Parsons, it would seem, had inherited his parents' strongly addictive tendencies.Īccording to David N.
But, as they worked, the pair were ingesting copious amounts of intoxicating substances, particularly alcohol and for Parsons, opiates, which Richards says Parsons was well into before their friendship began. "He would also work very hard - harder than I ever did," Richards recalled. More or less homeless because of that decision, he moved in with Richards, and the two jammed around the clock. At the time that was an added plus." It was at the suggestion of the Stones that Parsons quit the Byrds - he didn't want to play in apartheid-ravaged South Africa. "Like I know the blues, Gram Parsons knew country music - every nuance, every great country song that was ever written," Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards told Rolling Stone. In 1968, the Byrds, with Gram Parsons in tow, hit England, and the musician met and became fast friends with Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards. "My life sorta took a very strange turn there for a while.very unhealthy." "I didn't get to do nearly anything I started out to do," Burrell said, according to Fong-Torres.
She acted in just one movie, Pretty Maids All in a Row opposite Rock Hudson, and appeared in one pictorial in Playboy, before quitting. Living separate lives and in different homes, Parsons and Burrell were knowingly headed for divorce.īurrell had given up her career as an actress and model for Parsons, who didn't want his wife to be a working woman. Just two years after that, however, the marriage, tumultuous from the start according to friends of the couple, was over. They were instantly drawn to each other, according to David Meyer's Twenty Thousand Roads. Keith Richards threw Parsons a 23rd birthday party at Stephen Stills' Los Angeles home in November 1969, which is where the young rock star met Gretchen Burrell, a teen model from Newport Beach, according to Ben Fong-Torres' Hickory Wind: The Life and Times of Gram Parsons. Here's a look into the tragic and short life of Gram Parsons. He over-indulged and got himself in trouble like a rock star, but he experienced dozens of country songs worth of heartbreak, pain, and sadness. The poetic songwriter and powerfully emotive singer from Florida, as a member of the Byrds and Flying Burrito Brothers, and with his own solo releases, virtually single-handedly invented "country rock." Although, he preferred to call the conception (which also possessed elements of jazz, soul, and R&B) "Cosmic American Music." No matter its name, Parsons has, directly and indirectly, influenced countless musicians over the past 50 years in the worlds of rock, pop, country, and everything in between.įittingly and unfortunately, Parsons lived a life that straddled genres, too. But long before Lil Nas X's "Old Town Road," the "red dirt country" movement, "alt-country" acts like Wilco, the Eagles' Western sound, or even the '70s Southern rock of Lynyrd Skynyrd, there was Gram Parsons. In 2019, Lynne released a new ELO album, From Out of Nowhere, that overflowed with sweet harmonies and plush instrumentation.For decades, musicians have been using country music tropes to flavor their styles to create something new and unique. When ELO took flight once again in 2014 for rare concerts and subsequent tours (including the band’s first North American dates in 37 years), that creative magic returned. However, in his absence, ELO’s influence started emerging in modern bands both Flaming Lips’ animated psychedelic pop and Daft Punk’s elaborate arrangements and staging bear Lynne’s imprint. Lynne put playing with ELO on ice in 1986 and spent much of the next three decades focused on production work for artists such as George Harrison and Tom Petty. Blue Sky”), glammy hard rockers (“Don’t Bring Me Down”), and frothy disco numbers (“Shine a Little Love,” the Olivia Newton-John collaboration “Xanadu”). Together, the pair created the blueprint for ELO’s sound, which emerged fully formed on the string-laden 1972 debut single “10538 Overture.” Wood departed the band that same year, but Lynne and a rotating group of collaborators propelled ELO to stardom by merging their Beatles-y sound with changing musical trends: jaunty art pop (“Mr. Electric Light Orchestra initially formed in 1970 as an offshoot of psychedelic rock troupe The Move, which Lynne had joined at the urging of future Wizzard multi-instrumentalist Roy Wood. Thanks to the meticulous production ear and vivid imagination of frontman Jeff Lynne, their music melded together lush orchestral arrangements and Beatles-caliber melodic pop tropes.
Outside of the prog scene, the most ambitious rock band of the ’70s were Electric Light Orchestra.
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