedelic garb and sound for a return to music of the past. And this was originally more literal as Roger McGuinn initially envisioned the record as a concept album that featured every American style of music.[2]

“My original idea for Sweetheart of the Rodeo,” McGuinn would later explain, “was to do a double album, a chronological album, starting with old-timey music- not bluegrass, but pre-bluegrass, dulcimers and nasal Appalachian stuff. Then get into the advanced 1930s version of it, and move it up to modern country, the forties and fifties, with steel guitar and pedal steel guitar — do the evolution of that kind of music. Then cut it there and bring it up into electronic music and a kind of space music and going into futuristic music.”[3]

McGuinn’s vision didn’t exactly come to fruition, instead, The Byrds produced an album of country music that included songs by contemporary country artists, ones cut in the early days of the genre, as well as the obligatory Dylan covers. The figure responsible for this change in direction was Gram Parsons. Parsons was a former Harvard student; he dropped out after one semester. His peers described him as having an interest in the spiritual matters and many descriptions of Parsons describe him as studying theology at Harvard, though majors aren’t declared until a student’s sophomore year.[4] This interest in spirituality is one that would influence Parsons’ songwriting and approach to music.

Gram had strong ideas about spirituality even then,” Jet says. “He never went to church of any kind the whole time I knew him. But he grew up in a Southern environment which is permeated with the language and the ideas. Those old gospel hymns — you don’t have to be religious to love that music. He did love it, and listened to it and sang it a lot. It’s something he absorbed with his Southern culture. At the same time, Gram was worldly oriented. His spirituality, his interest in religion, was not an interest in another world or an afterlife. He was interested in discovering the qualities of this life. That’s why he wanted to create music that cut across the boundaries of people.”[5]

That idea of cutting across boundaries was very important to the formation of Parsons musical style,what he called “Cosmic American Music” a blend of gospel, soul, folk, Appalachia, R&B, country, bluegrass, blues rockabilly, and honky-tonk.[6] At its core, “American Cosmic Music” is an exploration of root style music, the cornerstones of rock & roll. Knowing this means Parsons was an ideal member of The Byrds. Roger McGuinn, one of the founding members of The Byrds, had a strong background in folk music. Country music, as a genre, has strong ties to folk music, keep in mind, The Carter Family, one of the founding groups of the country genre was included on the Anthology of American Folk Music. It’s really in the years following that country music and folk music really become separate genres.

It was at Harvard that Parsons developed an interest in country music due to the influence of friend and bandmate John Nuese.

“When the band got together, John Nuese says, “I was the only one with experience playing and listening to a lot of country. I take credit for turning Gram on to this music. Because he didn’t know anybody who listened to it at that time. Everybody wanted to play black music, R&B — they wanted to be black. Or they wanted to play folk music. Nobody was listening to what they’d call redneck country-western shit. Mickey Gauvin was a black, soul kind of drummer. Ian was familiar with some country, but was mostly a rock and roller, and Gram, who had been exposed to country in his formative years, was doing commercial folk music. Gram did not know what was going on in country music. He knew no Buck Owens or Merle Haggard. Nor did other members of the band. When I turned them on to these singers they all liked it and were caught up, totally hooked by the music.”[7]

This is crucial for understanding the context of Sweetheart of the Rodeo. Country music was looked down upon by the rock & rollers and the country musicians in turn responded with disdain for the rock & rollers, a fact The Byrds would find out when they recorded part of Sweetheart of the Rodeo in Nashville. Parsons got involved with The Byrds because the band was in need of a piano player. There had already been turnover in membership. Gene Clark had left in 1966 for personal reasons; partially to pursue a solo career as well as his fatigue with touring and the anxiety flying caused him.[8] David Crosby was fired in 1967 due to conflict with the rest of the band. He had refused to record “Goin’ Back” a song written by Goffin and King.[9] Crosby was also angry that “Triad,” his song about a ménage à trios, was cut from the album. Partially that was due to it sounding similar to “Draft Morning” and fear of the controversy its inclusion on the album might cause. Not to mention the rest of the Byrds weren’t all that excited about recording “Triad.”[10]

