<p>Maybe it’s my advancing age, but I really enjoy quirky music. I was lucky enough to stumble across a really interesting album released a couple months ago. A compilation tribute album of Alternative Country artists performing Rolling Stones covers.</p>
<p>It’s not as as crazy as it sounds. The Stones had a distinctly country influence in the Sticky Fingers/Exile on Main Street era, in part encouraged by Gram Parsons hanging out in France shooting heroin and signing country songs with Keith Richards during the recording of Exile.</p>
<p>Anyway, if you like Alternative Country and the Rolling Stones, this a terrific album to download. Here are few samples for listening on the internets:</p>
<p>Ooops. They’ve linked the wrong song for the Cowboy Junkies track. If I find another link I’ll add it.</p>
<p>In the meantime, here’s one that may have inspired this album: Jack White doing an alt-country version of Lovin Cup with the Rolling Stones at Bill Clinton’s 60th birthday party:</p>
<p>[The</a> Rolling Stones with Jack White-Loving Cup - YouTube](<a href=“- YouTube”>- YouTube)</p>
<p>OK. Myspace has the links to most of these songs all screwed up. So if you click on the links, you may get a different song from the album. Oh well.</p>
<p>What makes you alt? I think you could argue that The Byrds or the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, which preceded Flying Burrito Brothers by two years could also have that title.</p>
<p>Flying Burrito Brothers was Gram Parsons’ second country rock band. He started the International Submarine band in Boston when he dropped out of Harvard his first semester in the fall of 1965. They recorded a demo of Buck Owen’s Truck Driving Man. A second iteration of the band, funded by Parsons trust fund in Los Angeles, released an album with the first recording of Parson’s classic “Luxury Liner”, later a title track for an Emmylou Parsons album with Elvis’ band. That was released in 1967, with Parsons immediately departing to form the Flying Burrito Brothers with Chris Hillman from the Byrds. Their first album in 1969 is so good, although I think the definitive Gram Parsons records are the two “solo” albums that are actually duets with Emmylou Harris and Elvis’ rockabilly band (James Burton, etc.) as the hired guns in the studio.</p>
<p>The Byrds really hard-cord country-rock album was Sweetheart of the Rodeo, with heavy influence from Parsons who had moved from the Flying Burritto Brothers.</p>
<p>Of course, it would be hard to underestimate the role of Bob Dylan releasing Nashville Skyline in 1969 which made Johnny Cash “cool” and probably led to the rise of his drug and drink buddy Waylon Jennings and the whole outlaw country scene. </p>
<p>This all picked up by Jerry Garcia on American Beauty, Workingman’s Dead, and his pedal-steel guitar practice band: New Riders of the Purple Sage.</p>
<p>In a way, it was an amazing five year period melding rock and country – which in a way, is kind of where it all started in the first place with Elvis in the 1950s.</p>
<p>There are some other lines of tradition here, too: </p>
<ol>
<li><p>Everyone in Buffalo Springfield came out of some sort of country music background, especially Neil Young, Richie Furay, and Jim Messina. Furay and Messina recorded “Kind Woman”, pretty much a straight country song, in 1968 with Buffalo Springfield, and then formed Poco with some other session players from that album. Poco’s “Pickin’ Up The Pieces” was released about the same time as the Flying Burrito Brothers record and Nashville Skyline.</p></li>
<li><p>Jerry Garcia had been playing in country and bluegrass bands long before forming The Grateful Dead, and he and Bob Weir formed a country-oriented jug band as early as 1964, and Pigpen also came out of country-western bands. Although the Dead didn’t release Workingman’s Dead until 1970, they played a lot of country music privately, and their first live album had included a country-gospel closing song.</p></li>
<li><p>The Band never did Nashville-style, steel-guitar country music much, but they were a rockabilly band in the early ‘60s with Ronnie Hawkins, and the music they were playing with Bob Dylan during the Basement Tapes period was clearly country rock. As were their albums, when they started releasing them in 1968. Music From Big Pink included a cover of country standard “Long Black Veil” and Dylan’s very countryish “I Shall Be Released”.</p></li>
<li><p>Finally, there was also the whole folk-rock jug-band tradition that carried over pretty directly from the folk revival in the 50s. That included The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, Jim Kweskin Jug Band (w/ Maria Muldaur), NRBQ, and, especially, The Mamas and the Papas and The Lovin’ Spoonful, both of whom had mass-market country-flavored hits in the mid-60s.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>While I’m not really a Stones fan, I can think of 2 quirky songs they did.</p>
<p>“Girl with Far-Away Eyes” has a very country sound, and Mick tries to have a southern U.S. accent.
