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Title: Gram Parsons – Grievous Angel (1974) [MFSL 2012]
Genre: Rock
Format: SACD ISO + DSF DSD64 + Hi-Res FLAC

Gram Parsons fondness for drugs and high living are said to have been catching up with him while he was recording Grievous Angel, and sadly he wouldn’t live long enough to see it reach record stores, dying from a drug overdose in the fall of 1973. This album is a less ambitious and unified set than his solo debut, but that’s to say that G.P. was a great album while Grievous Angel was instead a very, very good one. Much of the same band that played on his solo debut were brought back for this set, and they perform with the same effortless grace and authority (especially guitarist James Burton and fiddler Byron Berline). If Parsons was slowing down a bit as a songwriter, he still had plenty of gems on hand from more productive days, such as “Brass Buttons” and “Hickory Wind (which wasn’t really recorded live in Northern Quebec; that’s just Gram and the band ripping it up live in the studio, with a handful of friends whooping it up to create honky-tonk atmosphere). He also proved to be a shrewd judge of other folks material as always; Tom T. Hall’s “I Can’t Dance” is a strong barroom rocker, and everyone seems to be having a great time on The Louvin Brothers’s “Cash on the Barrelhead.” As a vocal duo, Parsons and Emmylou Harris only improved on this set, turning in a version of “Love Hurts” so quietly impassioned and delicately beautiful that it’s enough to make you forget Roy Orbison ever recorded it. And while he didn’t plan on it, Parsons could hardly have picked a better closing gesture than “In My Hour of Darkness.” Grievous Angel may not have been the finest work of his career, but one would be hard pressed to name an artist who made an album this strong only a few weeks before their death — or at any time of their life, for that matter.

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Title: Gram Parsons – GP (1973) [MFSL 2012]
Genre: Rock
Format: SACD ISO + DSF DSD64 + Hi-Res FLAC

1973 Landmark Set a Profoundly Influential Record on Country, Folk, and Rock Genres. Influential doesn’t begin to capture the scope, legacy, and brilliance of Gram Parsons’ GP. By wedding traditional country threads with folk, soul, and rock fabrics, the singer/guitarist unconsciously gave birth to a new subgenre that would later evolve into what we now know as country-rock and Americana. Thematically, Parsons proves beyond his then 25-year-old age and addresses heartbreak, yearning, dreams, and wistful feelings with the lived-in conviction of someone many years his senior.

Mastered from the original master tapes, and going far beyond the multiple digital reissues that never opened up the music as promised, Mobile Fidelity’s numbered limited edition hybrid SACD brings to fore unprecedented degrees of fireplace-hearth warmth, natural organic accents, and the you-are-there vocal signatures of Parsons and partner Emmylou Harris. Listeners that swear by the sound of albums cut in the 60s and early/mid 70s will instantly fall in love with what they hear: Every member of Parsons’ band gets their own distinct space, frequencies extend and decay, small details emerge, and that rare “breath of life” resounds throughout each note. If you’re a fan of the Byrds, Neil Young, CSN, or peak-era Bob Dylan, you need this SACD. Akin to so many profoundly influential works of art, GP had auspicious beginnings. Parsons spent 1971 palling around with Rolling Stone Keith Richards, who, originally, was tabbed to produce. But logistical circumstances ultimately led to putting Rik Grech in the control chair. He performed on and presided over sessions that witnessed Parsons redefine music via aching ballads, gospel-styled weepers, honky-tonk barn-burners, and rollicking shuffles. The chemistry achieved and attained throughout simply boggles the mind. Whether it’s James Burton’s dobro or guitar playing, Elvis Presley drummer Ron Tutt keeping the beat, or Glen Hardin’s tuckpointed piano riffs, the combination of instruments and deliveries translate into Southern-flavored, California-stirred, desert-ripened magic. And those nuanced vocals. Restrained, plaintive, melodic, and almost effortless, Parsons and Harris’ are often the sound of angels taking country and turning into white spirituals. They are also the sound of two hearts breaking and of souls being torn into two as a result of unrequited love and unyielding passion. GP never cracked the Billboard album charts or yielded a hit single. But time has testified on behalf of its magnificence and importance. Parsons is now seen as the golden god of country rock, and for good reason. As for his goals? He once said that he wanted to unite the people in overalls (country) with those adorned in velvet (rock). Consider the mission accomplished. GP is a temple that contemporary leaders such as Wilco, the Decemberists, the Jayhawks, and myriad others worship.

hraudio | allmusic | discogs

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