“I think it was back in late 1967 when I first met him,” said Hillman. “I’d heard about his ‘new kid in town’ who was writing and singing country songs, but I hadn’t paid much attention until somebody explained the International Submarine Band to me.” Parsons’ International Submarine Band had just recorded their first album, Safe at Home, for Lee Hazlewood’s new label. “Young, hip guys playing country music,” Hillman described the album. “I liked it. Actually, it was an old idea of mine. And to think some young upstart had beat me to the punch.” He brought the 21-year-old Parsons into a Byrds’ rehearsal. Parsons faked his way through a handful of blues tunes and an unwitting McGuinn hired him on the spot. “We hired a piano player and he turned out to be Parsons, a monster in sheep’s clothing,” McGuinn lamented later. “And he exploded out of his sheep’s clothing. God! It’s Georges Jones! In a sequined suit!” The Byrds’ new hire turned out to be an outspoken ally for the generally quite and unassuming Chris Hillman. A vet of the California Bluegrass scene, Hillman had bee trying to tug the Byrds into country since the beginning, meeting with resistance from McGuinn and Crosby. But the combined influence of Parsons and Hillman was good enough to move the band in a country direction, musically and physically.[11]

Parsons really took control of the group, he took lead vocals on half of the tracks on the album and writing two songs for it, “One Hundred Years From Now” and “Hickory Wind,” as well as suggesting the group cover William Bell’s “You Don’t Miss Your Water,” a cut originally released on the Stax label.[12] The Byrds received an unfriendly welcome in Nashville and had a disastrous appearance at the Grand Ole Opry. It wasn’t from poor playing by the band, but rather the reaction of the crowd and for performing a set different from what they’d scheduled.

Even with fresh haircuts and muted versions of their usual hippie attire, the Byrds were clearly not welcomed at the staunchly traditional Opry. The crowd welcomed them with taunts of “tweet tweet” and “Cut your hair!” but warmed a little after a rendition of Merle Haggard’s Sing Me Back Home.” By the time host Tompall Glaser announced they’d be following it with “Life in Prison,” another Haggard class, the Opry audience was ready to give these freaks a chance.

Amid the applause, Gram Parsons seized the mic. “We’re not going to do that tonight, “ he informed the audience. “We’re going to do a song for my grandmother who used to listen to the Grand Ole Opry with me when I was little. It’s a song I wrote called ‘Hickory Wind.’” Powerless to stop the unauthorized change of programming, Tompall Glaser stormed off the stage. In the wings, country legend Roy Acuff fumed. Fuzzy from the joint the Byrds had shared backstage, McGuinn hit the opening chords and looked on at irrefutable evidence: Gram Parsons had hijacked his band.[13]

Parsons soon left the group after meeting The Rolling Stones in London. The Byrds were due to tour South Africa and had been assured they’d play to an integrated audience. Parsons never showed up to the airport. There are several theories on why this happened, some suggest Parsons wanted to stay with Richards, was growing afraid of flying, was unsatisfied with his position in the group, or was concerned about the implications of touring South Africa during apartheid.[14]

When Sweetheart of the Rodeo finally came out it did so without Parsons vocals. One version of the story places the blame on legal complications. Parsons was signed to Lee Hazlewood’s label and The Byrds were signed to Columbia, he hadn’t been authorized to record for another label. Gary Usher, producer of the album says the legal problems had all been sorted out by the time the band recorded in Nashville. It was more of a case of Roger McGuinn exerting his influence to regain control of the band. Tape exists from the sessions featuring Parsons on several more songs, but when the album was released he was featured as lead vocalist on just one song: “Hickory Wind.”[15]

Critical and Commercial Reception

The album fared poorly both commercially and critically, but in the years since its release, it has become widely regarded as a classic and a major touchstone in the genre of country rock. The style of the album made it a hard sell. Rock radio stations refused to play the album and overtures to country stations had gone even worse. When The Byrds did an appearance on the radio show of Ralph Emry, an influential country music DJ, he refused to play the album. The band would later make fun of Emry in “Drug Store Truck Driving Man.”[16] The Byrds were criticized for how the performed the material, not the fact that they had created an album of country music. “The Byrds do not sound like Buck Owens and his Buckaroos,” wrote a Rolling Stone reviewer. “They’re not that good.” In fact they were very good, approaching country music with skill and a certain level of critical distance. But it was a cold precision, producing an album that sounded like clinical country. Their studied approach resulted in a kind of sterility that bordered on satire. But then, according to Gram Parsons, the album Columbia put out hadn’t been the album he worked on. “He erased them and did the vocals himself and fucked them up,” he complained when he heard the finished product. Parsons’ lead vocals had been all but eliminated, with only “Hickory Wind” remaining.[17]

