The Flying Burrito Brothers' studio debut The Gilded Palace of Sin was released in 1969. The Flying Burrito Brothers was formed by former Byrds members Gram Parsons and Chris Hillman, who both sang lead vocals and played guitar, as well as bassist/keyboardist Chris Ethridge and pedal steel guitarist "Sneaky" Pete Kleinow. As Gram Parsons had done previously with the Byrds' Sweetheart of the Rodeo, The Gilded Palace of Sin was a mix of rock and country music and became widely influential in the creation of the country-rock genre. Parsons nicknamed the music he was trying to create "Cosmic American Music." The album was released to widespread praise from critics and is generally considered one of the greatest albums of all time. Nevertheless, it sold poorly upon release and it is still not certified gold by RIAA.
Although it was quite earthshattering for its time, Sweetheart of the Rodeo was reserved in its ambition to cross country and rock music and it makes sense--Gram had just joined the legendary LA band (the Byrds) and all of a sudden he was pulling more strings than Roger McGuinn. As a result, it came off mostly as country music--and indeed it consisted mostly of country standards--rather than a head-on collision of the two worlds. Now, with his own band and his own songs, the Cosmic American Music he always wished to make fully comes to life on this astonishing record. Parsons is certainly the superstar here, but Chris Hillman is not your average songwriter and he collaborates with Parsons to conjure up a pretty clever antiwar lyric as well as five other bona fide country-rock classics about black-hearted women, cities overcome by sin, and hippie boys. Pete Kleinow's surprisingly bright pedal steel guitar would have been impressive enough, but he also utilizes a fuzzbox which adds intense psychedelic booming (that's a pedal steel guitar?!) whenever the album needs some variation. And did I mention the singing is superlative? A+
