Twenty Thousand Roads: The Ballad of Gram Parsons and His Cosmic American Music

Twenty Thousand Roads: The Ballad of Gram Parsons and His Cosmic American Music | David Meyer | Solid bio

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Twenty Thousand Ro...

	Twenty Thousand Roads: The Ballad of Gram Parsons and His Cosmic American Music David Meyer Villard, 2008 - 592 pages average customer review:based on 19 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

As a singer and songwriter, Gram Parsons stood at the nexus of countless musical crossroads, and he sold his soul to the devil at every one. His intimates and collaborators included Keith Richards, William Burroughs, Marianne Faithfull, Peter Fonda, Roger McGuinn, and Clarence White. Parsons led the Byrds to create the seminal country rock masterpiece Sweetheart of the Rodeo, helped to guide the Rolling Stones beyond the blues in their appreciation of American roots music, and found his musical soul mate in Emmylou Harris. Parsons? solo albums, GP and Grievous Angel, are now recognized as visionary masterpieces of the transcendental jambalaya of rock, soul, country, gospel, and blues Parsons named ?Cosmic American Music.? Parsons had everything?looks, charisma, money, style, the best drugs, the most heartbreaking voice?and threw it all away with both hands, dying of a drug and alcohol overdose at age twenty-six.

In this beautifully written, raucous, meticulously researched biography, David N. Meyer gives Parsons? mythic life its due. From interviews with hundreds of the famous and obscure who knew and worked closely with Parsons?many who have never spoken publicly about him before?Meyer conjures a dazzling panorama of the artist and his era.

Praise for Twenty Thousand Roads

NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY THE LOS ANGELES TIMES

NAMED ONE OF THE FIVE BEST ROCK BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY ROLLING STONE

?Far and away the most thorough biography of Parsons . . . skewers any number of myths surrounding this endlessly mythologized performer.?
?Los Angeles Times

?A terrific biography of a rock innovator that hums with juicy detail and wincing truth. . . . Page after page groans with the folly of the ?60s drug culture, the tragedy of talent toasted before its time, the curse of wealth and the madness of wasted opportunity.?
?The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

?The definitive account of Gram Parsons? life?and early death. From the country-rock pioneer?s wealthy, wildly dysfunctional family through his symbiotic friendship with Keith Richards, Meyer deftly illuminates one of rock?s most elusive figures.?
?Rolling Stone

?Meticulously researched . . . Though Meyer answers a lot of long-burning questions, he preserves Parsons? legend as a man of mystery.?
?Entertainment Weekly

?Meyer gives Parsons a thorough, Peter Guralnick-like treatment.?
?New York Post

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GRAM PARSONS "TWENTY THOUSAND ROADS" BOOK

THIS IS AN EXCELLENT COMPANION TO THE DVD "GRAM PARSONS - FALLEN ANGEL".

IT IS VERY COMPREHESIVE, AND COVERS GRAM'S LIFE FROM CHILDHOOD, THROUHGOUT HIS LIFE AND CAREER. IT COVERS HIS BIRTH IN WINTERHAVEN, FLORIDA (HE WAS BORN TO A WEATHLY SOUTHERN FAMILY WHO OWNED NEARLY HALF OF THE ORANGE GROVES IN FLORIDA). IT COVERS THAT HE MOVED TO WAYCROSS, GEORGIA AS AN EARLY CHILD, AND THE INFLUENCE THAT HIS SOUTHERN UPBRINING HAD ON HIM.

THE BOOK COVERS HIS MUSICAL CAREER IN THE INTERNATIONAL SUBMARINE BAND, THE BYRDS, THE FLYING BURITTO BROTHERS, AND HIS SOLO ALBUMS (WITH EMMLY LOU HARRIS).

HIS MUSIC WAS VERY UNIQUE AND SPECIAL!!!

GRAM WAS LEGENDARY FOR BRIDGING THE GAP BETWEEN COUNTRY MUSIC AND ROCK AND ROLL. HE LIKED TO CALL IT "COSMIC AMIERICAN MUSIC".

MOST OF HIS CAREER WAS SPENT IN CALIFORNIA. HE LOVED THE JOSUHA TREEE NATIOANL PARK.

THE BOOK COVERS HIS EARLY DEATH AT THE JOSUHA TREE PARK LODGE. IT COVERS THE CONTROVERY OVER THE STEALING OF HIS BODY, WHERE MOST OF IT WAS BURNED IN THE JOSUHA TREE PARK. (THIS WAS A PACK HE HAD MADE WITH HIS MANAGER). HOWEVER, HIS REMAINING FAMILY WANTED HIM TO BE BURIED IN NEW ORLEANS, SO WHAT WAS LEFT OF HIS BODY, WAS BURIED IN METARIE, NEAR NEW ORLEANS.

THIS IS A GREAT BOOK, ABOUT A GREAT AMERICAN MUSIC LEGEND, WHO DIED WAY TOO SOON. HOWEVER, HIS MUSIC WILL LAST FOREVER!!!

THIS IS A GREAT BOOK TO GO WITH THE DVD GRAM PARSONS "FALLEN ANGEL"!!! I RECOMMEND THEM BOTH!!!

