"This 1973 interview from Grievous Angel: The Legend of Gram Parsons' producer and director, Michael Bate was Gram Parsons’ last recorded conversation. Six months after the interview, Parsons died of a morphine and tequila overdose at age 26.

Bate’s connection to Gram is almost accidental. In 1973—while he was the host of a CBC radio show in Ottawa, Ontario—Bate was on a road trip when he happened to spot Parsons’ beaten-up tour bus by the side of the Massachusetts Turnpike, 90 miles from Boston. He stopped and arranged an interview, which turned out to be the final recorded conversation with Parsons.

Gram candidly speaks about Keith Richards and The Stones, his dealings with The Byrds, The Flying Burrito Brothers and how Waylon Jennings had to walk around the block to smoke a joint during a recording session with Chet Atkins. In the beginning of the interview Parsons makes mention of being stuck in England and left penniless by The Byrds. Gram was fired by Roger McGuinn and Chris Hillman when he refused to join them on a South Africa as he was opposed to apartheid."

Gram speaks about Keith Richards and The Stones, and who wrote Wild Horses (from 13:29 onwards)

Gram Parsons: The Last Interview

Good interview... thanks for posting.
Gram was a little before my time, but helped shape my musical tastes no doubt.

Love the story of his body being stolen and burned in the desert.
Classic.

So much for all those people who claim that Gram wrote or co-wrote Wild Horses.
Thanks for posting.


"As we say in England, it can get a bit trainspottery"

Cristiano, this is so cool -- thank you!

Trying to figure out whether it's Roger McGuinn that Gram is referring to (or is it Lee Hazlewood or lawyer Marty Machat, who he also mentions) in the anecdote that starts at 2:05, when Gram says: "He sort of has this thing of anybody who's single-minded--he can't take it. When he runs across somebody that won't follow the directions, y'know...somebody who says 'No, I won't do that.' He figures you're trying to set your own trend or something, and he wants to be the leader."

My favorite parts:

- minute 4:23 about playing at the Grand Ole Opry, Oct 1968, first being barely tolerated as "longhairs," and then actively incensing Tompall Glaser ("Who's really a prick, man...") and Roy Acuff, who jeered and had fits at the Byyrds from the wings when Gram played "Hickory Wind" for his grandmother in the audience, instead of the Merle Haggard song "Sing Me Back Home," with Skeeter Davis running up to them backstage afterward, with kisses of gratitude for Gram having been an irreverent scofflaw.

- Gram's pithy parenthetical comments like at minute 5:03: "They're not very open-minded in Nashville. Some of the best musicians in the world still are starving to death in Nashville."

- Gram's theory on why Waylon Jennings hadn't become the next Elvis Presley, given that "he had the sexy sort of image--he really turns on chicks when he plays" (which Phil Spector had foreseen as a distinct possibility) -- at minute 6:40 that Merle Haggard was being produced by redneck straight squares to the extent that Merle would have to walk down the street and around the block or sit in his car to smoke a little weed: "Can you imagine a man Merle Haggard's age having to walk out in the parking lot and smoke a @#$%& joint--just because Chet Atkins is producing and he doesn't 'approve' of that kind of thing, y'know? Talk about an antiseptic atmosphere to work in--God! If you can't get along with your producer you really have a tough time, actually. It's amazing that he got any good records out at all, working with him."

- brief mention of Keith starting minute 9:34 "I hung out with Keith Richards for a little while...."

- minute 13:46 Wild Horses, which he "heard for the first time the night after Altamont..."

- minute 15:27 "Doing a love song with some guy with a high voice gets a little bit weird sometimes. Most of the guys with real high voices who do that kind of work are a bit strange." And what he says about singing with Emmy Lou Harris.

-swiss



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 2016-12-22 19:50 by swiss.

think it was Waylon Jennings he was referring to...?


>>- Gram's theory on why Merle Haggard hadn't become the next Elvis Presley, given that "he had the sexy sort of image--he really turns on chicks when he plays" <<

Pamela Des Barres Remembers: Gram Parsons and “Wild Horses”

August 11 2017 by Pamela Des Barres

Most people think of the Rolling Stones (of course) when the divine tune, “Wild Horses,” starts playing on the radio, through their headphones or swirling inside their heads. Written by Mick Jagger and his crusty cohort Keith Richards, the song was first given to my beloved pal Gram Parsons for his band, the Flying Burrito Brothers, to record for their 1970 Burrito Deluxe album.

It was the glorious year 1969, and I was cavorting with my all-girl group, the GTOs (Girls Together Outrageously) with Frank Zappa at the helm, frolicking around Laurel Canyon like I owned it. I was flying high, indeed, and madly in love with Gram’s sidekick, Chris Hillman, who had left his seminal SoCal band, the Byrds, snagged by Gram to start the first “alternative” (before the term existed) country rock band. Gram threw in a little R&B as well, and preferred to call this musical stew “Cosmic American Music.”

