The Flying Burrito Brothers-Burrito Deluxe Song by Song Thread

Burrito Deluxe
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Studio album by
The Flying Burrito Brothers
Released April 1970
Recorded A&M Studios, Hollywood
Genre Country rock
Length 33:08
Label A&M
Producer Jim Dickson, Henry Lewy

Burrito Deluxe is the second album by the country rock group The Flying Burrito Brothers, released in May 1970 on A&M Records, catalogue 4258. It is the last to feature Gram Parsons prior to his dismissal from the group. It contains the first issued version of the song "Wild Horses," released almost a year before its appearance on Sticky Fingers by The Rolling Stones.

Background
After the release of the group's debut album, ex-Byrd Michael Clarke was hired as the band's full-time drummer — he had recently been performing drumming duties for another band led by another ex-Byrd, Dillard and Clark. In the fall of 1969 bassist Chris Ethridge left out of frustration at the band's lack of success, and in his place the Burritos snagged another member of the disintegrating Dillard and Clark unit, guitarist Bernie Leadon.[3] Chris Hillman then moved over to his old role of bass, making the new Burritos lineup for this their second album Parsons, Hillman, and Pete Kleinow along with Leadon and Clarke. Unfortunately, no one had many new songs to contribute, with Leadon explaining to Parsons biographer David Meyer in 2007, "We started getting together – Gram, Chris, and I – at the A&M lot and trying to write songs. We spent three or four months doing this. It was like pulling teeth. We knew the mechanics of writing music, but the stuff that we did were not Gram's best songs." Hillman concurred to Meyer, "After the brief initial burst Gram and I couldn't seem to hook up again. Burrito Deluxe was recorded without any of the feeling and the intensity of the first album."

Recording and composition
The LP is perhaps best remembered for containing the first recording of "Wild Horses." Parsons, who first met Rolling Stones songwriter and guitarist Keith Richards in 1968, had developed a close friendship with Richards during 1969.[4] Richards gave Parsons a demo tape of "Wild Horses" on December 7, 1969, the day after the concert at Altamont, apparently in an effort to console Parsons after an alleged miscommunication with Michelle Phillips.[5] In the 2004 documentary Gram Parsons: Fallen Angel, Pamela Des Barres states that, "Gram was so proud of the Stones giving him that song to do...'cause that was unusual; the Stones didn't just give songs to people." "Lazy Days" had been recorded by Parsons' previous groups, The International Submarine Band and the Byrds, but neither version was released, although the Byrds' version did eventually surface on the 1990 box set. Burrito Deluxe features a couple of cover songs, including the Conway Twitty country hit "Image of Me", a supercharged version of the Bob Dylan-penned "If You Gotta Go," and the gospel standard "Farther Along".

Parsons began to lose interest in the Burritos and, after missing too many gigs or showing up too inebriated to play, he was fired from the band in June 1970.[6] In the Fallen Angel documentary, Chris Hillman cites Parson's lack of ambition and his growing infatuation with the Rolling Stones as the main reasons for the album's failure: "Gram was starting to wear some pretty interesting stuff on stage. He'd have a scarf and he'd have one of his girlfriend's shirts on, and I used to say, 'This guy is tryin' to look like a cross between Dottie West and Mick Jagger'...Towards his last days in the Burritos, he would be going to our gigs in a limousine – I mean, these were $500 a night shows – and we'd be piling into a separate car with our gear and Gram would show up in a limousine. Gram came from a very wealthy family and had this ongoing trust fund, which was about $55,000 a year, and it's sort of like he had been seduced by all that without quite earning it yet." Parsons later blamed the album's shortcomings on producer Jim Dickson; in the 2007 book, Twenty Thousand Roads biographer David Meyer quotes Parsons: "The second album was a mistake – it was a mistake to get Jim Dickson involved. We should have been more careful than that." Parsons is also quoted expressing his dissatisfaction with steel guitarist "Sneaky" Pete Kleinow: "Chris (Hillman) knew all along that Sneaky wasn't the right steel player. Chris digs Sneaky more than I do 'cause he likes that dut dut dut dut that Sneaky could pull off. I wanted a Tom Brumley. Then I'd settle for anybody that played slide guitar with pedals on it. I wanted a brilliant-sounding, good, fast, pedal steel player."

