Book & DVD Reviews On Gram Parsons, Cosmically Tragic Musical Troubador
February 3rd, 2008
By SHAUN MULLEN, TMV Columnist
GRAM PARSONS WAS ON LOAN TO US FOR A LITTLE WHILE, BUT WE DIDN’T LOOK UP FAST ENOUGH — MARK LEVITON
I’m a fast reader and usually race right through books. But there’s been a lot going on in my young life lately, and during the couple of weeks that it took me to read a book on Gram Parsons and then watch a documentary on him, I had the opportunity to listen to a lot of the music that influenced the legendary signer-songwriter. This included folk, country, bluegrass, rhythm and blues, jazz and soul. Oh yeah, and rock, too.
That made my respect for Gram Parsons the musical innovator all the greater and my contempt for Gram Parsons the friendship-abusing junkie all the deeper.
The book is Twenty Thousand Roads by David N. Meyer, a fascinating biography of Parsons, who had such a remarkably outsized influence on the course of American music in his mere 26 years on the planet. The greatest strength of the book is Meyer’s ability to explain and make sense of the many threads that played into that influence.
The documentary is Gram Parsons: Fallen Angel, which despite some wonderful live footage of Parsons performing, is pallid compared to the bio because of director Gandulf Hennig’s inability to or disinterest in fleshing out that influence.
A shortcoming of too many biographies is that the authors end up being in awe of their subject. Meyer had no such problem and pulled no punches, writing in the intro to Twenty Thousand Roads that:
“The simple facts are these: Gram Parsons looked like a movie star, sang like an angel, wrote like a poet, slept with every woman he wanted, took the most and the best drugs, hung out with the coolest people, and set the musical trends for the next two generations.
“Gram Parsons had everything – looks, cool, charm, charisma, money, style, genius, health, poetry, soul, chops, rapacious sexuality, and good fellowship – and threw it away with both hands, every minute of the day. As a musician, Gram was blessed with a high-lonesome tenor, the longest fingers anyone had ever seen, sufficient skills on piano and guitar, a discerning ear, a willingness to learn, an appreciation of history, an unerring instinct for the right place at the right time, and according to Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones, ‘better coke than the mafia.’ “
Gram Parsons (”As in the metric measure, not the cracker,” he would say when he met someone) was born Ingram Cecil Connor III in Winter Haven, Florida, in 1946. He was the grandson of a citrus fruit magnate and offspring of profoundly alcoholic parents. As a childhood friend told Meyer, “The dad’s screwing the babysitter and the mom’s screwing Jack Daniel’s.”
As his family disintegrated around him in a Tennesse Williams-esque drama, Parsons developed strong musical interests. He had middling chops on guitar and piano, but from adolescence on had an exceptional ability to use that high tenor voice. By age 16 he had graduated to folk music and his first professional group, the Shilos.
Please click here to read more at Kiko’s House. Related links include Gram Parsons & The Anatomy of a Song and A Sampler of Gram Parsons Song Lyrics.
This entry was posted on Sunday, February 3rd, 2008 at 6:43 am and is filed under Reviews, Music, DVDs, Books. Both comments and pings are currently closed.
