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.Two of thenewer members caught the woman’s act and brought ChrisHillman to see her the next night.Hillman was suitablyimpressed and tried to figure out what to do with the youngwoman.He contemplated producing an album with her oreven taking her on as the first Flying Burrito Sister, but intruth, Hillman was just about done with the Burrito Brothers,having just been offered a job with Stephen Stills’ new band,Manassas.While thinking it over, Hillman ran into his old friend, justreturned from a tour with the Rolling Stones.The thin, bright,and beautiful boy had grown thick, his face doughy and151unhealthy.Although a long sabbatical at the bucolic Sussex farm of former International Submarine Band bassist IanDunlop had helped him kick the heroin habit he’d beenindulging in during his time with the Rolling Stones at KeithRichards’ Nellcote villa during the Exile on Main Streetsessions, the wear on him was visible.“He was this caricature, because his pants and shirts wouldn’tbutton,” Hillman said.“Here was this very cuddly young kid,very thin, nice brown eyes, this good-looking kid who turnedinto this monster three years later, this overweight, loud,stupid person.”Although Parsons and Hillman hadn’t spoken in months,Hillman seemed to intuitively know that Parsons simplywasn’t capable of making music on his own.For a handful ofmonths in Reseda in 1969, the men had been like brothers:The talent, craftsmanship, and discipline of Chris Hillman hadbeen kindling for Gram Parsons’ spark, but that fire had goneout for good at the end of June a year before.Seeing hisformer friend ready to work but lacking direction, ChrisHillman handed Gram over to the woman who would tend tothe sputtering flame of his talent until it finally extinguisheditself on September 18, 1973.“You’ve got to go to Washington and meet this chick,”Hillman told Parsons in a Baltimore hotel room.“She’sperfect for you.” When Parsons hemmed and hawed, Hillmanpicked up the phone, dialed it, and handed it to Gram.At theother end of the line was EmmyLou Harris.152By the beginning of 1970, the end of the Flying BurritoBrothers had been scripted, but it took another six months toplay out.Altamont had shaken the entire West Coast music scene andalthough the first few albums of the new decade, includingAmerican Beauty and Volunteers, still seemed baked in the optimistic California sun of the 1960s, the plaintive,post-coital moment of 1970 found its apotheosis in NeilYoung’s After the Gold Rush, an attempt to fuse the sweetharmonies of CSNY with the ragged glory of Crazy Horse,released just weeks before the deaths of Jimi Hendrix andJanis Joplin.Tending towards a certain hazy sweetness and anambivalence about moving forward, the album is loaded withimages of grandeur in decline, castles burning, all in a dream.California rock, with its hippie aesthetics and outspokenpolitics, was withering on the vine.While A&M prepared to release Burrito Deluxe, which hit themiddle of the charts with a dull thud in April 1970 and startedsliding downward, the label pushed the band back into thestudio to record a third album that would be rushed out in thefall and deliver on the promise of Gilded Palace.The sessionstook place in the Sound Factory in Hollywood and the songswere mostly country classics—“Close Up the Honky Tonks,”“Green, Green Grass of Home,” “Sing Me Back Home,” and“Tonight the Bottle Let Me Down.” Parsons still wanted toinclude more elements of R&B and rock, recording “HonkyTonk Women” and James Carr’s “To Love Somebody” withthe band loping half-heartedly behind him.With theexception of the latter, carried by one of Parsons’ strongervocal performances, the tracks sounded limp and lifeless, theband loose and sloppy but without the energy they’d153displayed on Gilded Palace.Even on the selections he brought to the table, Parsons’ vocals showed none of thedepth they had on theBurritos’ previous soul efforts.The Burrito Deluxe sessionshad already scraped the bottom of the barrel forHillman-Parsons originals, and the pair had written no newsongs for the rushed recording sessions, which were put onhold to allow the band to go back out on tour.In his heart, Parsons had already left the Burritos by the timethey left California in May 1970.Musically, the band wasdrifting further and further from his grand vision, sliding backinto nostalgic lukewarm country, and the latest recordings ofR&B tracks sitting next to country tracks rather than anintegration of the two proved it.Parsons had once againstarted spreading rumors of a solo record, or a record withKeith Richards, or a solo record produced by Keith Richards.As with any story Gram told about himself, the details werefluid [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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