GRAM  PARSONS

When, in these days of record companies releasing any and everything in their vaults and calling it historically relevant, it’s a revelation when you get a recording like this one that shows the initial growth spurt of an artist as important as Gram Parsons.

Recorded on a friend’s reel to reel machine after sojourns to the North from his native Florida, these songs, with only Gram’s voice and acoustic guitar, show what the young Parsons was learning as he began to venture out, only a couple of years before his transformed the Byrds, pushed the Rolling Stones toward country music, formed the seminal Flying Burrito Brothers, and discovered a young Emmylou Harris.

The songs on this recording are mostly covers that he picked up along the way, including the title track and "Pride of Man." Mixed in, though, as such breathtaking and genre differing originals as "Zah’s Blues," and a very early take on "Brass Buttons."

Equal parts blues, country and plain old American music, these recordings open the door widely on what Gram Parsons was learning, where he wanted to go, and what he would take with him. As such, they are an important cog in the recorded history of one of the Sixties’ real musical characters.

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