Originally Posted on Instagram, April 22, 2020.
Another from the quarantine bargain hunt- 'GP', by Gram Parsons.
'GP' was Gram's first solo album, and came about a year after he was thrown out of the Rolling Stones' party house, reportedly due to dangerous, self-destructive behavior. (Let that sink in for a moment.) In the year between his exile from Main Street and the making of 'GP', Gram seemed to make a serious attempt to get his life together. He quit hard drugs, got the best backing band money could buy (poached from Elvis!), and was introduced to an up-and-coming folk singer named Emmylou Harris. For once in his life, things were looking up, and this album reflects that. Even when he and Emmylou are singing "Still Feeling Blue", they sound like they're having a great time.
'GP' took me longer to come around to than 'Grievous Angel', or the albums Gram made with the Flying Burrito Brothers and the Byrds. Now that I've listened to it several times, I think it might be because it's the most fully realized album Gram ever made. The endearing, energetic sloppiness I associate with Gram's music is less apparent, probably thanks to the use of top-ranked studio musicians and unrushed, finished production. But the dreamy quality of his best original songs ("She", "A Song For You") and the loving tributes to the country establishment that never accepted him ("That's All It Took", "Streets of Baltimore") are still there; intense, heartfelt, and magical.
His new collaborators left their mark as well- Elvis's band gives "Cry One More Time" and "Big Mouth Blues" more of a 50s rock-and-roll feel than anything else Gram ever did, and producer Ric Grech brings his songwriting skills to the bleak "Kiss The Children". (It's the weakest song on the album, not just because shoot-my-woman-down songs are the lowest form of country music, but because Gram was never a credible threat to anyone but himself.) But more than anyone else, Emmylou Harris elevates this album to something greater than just another country rock album. In this early recorded appearance, she already had what it took to be the voice of "Cosmic American Music". Although she didn't know it yet, this was the beginning of her rise to greatness.
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