byrdsongs, xxxviii

I was talking to a friend about the Byrds a few days ago – yes, the conversation actually continues offline, believe it or not – and he observed that Gene Parsons was the best of the Byrds’ drummers. I would have to agree, as long as we're not counting the session players who filled in here and there, guys like Hal Blaine and Jim Gordon. Parsons was not only an excellent drummer but a fine musician more generally, and he was the inventor of the B bender, which Clarence White used to make his Tellie sound like a souped-up pedal steel from outer space.  You can check out a very nice series of recent interviews with Parsons here. Personally, I don’t always love the direction in which Parsons (and presumably White) helped take the Byrds, veering increasingly towards more traditional sounding c&w. But occasionally these purist endeavors created some great stuff, like tonight’s song, an old timey gospel number that, with the help of Terry Melcher’s triumphant return to the control booth, the band turns into a great Byrdsong. The version I've posted is an alternative to the one on The Ballad of Easy Rider. I think it's the better of the two. I love the stoned harmonies and the way McGuinn’s chiming 12-string opens the track. And even though Parsons and I have very different taste, he’s a singing drummer, so I give him a lot of leeway…