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Solid bio

Meyer patiently, carefully lays out what he can of the life of Gram Parsons, from well before his birth to well after his death in 1973. While no biography can ever claim to be exhaustive (not Boswell's fat Life of Johnson, nor Malone's 6-volume Jefferson), Meyer does as fine and thorough a job of explaining GP's life as one might expect. At well over 500 pages, the book never seems too much in a hurry, and this is mostly a positive, though I learned a bit more about the pre-Gram days than I cared to.

But it's all here, laid out well: family wealth and decadent, alcoholic lifestyles, his father's--Coon Dog's--suicide, his mother Avis's death by alchohol, his stepfather's (Bob Parson's) later death by the same, his love of music (the ongoing explanation of this is one of the book's greatest strengths), early bands, flunking out of Harvard, various girlfriends and wives, life in NYC, then LA, playing with the Intl Sub Band, the Byrds, the Burritos, and his solo career (w/ Emmylou), his friendship with Keith Richards (and the jealously of Mick), drug use (and more drug use), commercial failures and artistic successes, the fateful day at Joshua Tree and the tragic foolishness regarding his corpse. Meyer leaves few stones unturned. He has done his homework on Parsons, he has obviously spent a lot of time interviewing familiy members and friends, and he has great respect for and understanding of Parsons's music, as well as that of his contemporaries and his many influences (Elvis, Buck Owens, Merle Haggard, George Jones, the Louvin Brothers, etc.).

What keeps me from giving this a five-star review is, in part, some wordiness and repetition. The length doesn't bother me so much as some laziness in revision. Tightly-written prose this is not. Also, some of Meyer's opinions seem questionable. As one reviewer points out, the idea that GP is a superior record to Grievous Angel is a bit odd, at best. (When I read that, I said out loud, "You've gotta be kidding me!") I think Grievous is GP's very best record, though I also love the first Burritos record. (I'd put GP third.) Meyer goes on and on about how badly that record--the first Burritos (Gilded Palace of Sin)--is produced. I say, make your point and move on, man! It doesn't seem all that badly produced; I like its rawness. I also disagree with him regarding Parsons's touring band, the Fallen Angels, which he disses pretty throroughly as a "mediocre band." They were actually pretty good. Meyer makes other claims that strike me as iffy, at best.

Meyer claims that Parsons is more central in American music than Dylan or anyone else. That is hogwash. For what it's worth, I don't think ANYONE is as central as Dylan, though, to say the least, it's difficult to quantify influence. Yet I do believe that Parsons's influence is enormous and enduring, and Meyer gives good insight into why this is true. I recommend this book without hesitation to anyone interested in knowing more about this great musician. Not that I don't want to know about his drug use, girlfriends, palling around with the rich and famous, and so on, but I care much more about the life of the mind--what makes the man tick--and Meyer delivers sufficiently on that.

P.S. Living in northeast Arkansas, I was horrified and embarrassed to read Meyer's account of GP's rough--but perhaps partially justified--treatment by the Blytheville police in 1973. (Some of the Stones, following Parsons' lead, would get busted in the state a few years later!) But the explanation of what led the police to beat and arrest him, supplied by Fallen Angels guitarist Jock Bartley, made me laught out loud. At 2:30 AM Parsons and his wife are arguing loudly in their motel room, so responding to a complaint, the police arrive and pound loudly on his motel door. Bartley: "Gram, reacting to the aggressive police, staggers and takes a step back and launches a roundhouse right punch that misses by three or four feet, I mean it wasn't even close." The next day Parsons was out of jail, and the band couldn't leave Arkansas quickly enough.

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Decent Rock n Roll Bio

I've read many biographies of rock personalities and other famous people. This one is better than most. It provides a balanced viewpoint with input from varying sources. A good read for Gram Parsons fans.

Did the author do much fact-checking? At all???

I've already read the Ben Fong-Torres bio, as well as the Sid Griffin bio.....now, while I am not a Gram-o-phile, I am most definitely a Nez-head. And based on the countless errors I am reading about Mike Nesmith, I wonder just how much research went into this book?

1) "Nesmith...the iconic Monkee, the one who could actually play his instrument." Never mind that Peter Tork was a clasically trained pianist, French horn player and FAR better guitarist than Nesmith...

2) Red Rhodes was "a regular contributor to ex-Monkee Michael Nesmith's country-rock First National Band." Hmmm...seems he ought to have been *in* the band with all of those contributions....oh wait....he was.

3) David Barry "played piano on Michael Nesmith's Country Time Records recordings." They served a lot of lemonade during those sessions, apparently. It was Countryside Records.

4) Red Rhodes "played on Elvis Presley's records." Let's name them:

5)Red Rhodes was the CMA's "Steel Guitar Player of the Year from 1965 through 1968." Close...but Red did not win in 1966. Ralph Mooney and Tom Brumley shared the award that year.

That many omissions on some sidebars to the main story make me wonder how many omissions are in the main story itself.

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Slow going in the beginning

This book starts REALLY slowly!!! It digs really deeply into Gram's family ..... generations before he's born. I'm sure the stories about his well-to-do family was meant to add background to his own messed-up personality. But it was really boring. The book picks up when Gram finally gets out and starts making music.

reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4

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