Bloggerhythms

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 ...

Sometimes it's best not to make an album. That's sad, because The Byrds - the justifiably much-loved and highly influential folk-rockers who rose to fame in 1965 - disappointed nearly everyone with their eponymous final album. I remember buying it on faith before I ever heard a note, and immediately upon listening to it I sided with the majority opinion. It was 1973, and the reunited original quintet hadn't worked together since 1966. Roger McGuinn , Chris Hillman,   David Crosby ,   Gene Clark, and Michael Clarke got the old band back together while McGuinn was still touring with his latest version of The Byrds that evolved from the original band. That outfit had long ago turned away from the sounds that initially made them stars into a group of full-blown country pickers that achieved only a modicum of commercial success. To me - just like The Beatles' White Album  - this eleven-song set sounded as if it was the work of individual si...

You would think a long time music junkie like me would have heard everything of importance by now but for some reason the work of the late Gram Parsons never became one of my musical experiences. I haven't been avoiding him, it's just that except for an occasional song or two on the radio, his music never crossed my path. However, last week at Princeton Record Exchange I hit the country-rock trifecta. The prices at the Exchange for Parsons' CDs were so good that it would have been criminal to pass them up. For $4.99 I grabbed the 1997 reissue of The Byrds' Sweetheart Of The Rodeo , originally released in 1968. It was Parsons one and only record with Roger McGuinn's famous band. For just a buck more I bought both of Parson's solo albums, GP (1973) and Grevious Angel (1974) together on one disc. That's a mere $10.98 for three classics! Now that I've heard all three albums here is the lowdown. Every musician, critic, and scholar who has prais...