Gram Parsons and "Cosmic American Music"

I've noticed several posts by you where you diss Parsons. I for one get that you don't like him.

 

I think that list of qualifiers end up describing Dwight Yoakam's music to at T.

 

While it's accurate to describe Buck Owens as an influence on Parsons, an argument that Buck's music, all of it, fits the description of Cosmic American Music misses the point.

The adjective Cosmic I think was intended to describe the aspirational nature of the PROCESS, or journey Parsons was on. Perhaps more accurately was on but was nearer the beginning of such a journey, with more to come.

Cosmic is aspirational precisely because Parsons thought his overall approach to the melding of genres he admired included an accepting, and not excluding, dynamic of what belonged in it. Cosmic as a result was really a word intended to describe a consciousness that would be encompassing and not limiting. Cosmic as in above divisions and distinctions, not from outer space (as in Pink Floyd's references at the time) but as from a dimension different from the everyday divisions of music and cultural divisions at the time.

Elvis Pressley at the time was I think rightly seen as socially and politically reactionary, which is the opposite of the approach Parsons took. The way he held himself, the people he was around, were not a small factor in all that. He was looking forward and backward at the same time, not only backward.

His use of members of Pressley's band was not a way to be like Pressley. It was a way to incorporate what he wanted from Pressley, but also to go forward into something new.

His untimely death obviously brought an abrupt end to that process. Whether he would have succeeded in achieving some really new kind of music if he had lived is of course not clear or provable.

But if one wants to understand what Parsons meant by the term Cosmic American Music, the aspirational, forward-looking nature of it I think helps to keep in mind.

 

The article was a now predictable annointment and prostration at the feet of Gram. While I appreciate his contribution to helping rock re-embrace the country side of its roots (helped in great measure by his close association with rock royalty/Rolling Stone) this sort of one stop fan blathering misses and misconveys a much more interesting, larger history.

There is a recent compilation 2-LP release titled Cosmic American Music (Numero Uno group) that does a great job catching its breadth, culled from late 60's-early 70's private press releases that fell under the general country rock genre. The late 60's had a teeming minor label substrata of country rock / cosmic american music going on; The Everly Brothers, Gene Clark / Dillards, Mason Profitt, Rick Nelson etc. We used to call it all 'Weed Country' as it fit the orientation of country being performed by long hairs with a joint rather than the crew-cuts with the whiskey shots.

 

WNCW has a Cosmic American Music radio show.

http://www.wncw.org/programs/cosmic-american-music-show

 

It is without question that Dwight Yoakam was heavily influenced by Parsons. Among others who were and are aside from Ms. Harris include Steve Earle, somewhat less so Patty Loveless (whose husband played bass in Emmylou's band over a period), and people like Marty Stuart. Less clear is how much Yoakam or any of the others actually achieved the goal I think Parsons was after.

I'm not saying he didn't achieve it. But if the goal was an encompassing American music that was new, I am not sure that he did.

 

As far as his contemporaries, I'd say Joe South, Tony Joe White, Bobbie Gentry, later period Everly Brothers, Rick Nelson and the Stone Canyon Band, Mike Nesmith and the First National Band, New Rides of the Purple Sage.

 

I think you've misunderstood what I was saying there. My point was simply that Safe At Home by the Submarine Band is not particularly innovative or groundbreaking. It's a replication of the Buck Owens style, and what makes it unique is who plays it (long-haired guys who aspired to be rock musicians) not what is played. Cosmic American Music seems to be generally defined as a blend of country, rock, and soul, but SAM has no soul and it certainly doesn't rock any more than the Buckaroos did. So what makes it "cosmic american music"? It seems to be nothing more than the logic that "if Gram Parsons did it, it must be cosmic american music." Which to me seems silly. If Cosmic American Music is intended to be a term that has specific meaning beyond the generalities of blending country, rock, and soul, it needs to have some sort of clear criteria. The author seems to resort to the "I can't define it but I know it when I hear it" school of thought.

It's not accurate at all to say Elvis was socially and politically reactionary. Elvis was politically indifferent, but he was most definitely socially revolutionary when he started out, and he knew it. He was a nonconformist and intentionally broke down social and racial boundaries, regardless of whether he presented himself in an "aw shucks, I'm just an entertainer" manner.

At any rate, I think a genre needs to be defined by its musical characteristics, not by what the artist is thinking. Parsons' views about himself and the world informed his music, but I don't think it somehow makes sense to suggest Parsons' stuff was CAM while similar genre blending by Elvis was not, simply because they had different views of the world.

 

From Elvis in Memphis is definitely Cosmic American Music in my book. In fact, as much as I love Gram, FEIM is to me the epitome of the idea.

 

I think these two by Waylon qualify.

 

I ag

I agree ISB was not far from Owens, but I did not mean to say you were suggesting Owens was Cosmic American Music, so I apologize I was not clear on that. Whether ISB was the start or even anywhere down the road to Cosmic American Music can be debated. But it can be viewed as something of a start.

