The Byrds - Sweetheart of the Rodeo (180g Vinyl)

The Byrds Sweetheart of the Rodeo was not the first important country-rock album (Gram Parsons managed that feat with the International Submarine Bands debut Safe at Home), and the Byrds were hardly strangers to country music, dipping their toes in the twangy stuff as early as their second album. But no major band had gone so deep into the sound and feeling of classic country (without parody or condescension) as the Byrds did on Sweetheart; at a time when most rock fans viewed country as a musical Lil Abner routine, the Byrds dared to declare that CW could be hip, cool, and heartfelt. Though Gram Parsons had joined the band as a pianist and lead guitarist, his deep love of CW soon took hold, and Roger McGuinn and Chris Hillman followed his lead; significantly, the only two original songs on the album were both written by Parsons (the achingly beautiful Hickory Wind and One Hundred Years from Now), while on the rest of the set classic tunes by Merle Haggard, the Louvin Brothers, and Woody Guthrie were sandwiched between a pair of twanged-up Bob Dylan compositions. While many cite this as more of a Gram Parsons album than a Byrds set, given the strong country influence of McGuinn’s and Hillmans later work, its obvious Parsons didn’t impose a style upon this band so much as he tapped into a sound that was already there, waiting to be released. If the Byrds didn’t do country-rock first, they did it brilliantly, and few albums in the style are as beautiful and emotionally affecting as this. - Mark Deming, AllMusic

Tracklist

A1 You Ain’t Going Nowhere
A2 I Am a Pilgrim
A3 The Christian Life
A4 You Don’t Miss Your Water
A5 You’re Still on My Mind
A6 Pretty Boy Floyd
B1 Hickory Wind
B2 One Hundred Years From Now
B3 Blue Canadian Rockies
B4 Life in Prison
B5 Nothing Was Delivered

Cat No: 889854179311

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