“Now the Byrds, who got their start as interpreters of Dylan’s music, have joined the search for roots. In spite of the fact that the Byrds seem to change almost monthly, Jim McGuinn (who has changed his name to Roger for religious reasons) has managed to make them one of the most professional and dependable groups in popular music. From the start the Byrds have provided unpretentious –and sometimes inspired — distillations of current trends. The Notorious Byrd Brothers, for example was one of the best products of last years’ psychedelic sweepstakes and is said to have saved more than one acidhead from screaming paranoia. The Byrds are nothing if not soothing.”[18]

Kloman’s review of Sweetheart of the Rodeo, printed a day after the album’s release, notes the presence of two Dylan covers: “You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere” and “Nothing Was Delivered,” both songs cut during Dylan’s time at Big Pink with The Band. The music is capable, but it’s doesn’t quite sound like traditional country.

“People who grew up listening to Hank Williams will miss the rough edge of downhome grit in the vocals, which are more Southern Maryland roadhouse than true bluegrass, but the simplicity and honesty of the music make it the best country and western album of the recent avalanche.”[19]

While Kloman does make a fair point about Sweetheart of the Rodeo sounding quite different from the rougher hewn vocals of Hank Williams, such vocals weren’t unprecedented in country music. George Jones, Merle Haggard are some just some examples of a less adenoidal country voice, to say nothing of the polished sound of Countrypolitan.

Critic Robert Christgau makes similar observations about The Notorious Byrd Brothers, a record he called “a smooth flowing post-Pepper studio album” and Sweetheart of the Rodeo, an album he referred to as “a bittersweet tribute to country music.”[20] It’s interesting that Christgau notes Pepper, The Notorious Byrd Brothers is most definitely an album recorded in its shadow. It was recorded between June and December of 1967. It’s not entirely psychedelic, and it shows hint of the group’s new direction with the presence of pedal steel on the album and country tinged tracks, such as “Old John Robertson.”

The Notorious Byrd Brothers addresses contemporary concerns, such as the dark side of drugs, the counter-culture, and the draft in tracks such as “Artificial Energy,” “Tribal Gathering,” and “Draft Morning.” While the album was recorded in 1967, it points to some of the looming problems that would make 1968 such a miserable year.

Sweetheart of the Rodeo fulfills a similar function. That albums response to current events is less specific than on The Notorious Byrd Brothers. Many of the difficult events of that year, such as the assassination of Robert Kennedy, the riots at the 1968 Democratic convention, and Nixon’s presidential run, occurred after the album was finished being recorded.

There are some uncanny bits of coincidence for the album’s timeline, the second set and majority of sessions for the album started on April 4, 1968, the date Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated in Memphis. That same day, Robert Kennedy gave a speech in Indianapolis announcing the death of MLK to his supporters. Kennedy was running for the 1968 Democratic Presidential nomination after Lyndon Johnson announced he wouldn’t be seeking another term. Kennedy was in Indiana drumming up support for the primary. Recording sessions for Sweetheart of the Rodeo would end on May 27, 1968, just a few days before Kennedy was assassinated on June 5th. The album would be released on August 30, 1968, just a day after the riot at the convention.

Along with the aforementioned Dylan covers, the album consists of a Merle Haggard song, some Gram Parsons originals, and the rest is old songs made famous by the likes of The Louvin Brothers, Gene Autry, and Woody Guthrie. The Guthrie song is an interesting choice, given the writer of the song was pretty far left in his political views and the song is an indictment of a system, that allows families to be robbed blind by the wealthy of society. The choice of song accomplishes two things: it hearkens back to the Great Depression and the predatory practices of banks while serving as a reminder of the moneyed interests that are behind conflicts such as the one that was currently raging in Vietnam. It’s never the wealthy that goes to fight and die in those types of wars, it’s always the poor and the marginalized that fill the coffins so the wealthiest can fill their coffers with money from munitions sales.

The review of the album in Rolling Stone picks up on the elegiac underpinning of the record “‘Blue Canadian Rockies’ is a particularly nostalgic track for all old Gene Autry fans. To hear that ‘the golden poppies are bloomin’/’round the banks of Lake Louise’ brings back visions of Ol’ Gene and his horse Champion loping along the prairie.’[21]