“Undercover of the Night”, from late '82 or early '83 has a very disco sound drum/cymbal beat. Given the year they made it, that sound is not so unusual, but coming from the rock-and-roll Stones sure is.</p>
<p>Country from the Stones? Disco from the Stones? Yes to both.</p>
<p>Yep, I’ve got plenty of Buffalo Springfield, Flying Burrito Brothers, Byrds, early Dead, Stones, Little Feat, Poco, Emmy Lou in vinyl. One of these days when I have the time I need to rip it to digital. Used to go hear Byron Berline play at the Banjo Cafe in Santa Monica before they turned it into a Thai restaurant. The Palomino was also a great place for music. All good stuff, though I liked the Stones’ country tunes better than their brief disco phase.</p>
<p>I personally think the most breathtaking Stones cover is the dark haunting version of Brown Sugar that Ryan Adams and Beth Orton recorded for a British compilation of Stones covers. It really captures the ugliness of the lyrics (about whipping and abuse of slave girls) and makes it impossible for me to listen to the bouncy Stones version:</p>
<p>Their subsequent breakup led to this terrific Ryan Adams song about Beth Orton. Actually, in keeping with the Stones associations, a duet with Ryan Adams and Marianne Faithful (with a Dylan twist in the title):</p>
<p>[English</a> Girls Approximately - Ryan Adams and Marianne Faithful](<a href=“- YouTube”>- YouTube)</p>
<p>Glad to see that there are others out there that like the alt country and quirky music, and remember the origins (Flying Burrito Brothers, Byrds,etc). </p>
<p>One of my favorite albums is Old and In the Way with Jerry Garcia, David Grisman, etc. </p>
<p>Does anyone remember the follow on to the Byrds, sort of, the Desert Rose Band with Chris Hillman? Saw them at a well-known bluegrass/country venue in Virginia, the Birchmere.</p>
<p>There’s nothing like an Emmylou Harris record, and I love the album she made with Mark Knopfler. </p>
<p>I’l have to check out the Rolling Stones tribute. Sounds very interesting.</p>
<p>Amen, on the Emmylou Harris albums. Most of the early ones feature the same Elvis Presley band members that recorded the two Gram Parsons “solo” albums. For anyone not familiar with the Parsons/Emmylou duets:</p>
<p>I had Old and in the Way in college. That and Nitty Gritty Dirt Band was my introduction to bluegrass music – well actually a revisiting. All during my childhood, the local TV station had gospel music on Sunday morining. One hour of black gospel groups and one hour of ol’ timey white bluegrass gospel – live from the rinky dink local TV studios. (The same gospel promotor was also the local wresltlng promotor). Of course, I hated it as a kid, but I think both left an indelible mark.</p>
<p>For those who don’t mind a classical influence thrown in, I recommend The Goat Rodeo Sessions, the very recent bluegrass/classical CD with Yo Yo Ma, Chris Thile, Stuart Duncan and Edgar Meyer.</p>
<p>My intro to Bluegrass was a biology PhD student who spent more time playing the banjo than working on his thesis! Eventually he knuckled down, but not until he’d won all the local contests and they made him a judge! Just looked him up - his wiki page has him playing the banjo! Anyway he introduced me to David Grisman. I think it was another housemate who had the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band and Old and in the Way.</p>
<p>Lets not forget Sun Studios and the rockabilly artists (in addition to Johnny Cash, who is the best!), but people like Jerry Lee. Roy Orbison and the influential Carl Perkins. And of course the outlaws, Waylon and Willie, to name but two. </p>
<p>When I was dating my husband, we went to hear the Dead; they played “Mama Tried” - my husband thought they wrote it, not the fabulous Merle Haggard.</p>
<p>For great country/rock, have you checked out Dwight Yoakum?</p>
<p>I’ll have to check that out. I have a DVD of a live concert with Yo Yo Ma, Edgar Meyer, and bluegrass fiddle virtuoso, Mark O’Conner. Appalachian Journey:</p>
<p>Don’t get me started on Dwight Yoakam. I’ve seen him live three times. His show with guitarist extraordinaire Pete Anderson might be the hardest rockin’ concert I’ve ever seen. </p>
<p>They kicked him out of Nashville when he first showed up. Told him that he was “too country” for Nashville. So he got his start playing hard-core rockabilly in the punk-rock clubs of Los Angeles before finally making it huge in Nashville.</p>
<p>And, on the theme, Dwight and Pete Anderson recorded a cover of an early Stones song. Fantastic:</p>
<p>[The</a> Last Time - Dwight Yoakam](<a href=“- YouTube”>- YouTube)</p>
<p>How 'bout a Dwight Yoakam/kd lang duet of a Gram Parsons/Chris Hillman Flying Burrito Brothers song?</p>
<p>I discovered Dwight Yoakam on a Grateful Dead tribute album. He and Pete Anderson contributed a seriously hard-rockin’ version of Truckin with some relentlessly smokin’ guitar playing:</p>