Grievous Angel
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| Grievous Angel | ||
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| Studio album by Gram Parsons | ||
| Released | January 1974 | |
| Recorded | 1973 | |
| Genre | Country-rock | |
| Length | 36:14 | |
| Label | Reprise | |
| Producer(s) | Gram Parsons | |
| Professional reviews | ||
|---|---|---|
| Gram Parsons chronology | ||
| GP (1973) |
Grievous Angel (1973) |
Sleepless Nights (1976) |
Grievous Angel was the second solo album by Gram Parsons, compiled from 1973 sessions and posthumously released four months after his death. Like all of Parsons' records, it failed to light up the charts, never reaching the top hundred on the Billboard charts. Nonetheless, it is viewed as a milestone of the hybrid between country and rock and roll Parsons called "Cosmic American Music".
In 2003, the album was ranked number 429 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time.
Contents |
[edit] History
After a ramshackle tour in the spring and summer of 1973, Gram Parsons again convened with his singing partner Emmylou Harris, various members of Elvis Presley's "Hot Band", including James Burton and Glen Hardin and the occasional guest (such as Bernie Leadon and Linda Ronstadt) to record his second solo album for Reprise Records. Lacking much-needed new material, Parsons quickly wrote two songs during the sessions ("Return of the Grevious Angel", with lyrics by Boston-based poet & Parsons fan Thomas Brown; "In My Hour Of Darkness", arranged by Harris) and looked to songs rejected for previous albums and to standard country songs to flush out the scant material he came up with. In regards to the original material, "Brass Buttons" dated from Parsons' brief stint as a Harvard-based folksinger in the mid-1960s; "Hickory Wind" had already been recorded with The Byrds; "$1000 Wedding", about Parsons' aborted plan to wed the mother of his daughter in ostentatious style, had been recorded in a plodding arrangement with the Flying Burrito Brothers circa 1970; "Ooh Las Vegas" had been rejected from GP.
In spite of the dearth of new material, the album took what its predecessor had presented and expanded the format of "Cosmic American Music". With the album in the can, Parsons set off for Joshua Tree, California, where he would unfortunately fatally overdose on September 19, 1973, dying the next day in nearby Yucca Valley. A planned tour (to have begun the next month), plans to divorce his wife Gretchen and another attempt to have a "hit" album were all gone.
[edit] Posthumous changes
The released album almost certainly deviates from the intended track listing Parsons had. Parsons' widow, Gretchen, who never cared for Harris' relationship with her husband, moved her originally prominent presence on the original front cover of the album (the album being credited on that cover to "Gram Parsons with Emmylou Harris" and featuring a photograph of the two of them) and relegated her to a simple credit on the back cover. Additionally, the widow Parsons removed the original title track, "Sleepless Nights" and replaced the cover she despised with a simple image of Parsons in a sea of blue. The rearranged album was released in January 1974.
The three tracks recorded during the sessions that had gone unreleased, "Sleepless Nights", "The Angels Rejoiced in Heaven Last Night" and "Brand New Heartache", were released on the posthumous 1976 Parsons/Flying Burrito Brothers album Sleepless Nights.
[edit] Track listing
- "Return of the Grievous Angel" (Parsons, Brown) – 4:19
- "Hearts on Fire" (Egan, Guidera) – 3:50
- "I Can't Dance" (Hall) – 2:20
- "Brass Buttons" (Parsons) – 3:27
- "$1000 Wedding" (Parsons) – 5:00
- "Medley Live from Northern Quebec:"
a) "Cash on the Barrelhead" (C. Louvin, I. Louvin) – 2:12
b) "Hickory Wind" (Parsons, Buchanan) – 4:15 - "Love Hurts" (F. Bryant, B. Bryant) – 3:40
- "Ooh Las Vegas" (Parsons, Grech) – 3:29
- "In My Hour of Darkness" (Parsons, Harris) – 3:42
[edit] Personnel
- Gram Parsons: lead vocals, acoustic guitar
- Emmylou Harris: vocals
- Glen D. Hardin: piano
- James Burton: electric lead guitar
- Emory Gordy: bass
- Ronnie Tutt: drums
- Herb Pederson: rhythm guitar
- Al Perkins: pedal steel
[edit] Guests
- Bernie Leadon: guitars and dobro on "Return of the Grievous Angel", "Hearts on Fire" and "In My Hour of Darkness"
- Byron Berline: fiddle and mandolin on "Return of the Grievous Angel", "Medley Live from Northern Quebec" & "In My Hour of Darkness"
- N.D. Smart II: drums on "Hearts on Fire" and "In My Hour of Darkness"
- Steve Snyder: vibraphone on "Hearts on Fire"
- Linda Ronstadt: harmony vocal on "In My Hour of Darkness"
- Kim Fowley, Phil Kaufman, Ed Tickner, Jane & Jon Doe: Background blah-blah on "Medley Live from Northern Quebec"
