Gram Parson | Born To Listen

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_message message_box_color=”mulled_wine” icon_fontawesome=”fa fa-quote-left”]The warden led a prisoner down the hallway to his doom
I stood up to say goodbye like all the rest
And I heard him tell the warden just before he reached my cell
“Let my guitar playing friend do my request”[/vc_message][/vc_column][/vc_row]

Merle Ronald Haggard (April 6, 1937 – April 6, 2016) was an American country singer, songwriter, guitarist, and fiddler.

“Sing Me Back Home” is a song written and recorded by American country music artist Merle Haggard and The Strangers. It was released in November 1967 as the first single and title track from the album Sing Me Back Home. In 2019, Rolling Stone ranked “Sing Me Back Home” No. 32 on its list of the 40 Saddest Country Songs of All Time.

Bob Dylan

Dylan covered this song in September 1985 – Farm Aid Rehearsals – with Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers.
Tracks from this rehearsal first started circulating in June 2016.

This is a pretty good performance, even though he doesn’t remember a lot of the lyrics.

Continue reading “Bob Dylan, Keith Richards, Gram Parsons, Joan Baez Cover “Sing Me Back Home” (Merle Haggard)” →

“I think pure country music includes rock and roll. I’ve never been able to get into the further label of country-rock. How can you define something like that?”
~Gram Parsons

“I just say this – it’s music. Either it’s good or it’s bad; either you like it or you don’t.”
~Gram Parsons

In a way, it’s a matter of lost love. Gram was everything you wanted in a singer and a songwriter. He was fun to be around, great to play with as a musician. And that mother-fucker could make chicks cry. I have never seen another man who could make hardened old waitresses at the Palomino Club in L.A. shed tears the way he did.
It was all in the man. I miss him so.
~Keith Richards (Rolling Stone Magazine, 2005)

Keith Richards on Gram Parsons:

Continue reading “November 5: The late great Gram Parson was born in 1946” →