Gram had already turned me onto his country heroes — Buck Owens, Waylon Jennings, Merle Haggard and the fellow he called “The King of Broken Hearts,” George Jones — and my musical taste expanded as wide as the Bakersfield skies.

I was with Miss Mercy, the gypsy of our group, at the premiere of the Beatles’ movie, Yellow Submarine, when we first spotted this lanky tousled beauty wearing a red Nudie suit covered in spangled submarines — so of course we sashayed over and introduced ourselves. That spectacular moment led to a lifelong (his, sadly) friendship, a seemingly oddball connection between a couple of madcap Hollywood freaks and a genteel, soft-spoken Southern boy with great big ideas.

Gram had recently returned from a long visit with the Stones in the south of France, “Wild Horses” in tow, anxious to get into the studio. Some say that Mick had actually asked him to leave the premises because he was taking up so much of Keith’s valuable time. (And they were getting so out-of-control stoned together.) Others also say that Gram added the obviously countrified element to songs such as “Send Me Dead Flowers” and “Country Honk.” SOME even say that Gram actually helped write “Wild Horses.” Most of it, perhaps? Mick’s brother told Uncut mag back in ’13 that it was definitely a Parsons composition.

Either way, when Chris and Gram invited Miss Mercy and me to A&M studios to the recording session for this glorious composition, Gram proudly insisted that Mick and Keith had given it to him for the Burritos to cover. He reveled in his association with the Stones, and from what I could tell, he and Keith were equally enthralled with each other, and in the throes of a bromance (before the term existed) — often trading clothes, looking more and more like each other each time I saw them together. Gram took to wearing Kohly eye makeup, much to Hillman’s chagrin. But I digress.

I’ve been privy to many a recording session, but being one of the only two visitors at the Burritos’ “Wild Horses” session, along with Mercy, was the most spellbinding, tear-inducing, overwhelming, memorable nights of my most fantabulous life. One of those pinch-yourself experiences that gleam and glimmer within for all time.

Although Gram was a beautiful piano player, he had invited Leon Russell to play the elegant sparse keyboard parts so he could focus on singing his soul out. Gram felt and expressed lyrics like no singer I’ve seen before or since. I wish I knew who he imagined in his heart’s eye as the pent-up sorrow poured out like ethereal, ragged longing — while I sat on the cracked leather couch, watching and listening in solemn, breathless awe…

“I know I’ve dreamed you a sin and a lie/I have my freedom but I don’t have much time…”

Gram didn’t have much time, gone like a lightning flash a little more than three years later in his beloved Joshua Tree desert.

I am often asked what my favorite live band was, and people expect the answer to be Led Zeppelin, Hendrix or the Stones. Yes, it was thrilling to be in the presence of such greatness, but my answer is always the Flying Burrito Brothers — because of Gram’s exposed beating heart that poured freely down his face as tears, I could feel my own heart beating in time with the universe.

Wild horses couldn’t drag me away.

[read.tidal.com]

Thanks Cristiano...much appreciated.

More and more I get on YOUTUBE this VIDEO IS NOT AVAILABLE.....

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NICOS
More and more I get on YOUTUBE this VIDEO IS NOT AVAILABLE.....

If I'm not wrong that interview was posted on this YouTube channel, but a lot of videos (including the one with that interview) were taken down some time ago. I'm pretty sure I downloaded the audio from that video while it was still up there.

Quote
Cristiano Radtke

Quote
NICOS
More and more I get on YOUTUBE this VIDEO IS NOT AVAILABLE.....

If I'm not wrong that interview was posted on this YouTube channel, but a lot of videos (including the one with that interview) were taken down some time ago. I'm pretty sure I downloaded the audio from that video while it was still up there.

Here it is.
[www.youtube.com]


"As we say in England, it can get a bit trainspottery"

Thanks Deltics...and thanks Christiani great interview, for sure Gram was a nice and honest guy....

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Thank you, Deltics!

My pleasure, NICOS.

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Deltics
So much for all those people who claim that Gram wrote or co-wrote Wild Horses.
Thanks for posting.

I got in an argument with a musician in Memphis about that!

He had a trivia question about who wrote it, I of course said Jagger/Richards, he said nope Gram Parsons wrote it about Emmylou and the Stones stole it.

I called b.s. on that one.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2017-08-13 17:32 by kovach.

Gram must have travelled back in time - From Nellcote to recording WH in 1970

Cristiano always comes up with top threads.
I am on the fence overall about Gram Parsons. In the big picture I know he has a lot to do with Country music fusing with popular music. But it's not like he set out to realize this. He wrote some decent tunes, and he could really sing his heart out. Knew how to wear a suit. And Keith liked him. I guess that's enough.