Christian Parker, Patrick Cleary, Earl Poole Ball And Jay Dee Maness - American Cosmic Revival, Vol. 1: Back At Home, A Tribute To The International Submarine Band (2025)

The International Submarine Band (ISB) were named after a 1934 Our Gang comedy. Even though their name sounds like they should have been one of the many psychedelic bands of the era, in reality, they were one of the pioneers of country-rock.

The quartet was led by the notorious Gram Parsons before his two brief stints with The Byrds and The Flying Burrito Brothers.

Four country-rock devotees - Christian Parker, Patrick Cleary, Earl Poole Ball and Jay Dee Maness - joined forces to entirely rerecord ISB's only full-length album, Back at Home, from 1968 and released it in the original track order.

It's best to begin with some background on the participants. Parker and Cleary are musicians deeply influenced by Parsons' music. They both played six and twelve string acoustic guitars on these sessions and do all of the singing.

Parker has already recorded tributes to The Byrds' Sweetheart of the Rodeo - an album on which Parsons was a major player in 1968 - and he followed that up with a second tribute set to the legendary band last year. Cleary has played with a variety of West Coast groups and - as the CD's liner notes say - he "feels the music of Gram Parsons speaks to his soul."
Piano player Ball and pedal steel guitarist Maness were both ISB members along with Parsons at the time Back at Home was recorded way back when. On this tribute disc the four main players were assisted by Ron Keck on drums and percussion. Michael Rinne supplied electric and upright bass.

Ball told Parker that, "You don't know how much this means to me that you and Patrick are doing this record. The title makes my heart filled."  These ten cover versions sound so much like Parsons' old group that listeners can be forgiven if they believe he's alive and well and leading the sessions.

Parsons only wrote or co-wrote four songs on Back at Home, but he included several strong tracks written by others. Among them are Merle Haggard's "I Must Be Somebody Else You've Known" and "I Still Miss Someone" by Johnny Cash. Arthur Crudup's "That's All Right, Mama" is paired with Cash's "Folsom Prison Blues" in a fine medley.

Taylor Swift has made recording new versions of her albums fashionable these days. I have no way of knowing if her recent actions had any influence on Parker's and Cleary's decision to do the same with ISB's album, but if the results of possible future ventures are as good as Back at Home then maybe we should look forward to other musicians doing the same with additional, obscure, and long out of print music.

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