Sweetheart of the Rodeo

[77jordan]

I'm just gonna throw this out there, that this is my favourite Byrds album. Gram Parsons' b-bender just warms my heart. With the ric rhythm and Roger's vocals, you just can't go wrong. I think they peaked here. Thoughts?

[antipodean]

I love this album - and I'm not exactly a country/country-rock fan. It is soulful and authentic rather than swaggering and commercial. I'm not sure if it is their very best (given the quality of their output) but it's a big contender, and IMHO one of the all-time landmark albums.

Before I heard this my knowledge of the Byrds was limited to MTM and 8 Miles high. This really opened my eyes and ears right up!

[jimk]

There are several points of confusion here. (Excuse me if I seem a little pedantic. I guess it's my teacher habit of mind coming to the fore.) Gram Parsons was hired as keyboardist and vocalist for the Byrds. Gene Parsons (no relation) along with Clarence White invented the B bender. Lloyd Green is the steel guitar player you hear on Sweetheart. Clarence recorded tracks on "Younger Than Yesterday", and "Sweetheart of the Rodeo", officially joining the band for "Notorious Byrd Brothers", "Byrdmaniax", "Untitled", and "Dr. Byrds, Mr. Hyde." (I think I have this correct. The above albums are not necessarily listed in chronological order.) Post 1967 Byrds history gets a little confusing as personnel changes were frequent, especially as regards bass players and drummers.

Nevertheless, I can remember when SOTR came out in '68 what an eye opener that was for me musically. Finally, I discovered that you didn't have to sing through your nose to sing country music. That LP was really what turned me onto country music. And to this day, that sound is the ideal which has influenced so much of my song writing.

JimK

[sloop_john_b]

Is there ANY B-bender on that record? I think it's all pedal steel.

My fave Byrds record too.

[gibsonlp]

Perhaps I should give it a 2nd chance and listen to the whole album but this was the first time I bought an album of a band I like and never heard it pass the first song-zapping, I honestly got the feeling of "what a waste of money" after doing a sweep through the songs.
It was too much country for me, and I just don't like country music...

[Don Miller]

There is no stringbender on Sweetheart. At the time Sweetheart was recorded, Gene Parsons was installing the first stringbender in a sunburst 1954 tele. Clarence used a white tele, originally owned by Buck Owens for the Sweetheart sessions. That guitar is now owned by Bob Warford. Bob installed the second stringbender in that guitar, using Gene's plans. Bob was a sideman for Linda Ronstandt and the guitar is prominant on her version of Willin' The Clarence with his stringbender first appeared on the Dr. Byrds album.

What you hear on Sweetheart that sounds like a stringbender are actually behind the nut and finger bends.

James Burton also plays on the album but is not credited

[77jordan]

I guess I just thought there was because of the videos:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4gD84jbVV3c

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iwXYgMDo ... re=related

but I guess this was after the album

[Folkie]

I'm embarrassed never to have owned a copy of "Sweetheart." I know the album was ahead of its time, but I'm just not into country-rock. My favorites will always be the first three Byrds records. To each his own!

[Don Miller]

guess I just thought there was because of the videos:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4gD84jbVV3c

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iwXYgMDo ... re=related

but I guess this was after the album

The first clip is from "Playboy After Dark" with the Dr Byrds-Easy Rider line up..this was shortly after Clarence and Gene Parsons joined the band. Clarence covers the pedal steel parts with his stringbender...which was pretty new at the time...the second was from a movie..the Untitled-Byrdmanix-Further Along version of the band with Skip Battin on Bass...thats Earl Scruggs and his son, among others.

I dont think theres alot of live recordings of the Sweetheart era Byrds availble except for a show at the Piper Club in Rome with Doug Dillard on Banjo and, I believe, JD Manness on pedal steel

[vynesmusic]

I personally hardly ever played SOTR after I bought it, tho I was haunted by "Hickory Wind".....the album was a huge influence on the band I was in at the time----we all started writting country songs, and it INDEED was the first album that the nasal twang was not the dominant vocal feature....Rick Nelson was the pioneer in bringing country to the hippies.....he was vastly underrated, and he had James Burton and Randy Meisner in his band at one time.....

I saw the original 5 Byrds in 1966, along with Paul Revere and the Raiders and The We Five......sound systems were non-existant in those days, and all you could hear thru the screaming girls was the tinkle of the Rick, the snap of the snare and the vibration of Hillman's bass---I remembered being disappointed with the vocals, tho it was not their fault....

Later, I saw the Clarence White, Gene Parsons, Skip Battin, McGuinn line-up several times; one time I was less that 10 feet away.....whadda trip......always wondered why Clarence looked like he was constantly adjusting his strap found out about the string bender later......that band always sounded like a cover band when they played some of the original Byrds' hits......only McGuinn's voice and the Rick brought any original flavor to EMH, Bells of Rhymney or Feel A Whole Lot Better........Crosby's voice and Hillman's bass just weren't there.....

Later, in 1995, I got a chance to open for Skip Battin's Byrds tribute band, and there were several cuts played from SOTR with that band......Skip sang "Well Come Back Home", and played a battered P-bass, and did not look at all healthy. I had been communicating via email with McGuinn, back before he took himself out of that loop, and he wasn't very happy about that band touring. The other cats in that band were Nashville residents, and that was why, I believe, SOTR was so well featured.

My eternal favorite Byrd album will always be "Notorious Byrd Brothers", very closely preceded by "5D"

[tnelson]

I think on the Byrds Younger than Yesterday LP Clarence White (before he joined) was pulling the string behind the nut or having Gene do it while he played the note, thats when they came up with the idea.
Gene worked on bikes, wasnt the b-bender old motorcycle and pedal steel parts?

[Chris82]

The prototype B-Bender is owned by Marty Stuart. It's super "road worn" and sounds GREAT in person!

[chucksimms]

Interesting that some folks are brave enough to say they don't like this album! It's one of those albums you're supposed to acknowledge as flawless (like Love's Forever Changes) when part of you thinks, 'Yeah, I like it, but it's not perfect/best album ever made'. My feelings are ambivalent about this one too; I like it but to me it's two different records.

Gram was a footnote in the Byrds, and for this album the Gram Parsons' stuff is too incongruous for me. Before I get hectored too much, let me be clear: I LOVE Gram and have played his solo albums to death, but the tracks that set the tone for what could have been are the two Dylan tracks (You Ain't Goin' Nowhere and Nothing Was Delivered). They aren't that far off from Mr. Spaceman and if they'd have had another ten tracks that were similar in production and material I think the album would have been a little more cogent musically.

After Notorious this one certainly makes for some heavy gear changing, that's for sure. And though there's tracks I love on every album, for me The Byrds ended with SOTR.

[drumbob]

SOTR was an eye-opener for me too. I didn't expect it to be so country, that's for sure. Once I gave it a fair chance, I fell in love with it. It was truly my first positive experience with country music, outside of Johnny Cash's earlier stuff. The Byrds were experimenting with country all along, but this time, they dove right in.

[jimk]

Yeah, I think without SOTR and later "Gilded Palace of Sin" by the Flying Burrito Brothers, I wouldn't have given country music any serious attention, either.
JimK