Before the Byrds "invented" country rock, Buffalo Springfield was playing it in relative obscurity. This song A Child's Claim To Fame predates the release of the Byrd's landmark album Sweetheart of the Rodeo by almost two years. From my perspective Buffalo Springfield played their instruments & sang in a more authentically country style than the Byrds. This song is one of the most beautiful country music songs I've ever heard.
Drug Store Truck Drivin' Man was a song written by Roger McGuinn & Gram Parsons after a disastrous visit to Nashville to promote the release of Sweetheart of the Rodeo in 1968. McGuinn told me that the country music establishment in Nashville was completely hostile to a band of long haired hippies who had the nerve to play traditional country music. McGuinn said the Byrds were booed off the stage of the Grand Old Opry by the redneck regulars at the Ryman Auditorium. Drug Store Truck Driving Man is about a real life country music disk jockey at Nashville's old megawatt country music station WSM. Gram & Roger visited the station to promote the first Sweetheart of the Rodeo single, You Ain't Goin' Nowhere & the disk jockey flat out refused to play it on the air.
McGuinn & Parsons got even by writing Drug Store Truck Driving Man which satirized the right-wing racist politics of the deejay. Gram Parsons left the Byrds before the song was released & it appeared a year later on the Byrd's album Dr. Byrds & Mr. Hyde without Gram's participation. This is a live 1968 performance of the song at the Tea Party in Boston.
My final post is my all time favorite country rock song Sin City by the Flying Burrito Brothers. The Burrito Brothers were formed by Gram Parsons & Chris Hillman shortly after leaving the Byrds in 1968, Their first album The Gilded Palace of Sin went relatively unnoticed but it far superior to all previous efforts by the Byrds, Buffalo Springfield or the newly formed Poco.
I saw the Flying Burrito Brothers at an event called the River Festival, a 1970 concert series in southern Illinois that my father had a big hand in organizing. My father also organized concerts by the Band, Joni Mitchell & Crosby, Stills & Nash that same summer. As much as I loved The Gilded Palace of Sin I was disappointed in the Burrito Brothers performance. The band played at such low volume level it was hard to hear them over the crowd chatter. Gram Parsons seemed distracted & bored throughout the performance. 2 weeks later Gram quit the band & as it turns out it was the last public performance of Gram Parsons with the Burrito Brothers.
Gram was reputedly his own worst enemy with his ravenous appetite for drugs, alcohol & self destructive acts. He also had a short attention span & could never stay in a band longer than a year. Even as a soloist his sidemen were hired and fired by Gram in a constant revolving door of ever changing musicians. Gilded Palace of Sin only sold 40,000 copies yet for this brief shining moment in 1969 Gram Parsons proved he was the musical genius that so many people thought he was.
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