Conclusion

Given the horrors of 1968 and the miseries that were to follow, it’s understandable that an album that reminded listeners of simpler and happier times might just be what they needed to get by. Sweetheart of the Rodeo was released at an ideal time. When talking about its cultural context, one can sight its air of nostalgia as reflecting the trend in rock music in that year to re-examine and re-evaluate its past and mine that for new material. It also reflects the turmoil of that year. When society goes to pot, people generally return to things that remind them of simpler and easier times. Music from Big Pink, John Wesley Harding, and Sweetheart of the Rodeo achieve that with aplomb. The most important fact about Sweetheart of the Rodeo is that it gave Gram Parsons a platform to reach a wider audience. While his concept of “Cosmic American Music” does see some development, it’s really on The Gilded Palace of Sin, the first album by The Flying Burrito Brothers, featuring Gram Parsons and Chris Hillman, that this concept sees its fullest flowering. Parsons wasn’t reinventing the wheel; at its heart rock music has always been a blend of disparate American genres. What Parsons did was give it a more pronounced country accent and made it okay for one to listen to Buck Owens and The Rolling Stones.

Bibliography

Christgau, Robert, “The Byrds Have Flown — But Not Far,”
The New York Times, June 08, 1969. http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F10614FB3C5A177B8EDDA10894DE405B898AF1D3 [accessed April 3, 2013]

Gifford, Barry “The Byrds: Sweetheart of the Rodeo,” Rolling Stone, August 14, 1968. http://www.rollingstone.com/music/albumreviews/sweetheart-of-the-rodeo-19680814 [accessed April 3, 2013

Kloman, William “Rock: The 50’s Come Back,” The New York Times, September 01, 1968.http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F60814F738541B7B93C3A91782D85F4C8685F9 [accessed April 3, 2013]

Menck, Ric The Notorious Byrd Brothers. 33⅓ 43. New York: Continuum, 2007. 48.

Meyer, David N. Twenty Thousand Roads: Gram Parsons and His Cosmic American Music. Villard Books, New York. 2007

Proehl, Bob The Gilded Palace of Sin. 33⅓ 61. New York: Continuum, 2008

[1] William Kloman, “Rock: The 50’s Come Back,” The New York Times, September 01, 1968.http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F60814F738541B7B93C3A91782D85F4C8685F9 [accessed April 3, 2013]

[2] Though there’s no evidence to suggest so, one wonders if McGuinn had been recently exposed to the music of Charles Ives, a composer whose work was being championed by Leonard Bernstein. It’s mere conjecture, though it is interesting to note that Americana was a popular theme that year, particularly in the work of Van Dyke Parks and his album, Song Cycle, which featured a more explicit Ives connection, apart from a flair for old folk tunes.

[3] Bob Proehl. The Gilded Palace of Sin. 33⅓ 61. New York: Continuum, 2008. 2.

[4] David N. Meyer. Twenty Thousand Roads: Gram Parsons and His Cosmic American Music. Villard Books, New York. 2007. 152–153.

[5] Ibid., 153–154.

[6] David N. Meyer. Twenty Thousand Roads: Gram Parsons and His Cosmic American Music. Villard Books, New York. 2007. xi.

[7] David N. Meyer. Twenty Thousand Roads: Gram Parsons and His Cosmic American Music. Villard Books, New York. 2007. 160.

[8] Ric Menck. The Notorious Byrd Brothers. 33⅓ 43. New York: Continuum, 2007. 48.

[9] Ibid., 80–81.

[10] Ibid., 131–132.

[11] Bob Proehl. The Gilded Palace of Sin. 33⅓ 61. New York: Continuum, 2008. xi.

[12] Ibid., xi-xii.

[13] Bob Proehl. The Gilded Palace of Sin. 33⅓ 61. New York: Continuum, 2008. xii-xiii.

[14] Ibid., xiii.

[15] Bob Proehl. The Gilded Palace of Sin. 33⅓ 61. New York: Continuum, 2008. xiv.

[16] Ibid.,

[17] Ibid., xiv-xv.

[18] William Kloman, “Rock: The 50’s Come Back,” The New York Times, September 01, 1968.http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F60814F738541B7B93C3A91782D85F4C8685F9 [accessed April 3, 2013]

[19] William Kloman, “Rock: The 50’s Come Back,” The New York Times, September 01, 1968.http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F60814F738541B7B93C3A91782D85F4C8685F9 [accessed April 3, 2013]

[20] Robert Christgau, “The Byrds Have Flown — But Not Far,” The New York Times, June 08, 1969. http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F10614FB3C5A177B8EDDA10894DE405B898AF1D3 [accessed April 3, 2013]

[21] Barry Gifford, “The Byrds: Sweetheart of the Rodeo,” Rolling Stone, August 14, 1968. http://www.rollingstone.com/music/albumreviews/sweetheart-of-the-rodeo-19680814 [accessed April 3, 2013]