Gram Parsons Archives, Vol. 1: The Flying Burrito Bros Live At The Avalon Ballroom, 1969

Amoeba

Gram Parsons’ short tenure with The Flying Burrito Brothers still reverberates powerfully across rock and renegade country. So these two sets (April 4 and 6, 1969), recorded by Owsley “Bear” Stanley and lost for decades in the Grateful Dead’s Vault, arrive like the Rosetta Stone. That’s true even though the April 6 set has been widely available for years on bootleg vinyl as “Winterland ’69.”The Burritos’ sound rumbles huge and timeless, yet firmly rooted in the psychedelic era: Michael Clarke’s click-track drumming, Chris Ethridge’s thundering, melodic bass, Parsons’ rawly emotive vocals twinned with Chris Hillman’s high harmonies, and Sneaky Pete Kleinow’s innovative pedal steel, blazing in like a cosmic foghorn. This is Bakersfield country, honky and Okie, mixed with 50s-style rock (covers of Little Richard’s “Lucille” and Roy Orbison’s “Dream, Baby”) and a drugstore cowboy aesthetic. Even at their most delicate and mournful, the Burritos bristle with energy. Their occasional warble and wobble just give tunes like Aretha’s “Do Right Woman” immediacy.

Parsons, who plays guitar and organ, specialized in every stage of heartsick—just-burned on the medley “Undo the Right”/ “Somebody’s Back In Town,” yearning on “Hot Burrito #1,” raucously bitter on Mel Tillis’ hooky “Sweet Mental Revenge” (“Well I hope that the train/ from Caribou, Maine/ runs over your new love affair/ you walk the floor/ from door to door/ and you pull out your puh-rox-ide hair ...”) “Long Black Limousine” is plum mournful. And listen to Parsons moaning high and lonesome on Hank Williams’ “You Win Again,” while Sneaky Pete struts and slides.

Producer Dave Prinz includes two rehearsal tracks—a harmony run through the Everlys’ “When Will I Be Loved” and a solo take on “Thousand Dollar Wedding.” Parsons, on organ, sings as a groom left at the alter by his bride’s untimely death. His voice cracks, in the right places. What turmoil he must be tapping.

These are raw sounds, playing refined melodies about rank emotion, jubilantly celebrating pain. Play it backwards and you still won’t get your ex back—but you’ll be hard put not to sing along.