Unlike the intriguing album cover that graced The Gilded Palace of Sin, the artwork for Burrito Deluxe is almost a throwaway by comparison, featuring a pair of stale burritos, the upper one edged in hand-sewn sequins, with a small photograph of the band wearing white coveralls superimposed over one of the burritos.

Reception
Burrito Deluxe was a commercial disappointment, failing to crack the Billboard 200. It was also a critical disappointment, unlike the band's lauded debut LP, with Mark Deming of AllMusic opining, "... while it is hardly a bad album, it's not nearly as striking as The Gilded Palace of Sin. Parsons didn't deliver many noteworthy originals for this set, with 'Cody, Cody' and 'Older Guys' faring best but paling next to the highlights from the previous album." In the Parson's article "The Lost Boy," Mojo writer John Harris observes that the album "mislaid just about all of the charm that had accompanied their debut, though it contained a handful of decent songs: 'Older Guys,' 'Cody Cody,' and 'High Fashion Queen.'" In the liner notes to the 1997 reissue that paired it with the Burritos's debut, Sid Griffin writes of Burrito Deluxe, "Out went the R&B torch ballads, in came rock and roll...Burrito Deluxe is nonetheless required listening in Introducing To Country-Rock 101 at university."

Track listing
Side one
No. Title Writer(s) Length
1. "Lazy Days" Gram Parsons 3:03
2. "Image of Me" Harlan Howard, Wayne Kemp 3:21
3. "High Fashion Queen" Chris Hillman, Gram Parsons 2:09
4. "If You Gotta Go" Bob Dylan 1:52
5. "Man in the Fog" Bernie Leadon, Gram Parsons 2:32
6. "Farther Along" J.R. Baxter, W.B. Stevens 4:02

Side two
No. Title Writer(s) Length
1. "Older Guys" Chris Hillman, Bernie Leadon, Gram Parsons 2:31
2. "Cody, Cody" Chris Hillman, Bernie Leadon, Gram Parsons 2:46
3. "God's Own Singer" Bernie Leadon 2:08
4. "Down in the Churchyard" Chris Hillman, Gram Parsons 2:22
5. "Wild Horses" Mick Jagger, Keith Richards 6:26
Personnel
Musicians

• Gram Parsons – vocals, rhythm guitar, keyboards
• Chris Hillman – vocals, bass, mandolin
• Sneaky Pete Kleinow – pedal steel guitar
• Bernie Leadon – vocals, guitar, Dobro
• Michael Clarke – drums

Additional personnel

• Leon Russell – piano on "Man in the Fog" and "Wild Horses"
• Byron Berline – fiddle
• Tommy Johnson – tuba
• Buddy Childers – cornet, flugelhorn
• Leopoldo C. Carbajal – accordion
• Frank Blanco – percussion

 

The Bear rides again!

 

I bought the album in 1970 or 71. At that point I had never had a burrito & had no idea what a burrito was, so the cover was a puzzle to me. I thought those things were made of cloth. Little did I know that one day I would be on a burritos-every-day diet.

 

Lazy Days (Parsons)

Opens with an introduction in Spanish that I agree with. The song roars out of the box with the chorus that starts on D in country boogie style. At :25 a little twist on the standard blues stuff with a C chord that goes to the D chord. The chorus finally turns around and then at :43 the verse kicks in with an A chord…..the song’s key. I like how Gram keeps you thinking and anticipating instead of just banging us over the head like some rock songs do. The verse section is straight up 12 bar blues with country fried licks in between. At 1:09 the chorus returns, and the harmonies are great. The break has a little passing chord thing starting it off and then some fine guitar interplay between Pete and Hillman…or is it Gram? Probably Bernie. The verse returns and the band is cookin’ like a barbeque. The chorus returns and the refrain is repeated in jaunty fashion over the A chord but listen to those bluesy harmonies. The song slows down and comes to an end.

How can you not like this song? Enough twists and turns to make it country and not straight blues rock. A fine opener and one of my favorites from the FBBs.

Yeah Jane's Addiction probably got the idea from this song.

