essential record of the day: The Byrds--Sweetheart of the Rodeo (1968)

imagine you're a rock act in 1968 and that your most successful record is three years past. one of your most prolific writers has quit because of a fear of flying, and you've had to fire one of your other members for being an asshole. to add insult to injury, your drummer just quit and it's been downhill since that first record. so how do you turn it around?

you don't record a country record, that's for sure.

and yet, in 1968, that's precisely what the Byrds did. to replace David Crosby (the previously mentioned asshole) Roger McGuinn and Chris Hillman hired a mostly unknown Gram Parsons to take Crosby's place. After convincing Hillman that recording a country album was a good idea, they got McGuinn to sign off on it and came up with Sweetheart of the Rodeo.

and it was a flop.

the funny thing about records that flop is that they are often the best records out there. Sweetheart of the Rodeo is one of the best records ever made, period. i would list off the standout tracks, but every track is stand out. Parsons, who spearheaded most of the song selections for the record chose nine great country standards, and then added two of his own for good measure. McGuinn and Hillman added their own signature, to make the record sound like every other Byrds record, just with a country-western feel.

at the time, pop music buyers probably thought that the Byrds had gone off the deep end. in an age of protest songs and psychedelia, a country music record was something that Johnny Cash did, not the Byrds. but can you imagine the balls it must have taken to record this record? almost forty years later, the Byrds have been validated for their gutsy move. Sweetheart of the Rodeo is critically acclaimed and considered a work of genius.

unfortunately, this record pretty much marked the end of the band. Parsons was fired because he wouldn't perform in South Africa due to their policy of apartheid. Hillman went with Parsons to form the Flying Burrito Brothers, and McGuinn was left to his own devices, and he basically ran the band into the ground. but they were able to get Sweetheart of the Rodeo out before it all fell apart and this record is probably the best one they ever made. Grade: A+