The 1969 album that “knocked” Bob Dylan out: “I love them”
Things moved fast in the 1960s. Bob Dylan’s debut only arrived on the scene in March of 1962, but as the decade came to a close, he had released nine records, covering about four genres, and spawned a handful of revolutions.
By 1969, with a motorbike accident sharply lingering in the rearview mirror of his mosey down memory lane, protestors picketing his property, and the weight of the ‘voice of a generation’ tag causing his shoulders to sag, Dylan was even considering calling it a day. But as a man who has reinvented himself so many times that his quip. “All I can do is be me, whoever that is,” has gone down in history as the indicative soundbite of his mystic ways, quitting wasn’t much of an option when he could find fresh inspiration around the very next bend.
He’d already blended folk and rock ‘n’ roll when he famously went electric, but by the close of the decade, with records like John Wesley Harding and Nashville Skyline, Dylan was looking to add country to the evolving mix of pop songwriting. He found a firm ally on this front in the form of the Flying Burrito Brothers.
In 1968, the group officially got underway with Gram Parsons and Chris Hillman, both formerly of The Byrds, heralding things alongside Chris Ethridge, who played alongside Parsons as part of the short-lived International Submarine Band, the pedal-steel player Sneaky Pete Kleinow, and session drummer Fast Eddie Hoh.
The project, in a sense, had already begun before the Burrito Brothers began flying, though. The Byrds had already started working on the new melded genre in the summer of ‘68. But they were more reluctant to fully commit than Parsons would like. As McGuinn once recalled, “Sweetheart of the Rodeo was a one-time adventure. I didn’t intend to permanently get into country music.”
He added, “After the album was finished, Chris [Hillman] and Gram wanted to do another country record, and I said, ‘No, no! Wait a minute. That’s enough.’” For McGuinn, the idea had run its course, and it was time to get back to what he truly loved. But the rest group felt like they were onto something, an American brand of music separate from the British invasion.
Parsons felt he had hit upon something truly vital. With the British invasion bands ruling the waves, he felt the new Byrds sound was resplendent with authenticity and American spirit; he even crowned it: “Cosmic American Music”. To turn back on that discovery would mean turning back on three things he loved: America, Music, and, well, cosmic may well be code for getting stoned.
At a time when Dylan was disillusioned with pretty much everything, this felt like a lightning rod. When the Flying Burrito Brothers released their debut in February, The Gilded Palace of Sin, the usually reluctant Dylan was quickly full of praise, telling Rolling Stone in November of that year: “Boy, I love them.”
“I’ve always known Chris Hillman, you know, from when he was in The Byrds, who had a distinctive sound,” he continued. “And he’s always been a fine musician. The Brothers’ records knocked me out.” That distinctiveness and its power convinced the original vagabond that there was something new under the sun in American music, and soon enough, his own underrated 1970 LP, New Morning, would carry a whiff of Burrito about it.
Evidently, this feeling was mutual. The Brothers would rattle off Dylan covers in the shape of ‘If You Gotta Go, Go Now’, ‘To Ramona’, and ‘I Shall Be Released’ all before Parsons tragically passed in September 1973, aged just 26. Yet, he certainly made an impact.
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