Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#959 in the Series) is Merle Haggard, I Am What I Am. I was REAL late coming to the Merle Haggard appreciation society.  I’ve loved traditional country for many years.  But for some reason Merle slid though the cracks for me. That changed due to his classic song, “Sing Me Back Home.”  About five years ago I started noticing all these artist I really respected had covered it. The Grateful Dead, Flying Burrito Brothers, Heartfield, Gram Parsons and Keith Richards together, The Everly Brothers, etc etc. I had to look in on it.  Then I started checking out all these old albums and wow.  I sure missed quite a bit. Instead of featuring...

  I had a chance to see this on DVD awhile back. I can’t even remember how I got a copy of it; I don’t believe it was ever released here in the States. I’m not sure if it was ever televised here either.  Maybe BBC American ran it, I don’t know, they produced it. The official title is Hotel California, L.A. From The Byrds to The Eagles. If you’re a fan of the Los Angeles music scene from say…. ’66 thru about ’75, then this is a must watch for you. It looks at the careers of The Byrds, Flying Burrito Brothers, Gram Parsons, Linda Ronstadt, The Buffalo Springfield, CSNY, Poco, Jackson Browne, Joni Mitchell, David Geffen and...

  -from a GramParsons.com media release Thanks to the efforts of Gram’s daughter, Polly Parsons via The Gram Parsons Foundation, supporters and fans now have an online destination for everything Gram Parsons; from music to photographs, from videos to social networking. Due to an overwhelming demand, The Gram Parsons Official Website (www.gramparsons.com) was set up to honor Gram, often noted as the pioneer of “country rock,” as an iconic musical trailblazer. The Gram Parsons Foundation has the great pleasure of introducing an online community where people can share stories, photos and knowledge about this legendary musician. This is a fan resource as much as a tribute, offering tribute concert and fan gathering updates and to-the-moment Twitter and RSS Feeds. The...

Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#397 in the Series) is The Rolling Stones, Sticky Fingers Before I go into a quick recap on The Rolling Stones, Sticky Fingers, let me take a moment to once again discuss what Whale Wednesdays are all about. As you most likely know, we here at Cool Album of the Day like to showcase many albums from different genres. Since most of you are real audiophiles, most of the time you’ll be seeing titles that you know, but not always. I’m sure most of you specialize in one area or another.  Hopefully you’re seeing some names that you may not be familiar with at all, or most likely, you’ll see names that you’ve...

Gram Parsons has been gone for over 35 years now. Yet his influence on Emmylou Harris isn’t just hinted at in her sound. No, every so often, she gathers up that internal feeling and writes another great song to honor her dear friend. See: Boulder to Birmingham. I want to make sure that people know the other side of the story. We always hear how much Gram had to do with Emmylou’s early career. I want to make sure that people realize that this wasn’t a one way street. Emmylou may have helped Gram even more. Yes, you read it right. I’m referring to the Flying Burrito Brother era of Gram’s career and even into the period where he...

Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#305 in the Series) is Ryan Adams and The Cardinals, Cold Roses. I’ve always appreciated artists that know the history of their roots and are not afraid to pay homage to them as well. This is the case with Ryan Adams. I’ve read more than once about his love for artists like Gram Parsons. His previous band, Whiskeytown were known for adding more than one Gram tune to their set lists.  They even performed Gram’s, “A Song For You” on a tribute album. He’s also mentioned acts like Tom T. Hall, and Big Star as adding to his roots.  How well respected is Ryan Adams?  Well enough to have Willie Nelson ask him...

Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#216 in the Series) is The Flying Burrito Brothers, The Gilded Palace of Sin. I was looking at the track listing. I was trying to figure out which songs to mention first. It’s nearly an impossibility to determine one over another. This album is that good.  It should go down in the history of American music as one a ground breaking piece of music. It’s that good. I’ve loved the solo work that Gram Parson did after leaving the band.  The work here that he created along with Chris Hillman, “Sneaky” Pete Kleinow and Chris Ethridge is unmatched in the world of Americana or country-rock. ‘Christine’s Tune (aka She’s a Devil in Disguise),...

Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#205 in the Series) is Emmylou Harris, Luxury Liner. This album was released during the peak of Emmylou’s ‘Hot Band’ era.  They were Hank DeVito (pedal steel), James Burton (electric guitar), Rodney Crowell (acoustic + electric guitar), Emory Gordy, Jr. (bass), John Ware (drums) and one of the greatest guitarists of all time, Albert Lee (electric guitar). All of those musicians went on to marvelous careers. I’ve made it a project to find some videos from this era to attach below.  Be sure to give them some play. The highest charting hit here was Emmylou’s rendition of Chuck Berry’s ‘You Never Can Tell (C’est la Vie).’  She also covered two songs either written...

Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#134 in the Series) is Gram Parson’s, GP. I was shocked to see that I hadn’t featured Gram Parson’s as of yet.  He’s one of my all-time favorites.   I did feature him as part of The Byrds, Sweethearts of the Rodeo era. GP was Gram’s first of two studio albums.  Grievous Angel was the second and could have been as easily featured as GP since they are both outstanding pieces of music. GP was home for some of Gram’s most wonderful moments.  He was in excellent voice in this era.  Give a listen to some of the slower moments of the disc including ‘A Song For You, Streets of Baltimore, She’ or ‘The...

Today’s Cool Album of the Day is the 1968 release by The Byrds, Sweetheart of the Rodeo. Quite simply, a masterpiece. Was it the first country rock album? That’s debatable. There has been so much written and discussed about this music that I’m not even going to try and invent an original idea. Just listen to the music. I’d have loved to have heard Roger McGuinn and Gram Parsons stay together longer. But then Gram might not have gone on to to record two other great pieces of music (Gram Parsons and GP). And maybe he wouldn’t have gone on to discover (along with Chris Hillman) EmmyLou Harris. The Byrds were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of...