byrdsongs, lx

I give Gram Parsons credit for not falling into trap of making corporate rock. I suppose this is damning him with faint praise or, what amounts to the same thing, defining his virtues in purely negative terms. It’s not that all corporate rock is bad. I mean, the first Boston album is amazing (even if a lot of it sounds like a beer commercial). There’s good corporate rock, and there’s even good CHM, but more often than not the stuff is dull and, by definition, formulaic. Gram Parsons’ music is not particularly corporate sounding, though this doesn’t necessarily mean it’s not dull, which it is a lot of the time.  He didn’t really absorb much from the Rolling Stones (other than drugs) during his encounter with them in France. The Stones were at something of a creative and decadent peak at the time, recording Exile on Main Street, which for all its overstuffed overkill is nothing if not an inspiringly debauched rock ‘n roll jamboree. One would think that being in the Stones’ orbit at the time, however peripherally, would rub off on a guy. But it seems not to have happened with Parsons, at least not musically.  Both his solo records are fairly understated, the sort of fair you can play in the car with mom and dad and have it be a compromise between, say, Annie Get Your Gun and Deep Purple’s In Rock.  Neither side is gonna be thrilled with the music, but neither will be miserable with it either. Family peace begins in the middle of the road…