Growing up with my paternal grandfather, I was exposed to a great deal of country music. My grandfather, Cecil Howell, was raised out in West Texas on a farm, and, growing up in the military, was what you might call a country music obsessive. From Ray Price to Ernest Tubb, my grandfather has quite the collection. So, as a child I would, when staying with him, search through and scavenge his records for hours on end, looking for the coolest cover or the funniest song titles or the oldest record I could find. It was not until I was about 14, though, that I stumbled upon Gram Parsons’ 1974 sophomore album, Grievous Angel. The artwork did not stand out to me, nor the year in which it was released. But I had heard his name before, though I couldn’t remember where. Looking back, it was probably during my obsession with The Byrds, or through a Rolling Stones biography I had probably read (I was obsessed with classic rock during my pre-teen years and would read anything I could get my hands on, even if I didn’t like the band).
Either way, I put the record on and was immediately smitten. From the album’s opener, “Return of the Grievous Angel,” to it’s close, “In My Hour of Darkness,” it was exactly what I had been looking for. It was the perfect synthesis of Dylan’s early heartfelt folk, the Hank Williams songs I had grown up with, and the classic rock mentality of Keith Richards and Mick Jagger. I was in love. Even better, though, was the beautiful backup singer, Emmylou Harris, who I later explored in much more thorough detail. I was so in love with the album when I first heard it that I actually stole it from my grandfather’s house, hiding it in a suitcase before I returned to the home of my parents. I didn’t have a record player but I told my parents that I had bought it at a Half-Price Books and I would take it over to my grandmother’s house (they got divorced in the early 70s) to play it on her little red Fisher-Price record player, a keepsake from my father’s childhood.
I almost completely forgot about Gram Parsons until, recently, I was watching a Ryan Adams video on YouTube and one of the comments compared him to Parsons. I immediately went back and listened to “Brass Buttons,” “Love Hurts,” and all the other songs I could remember from my early teens. Since that day (which was yesterday), I have been listening obsessively to both Grievous Angel and his debut GP, along with his work with The Flying Burrito Brothers and The Byrds on Sweetheart of the Rodeo. His voice is so honest and his writing so beautiful. I still love the man even after all these years as his music fits the “timeless” definition better than almost any other country record I’ve listened to in the past few years.
Heartbreaking, though, is the story of his life. A young man, battling addiction and mental illness with a penchant for partying, who was, by almost every account, a sweet soul with a heart of gold. He died in September of 1973 from a morphine overdose and alcohol poisoning. It’s always the good that die young…
Suggested listening:
“Brass Buttons”
“$1000 Wedding”
“Love Hurts”
“In My Hour of Darkness”
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