Byrds - Sweetheart of the Rodeo
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Music Reviews of Sweetheart of the Rodeo
Music Review: Beautiful
Rating: 5 Stars
You don't have to be a fan of country & western to appreciate Sweetheart of the Rodeo. I am certainly no C&W fan, but I love this album. Of course, it doesn't hurt that The Byrds are one of my all time favorite groups. I love Roger McGuinn's voice and the harmonies of the band as well as Chris Hillman's super bass playing. This album misses David Crosby, but Gram Parsons fit in wonderfully with the band. Parsons fills in for Crosby nicely and his lead vocals on Hickory Wind and You're Still On My Mind are very nice. You Ain't Goin' Nowhere kicks off the album with a great start, and is yet another great entry in the Byrds' catalog of Dylan covers. Sweetheart is a very different sound than previous Byrds albums (much like The Notorious Byrd Brothers was). There's no 12-string Rickenbacker, only pedal steel this time. There's a lot of nice acoustic rhythm guitar on most of the songs though. This a great album, (not quite as good as Younger Than Yesterday or Notorious Byrd Brothers though) full of beautiful harmonies and peaceful, mellow soothing sounds. Essential for Byrds fans.Music Review: How Can You Follow The Notorious Byrd Brothers ?
Rating: 5 Stars
The Notorious Byrd Brothers from January 1968 set such high standards that The Byrds may have wondered how to follow it.
Apparently Roger McGuinn wanted to do am album of the history of American music from early folk songs to electronic music.
However when Gram Parsons joined the band he convinced the other members that country rock was the way to go and Roger was out voted.
The result later in 1968 was Sweetheart Of The Rodeo, not just country rock, but recorded in Nashville with the top country session musicans.
There are 2 good Bob Dylan songs here, You Ain't Going Nowhere and Nothing Was Delivered.
Woody Guthrie's Pretty Boy Floyd includes some fine banjo picking and both I Am A Pilgrim and The Christian Life are strong Gospel songs.
Of the bonus tracks Lazy Days is close to rockabilly and both You Got A Reputation and Pretty Polly are good enough to have been included on the original LP.
All in all The Byrds, Bob Dylan and others kickstarted country rock which continued with The Eagles and many more during the 1970s and beyond.
Music Review: One for the desert island dilemma!
Rating: 5 Stars
Oh yeah, this is definitely on the list of the top ten CDs you'd have to take with you to that much-discussed desert island (actually, my daughter had to face that dilemma when she spent a semester in Mexico and could only take her 10 favorite CDs...)This is absolutely one of the defining moments of the musical history shared by my generation, those of us who came of age listening to (and have since raised our own kids still listening to!) the great music of the late sixties & early seveneties - Dylan, The Band, The Byrds, early Greatful Dead - ah, just the names take me back to a vibrant and exciting time in our history. Great material, great sound, great musicians - what more can I say?
But since when is this album considered to be "country" music?? Folk, maybe, folk-rock, certainly, but "country" it ain't. Back in the day (as we old folks say), we would never have considered it "country"; we didn't need to categorize it, we just enjoyed it for the great mellow-yet-lively sound and the fantastic songs. Let's keep it that way!
Music Review: Timeless country-folk music
Rating: 5 Stars
Sweetheart of the Rodeo was unpopular when it came out for it's country sound, which was a big departure from the psychedelic rock of the previous Byrds record. That isn't a very fair criticism though, as psychedelic rock is just as far from the Byrds original folk-rock sound as country is. The truth is, country just wasn't popular with rock fans in the late 60s (and it only barely is now, unfortnately).
Sweetheart is the only Byrds record with singer/songwriter/pianist Gram Parsons, a legendary man with a great voice and an incredible musical vision. Though he only sang 2 songs on the original release (8 on the CD), most of the material is the kind of country Parsons writes and loves. There are also a couple folk songs from Roger McGuinn and bluegrass songs from Chris Hillman, which give the album a rustic, early-20th century feel.
Parsons recorded four masterpieces. Sweetheart sounds the most folky and old-timey, while Gilded Palace of Sin is the most R & B and rock influenced, and his two solo albums are the purest country.
Music Review: Country-rock classic
Rating: 4 Stars
There are only two Byrds originals on this album, the rest of the songs being covers of classic country and roots songs. However, don't make you write this album off. The Byrds always had the best covers of other peoples' songs, and this album is a testament to that fact. Despite the fact that at the time the Psyche-Rock crowd and the Country crowd were two warring camps, the Byrds tried to bring both of them together the same way they had done with Folk. The result? A commercial flop that only over time proved to be an incredibly influential album. It was quite a daring move at the time to bring together the two styles of music, and this album proved they were more related than most people beleived at the time period. Another reason for the lack of acclaim for the album at the time was that it didn't sound a lot like the Byrd's earlier albums. Unfortunatly, the band used this as the template for a good amount of their subsequent albums, which may be the reason they tumbled downhill so quickly. The last great Byrds release, and an essential recording.