As for Presley and his politics, I was talking about the period when Parsons and him were both making music. From Time Magazine:



Presley indicated that he thought the Beatles had been a real force for anti-American spirit. He said that the Beatles came to this country, made their money, and then returned to England where they promoted an anti-American theme. The President nodded in agreement and expressed some surprise. The President then indicated that those who use drugs are also those in the vanguard of anti-American protest. Violence, drug usage, dissent, protest all seem to merge in generally the same group of young people.

As for worldview and how it affects one's music, I am sure you would agree that it can. Whether and to what extent it does can be debated. But in Parsons's case, I think it did. He chose music for inclusion not merely to change up his set list. He did it because he was striving to incorporate different genres of American music without divisions, trying to come up with a synthesis in which the consciousness of the effort, the aspirational part of it, WOULD affect the outcome.

 

I thought the same thing, Workingman's Dead is both more cosmic and more country than American Beauty IMO. If I hadn't heard that Parsons coined the term, I'd have guessed that 'Cosmic American Music' referred to the Grateful Dead.

Whatever its provenance, it's apt for them, they constructed their repertoire along the same parameters as discussed above for Elvis and others.

 

The adjective "cosmic" has always rubbed me the wrong way when applied to things other than rays. Has a real "I'm hipper than you" feel to it. Gram often came off as a bit smug, and this term kind of exemplified that for me.

 

I never thought of him as smug. Any examples? Other than your take on the use of the word Cosmic, of course?

 

I obviously didn't know him personally. Really the way he looks in pictures more than anything. Very pleased with himself and not real humble. Obviously some folks who worked with them like Roger and Chris have had their gripes about the lack of committment he showed to projects they worked on together, but no need to re-air those, as I expect all here are familiar with them.

Labeling oneself "cosmic" certainly seems smug if nothing else.

 

I was about to type something similar. Nesmith may have even been ahead of the curve, re: Gram Parsons. Some of what Nesmith was doing in 1966-1969 was the type of music The Byrds and Gram Parsons and TFBB got credit for "creating". I'd be interesting to see what would've happened if The Monkees had pursued that direction after 1970, had they stayed together.

 

Michael Martin Murphey's "Geronimo's Cadillac" and "Cosmic Cowboy Souvenir" albums qualify.

 

Good analysis. Gram witnessed a live Elvis show at a young age and that model probably was his original template for what a performer should be like.

 

Not a genre. Plus I wonder how serious Gram was about the term, like how often did he use it, and in what contexts such as - did he use it while talking with other musicians. I could imagine it as just being his flippant response in interviews to lazy journalists who called his music "country rock" a term he apparently hated (I would assume because it was too limiting - ignoring the R&B/soul element in his music).

Its possible that it was nothing more than a one off response to a journalist that stuck. Maybe Gram just made it up on the spot, and thought to himself as/after he was saying it "hey that's pretty good - I think I'll remember (and continue saying) that" .

Why should he have concerned himself with labeling himself and what he does, anyway? Its only the people who write about music that want or need labels, and for them the simpler (and more reductive) the label is, the better.

 

"certainly" Heh. I posted above what it may mean having nothing to do with smug.

Perceived lack of commitment doesn't sound like a synonym for smug, either. Lazy maybe. Unfocused. I don't recall Hillman saying his criticisms included that Parsons was smug.

The way he looks in pictures. Alrighty then.

 

I think what you wrote above would describe Elvis just as well.

Yeah, Elvis did develop some reactionary social views in the early 70s, specifically in relation to illegal drug use and drug culture. He remained progressive in many other ways though. And it's notable that he never publicly expressed these viewpoints nor advocated for them. But more importantly, in the 50s when he started he was socially revolutionary and deliberately challenged the status quo. I don't think it's fair to judge Elvis solely by the drug and jealousy-fueled paranoia of his later years. On the flipside, who knows what would have happened to Parsons had he lived? His compatriot Chris Hillman now espouses hardcore political conservatism... perhaps Parsons would have done likewise.

Ultimately though, I think it makes the most sense to define a style of music by its intrinsic qualities (music and lyrics), rather than the publicly or privately expressed beliefs or worldviews of the musicians.

I think there was a recent interview with Chris Hillman where he characterized Parsons' spontaneous decision to substitute "Hickory Wind" for the song that had been planned at the Byrds' Grand Ole Opry performance (in the process making Tompall Glaser look like a fool live on the air) as "pompous."

 

Is Elvis wearing the NWA Heavyweight Champion belt? Wooooooo!

 

"Cosmic" lends itself to a little bit of LSD inference.

Were these cats proto-CAM after they ditched the Irish guy and a little bit of West Coast country crept into their sound?

 

Whether one agreed with Elvis at the time he was so supportive of Nixon or not, it certainly affected the influence he had. He was also quite disparaging of The Beatles which alone at the time did not make him the encompassing figure I think Parsons was.

I tend to agree that music should be judged by its intrinsic qualities. Where it seems we differ is I think a performer's principles and views of life, the world, society and culture, often affect their music.

In any event I have not judged Elvis's career overall by his later years. But in his later years his overall cultural standing was affected by the considerations you concede, and imho they compare poorly with those of Parsons.

Ftr I think Hillman has a personal agenda when it comes to Parsons which undermines his credibility.