Sweetheart of the Rodeo

Review

(Columbia/Legacy)
Release Date: 07/22/1968 12:00

Though hired as a sideman, 21-year-old Gram Parsons soon became the chief creative force, and the Byrds headed to Tennessee to record this passionate set of honky-tonk and folk standards and desolate Parsons originals. A commercial disaster, it now sounds like a prophecy of the way Nashville and L.A. embraced each other in the ’70s. Parsons had quit by the time it was released, so most of his vocals were removed, but he left his mark: From then on, the Byrds were a country-rock band. (The two-disc reissue appends a pile of Parsons-sung alternate versions and outtakes.)

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