 

Question. Are those white outfits that the band is wearing, pary of the costumes for the Sci-fi film Gram was working on?

 

It would not surprise me if they were.

 

Yeah, I did to. It looks really odd, and with the band’s outfits it looks like a throwback to some of the strange Byrds covers.

 

Sneeky.

 

Please buy our album!

 

Such good boys!

 

I guess I am riding bear back. Sorry.

 

I am glad they got rid of the Chuck Berry double stops on the BD version.
Yeah we get that you can play like Chuck Berry on Johnny B. Goode.
Smart to get rid of that G chord in the chorus as well.

 

And they’re off to a rockin’ start. What a great tune. Lazy Days made its first appearance in The Trip, and it was only an appearance because the Electric Flag’s music was dubbed in.

 

It took me a long time to realize they're wearing food-prep gloves.

 

A weird cover to say the least. Maybe it was to show that they made the burritos on the front cover?

 

Yes they are. Gram played one of four aliens who wore decontamination suits and gas masks. The album cover I think fits this album perfectly, because it's kind of a slapdash pile of random ideas that look like nobody put much thought into it and took about two seconds to design.

 

They didn't get rid of it per se. The Chuck Berry guitar was overdubbed by McGuinn in the early 90s.

Lazy Days is not a favorite of mine. It was rejected twice before Gram finally managed to get it released. Musically it's kinda fun but lyrically it's a lazy mess. "I'm gonna make you worry none about your income tax"? Really not GP's finest hour there. Such a dramatic difference in sound from the first album... it seems especially disappointing if you listen to it on a twofer with Gilded Palace.

 

I forgot about that with McGuinn. Boy did he screw it up with the feeble attempts at Chuck Berry double stops.

 

I have to say that you are without a doubt, the most knowledgeable person of the Flying Burrito Brothers that I have ever encountered. You have corrected me numerous times on these threads and I thank you for it. Your know greatness when you hear it!
Add The Byrds in as well!

 

Always loved this song from the first listen. Gram Rocks?? WTF? A rollicking good time for all opener. Fun lyrics, good guitar pickin' with slide guitar included. Clarke bashes away and the tune rolls down the highway like big 18 wheeler. To bad this album had to follow one of the best debut releases maybe ever, perhaps history would be kinder. Nothing they did after was going to top TGPOS. But putting that aside and And examining BD as a stand alone album-pretty damn good in my book. No shame in following a 5 star release with a 4 star. No sophomore jinx that I can hear.

 

This album is great just because of one recording: "Image of Me", the Harlan Howard song. Genius choice.

"I met her in a little country town
She was simple and old fashioned in some ways.
But she loved me till I dragged her down
Then she just gave up and drifted away."


(oops... I jumped ahead)

 

Image of Me (Howard/Kemp)

Opens with a fiddle pickup from Byron Berline and the verse follows in the country key of A. Lots of great stuff in the mix but no one ever overplays. The pre chorus at :43 has the FBB chorus in full flight. The chorus that follows is great as well with Hillman playing some rock type melodic lines on the bass. The bass is high in the mix. The break at 1:15 has fine fiddle staying melodic and Bernie follows in suit with his great double stop solo that also stays close to the melody. The verse follows and everyone sounds in step…..country waltzing along. The pre chorus and chorus follow. At 2:55 the chorus repeats and the song slows to a conclusion with a full wordless cadence.

A fine version of this great C and W blues variant tune that both Conway Twitty and the Old Possum did well with. I have read that fans think Gram sounds like he could care less here but it does not sound that way to me. Another winner from the album.

 

the gram parsons story is told here, en totem.

 

I need to watch Fallen Angel again at some point. It has been a while.

 

Chris said he and Gram didn't really hook up again to write songs together like they did on the first album and the newer originals were thrown together at A&M while the album was being recorded (and kind of sound like it: I'm guessing this oldie was probably dug up because of the lack of newer original material. Its not terrible, but its not on par with the bar set by the first album. They had cut the Train Song after the 1st album but I guess the band was unhappy with the recording and it was made by a different lineup (although Hillman recycled the tune later for SHF). The other originals aren't terrible but they are also a little pedestrian.