The one show in 1968 that made Gram Parsons leave The Byrds
Despite releasing a dozen albums in just eight years and allowing their sound to develop over the course of this fruitful, near-decade-long span, The Byrds weren’t exactly the most stable band to have emerged from the folk-rock explosion of the 1960s.
They’d pretty much been the ones responsible for kick-starting the entire movement, and so ought to have been this pillar of influence that others looked up to, releasing both Mr Tambourine Man and Turn! Turn! Turn! in 1965 to widespread acclaim and laying down the gauntlet for any other acts who dared to surpass them.
In a musical sense, they absolutely were an influential group, but in terms of being able to keep a sense of harmony within their ranks and preventing things from descending into tumultuous bickering and fisticuffs, they led by a pretty goddamn awful example.
Gene Clark’s departure from the band after these two 1965 albums rocked the band significantly, seeing as he was the primary songwriter for the band up until that point. Losing David Crosby not long after was also detrimental, and given how both of them went on to have illustrious careers as solo artists and in other projects afterwards, you’d think that the band would have regretted these separations the most.
However, one of the shortest subsequent tenures with the band was that of Gram Parsons, who spent just five months in the fold and caused all sorts of disruptions to the already unsettled ranks within the group they’d assembled.
Joining in February 1968 and out of the door by July, Parsons’ stint with the group was later summed up by vocalist and guitarist Roger McGuinn, who told Vincent Flanders in 1969 that there was one particular reason for his sudden departure from the band.
“Gram didn’t quit,” McGuinn asserted, refuting claims that he had stormed out of the band. “He was let go because he didn’t want to go to South Africa with us. He said he wouldn’t play to segregated audiences. We went down there as a political thing – to try to turn their heads around – but he didn’t want to participate in that, but it wasn’t for political reasons. It was because he wanted to stay in London. He dug it there, dug Marianne Faithful and the Rolling Stones and he wanted to stay in that scene.”
McGuinn did, however, see things from Parsons’ point of view, even if that wasn’t reciprocated. He went on to explain how he’d known South African musician Miriam Makeba since the early 1960s, and that what he’d learned from her lived experience made him want to perform to audiences in order to convince them to reconsider the grave situation of apartheid. “She told me what a horrible place it was. I knew all the political strife they were into and I wanted to go over and do what I could to help the black people get liberated.”
You have to wonder whether they really wanted him in the band anyway given how much authority he tried to assert over the band’s direction, but even though there was a huge furore at the time over Parsons’ refusal to play in apartheid South Africa, to claim that his real reason for leaving was a case of wanting to hang out with Keith Richards is perhaps questionable given his adamant stance on the matter.
