The Byrds - The Gilded Palace of Sin (1969)

The Byrds released their sixth album, Sweetheart of the Rodeo, in August 1968. It came after a schism in the group, where guitarist David Crosby and drummer Michael Clarke left the group, right before the release of their 1967 album The Notorious Byrd Brothers. For a while, the group carried on as a trio, augmented by drummer Kevin Kelley, who also happened to be bass player Chris Hillman's cousin. The band was unsure about how they would carry on, with leader and guitarist Roger McGuinn plotting a double album which would consist of the history of popular music, from old 1930's folk music to the music from the future, complete with synthesizers. This project was supposed to be called 20c, and he wanted a jazz pianist to join the group, in order to make the double album possible. That in of itself is a great opportunity for a reconstruction, which Albums Back from the Dead already tackled very well. McGuinn thought he got his wish of a piano player when, in a chance encounter at an LA bank, bass player Hillman met Gram Parsons, songwriter, singer, and then was still a member of the International Submarine Band, one of the biggest pioneers in the country-rock genre, which was itself still in its formative years as of 1968. Since Parsons could play the piano, he joined the Byrds that February, and the band set out to perform shows and plan their next steps as a group. He and Chris bonded over their shared love of Buck Owens, Merle Haggard and other country music legends, and together convinced McGuinn to scrap his plans of a double concept album in favor of a full-on Byrds country music record, captained mostly by those two. McGuinn agreed, and the new Byrds lineup set out to Columbia Studios in Nashville to make what is probably one of the greatest country-rock albums of all time.

The problem is, it really wasn't recognized as such back then. A disastrous performance at Nashville's traditional Grand Ole Opry, where they were heckled for their long hair, and an appearance at DJ Ralph Emery's radio show, where they were ridiculed by Emery as not real country performers, and he very heavily criticized their single "You Ain't Going Nowhere" before playing it. That, combined with the very poor commercial performance of the record (it managed to be "too rock" for country radio and "too country" for the so-called progressive FM stations) already brought on some tension to the band, with a power struggle between McGuinn and Parsons starting to form. Parsons had ambitious plans for the band, including a deeper dive into the country genre, which involved integrating pedal steel guitar player JayDee Maness into the band, and crediting them as "Gram Parsons and the Byrds". Things came to a head when, right before a South African tour, Parsons left the band on the grounds that he did not want to play for segregated audiences, and stayed in London to hang out with the Rolling Stones. With that, guitarist Clarence White was recruited, with his friend drummer Gene Parsons (no relation) replacing Kelley on the drums. This lineup only lasted about a month, with Hillman following Parsons' lead and leaving the band, in order to form The Flying Burrito Brothers with him. However, McGuinn decided to carry on, and with new bassist John York, they cut the very bipolar Dr. Byrds and Mr. Hyde in late 1968, a strange but well performed mixture of psychedelic rock and country. It was followed by the Burritos' The Gilded Palace of Sin, which featured a much more country sound, and that meant the Sweetheart LP gave birth to two very different followups, by the two different sides of the story.

What you might already be asking yourself is: what would the follow-up to Sweetheart of the Rodeo look like, had Gram Parsons and Chris Hillman stayed in the Byrds? And to figure out how a second Parsons-era Byrds album would look like, we can look at Sweetheart of the Rodeo and make some parallels in how we will compile this album. Sweetheart was an 11-track album, with nine covers and two original songs, with the lead vocals shared more or less equally between McGuinn, Hillman, and Parsons. When comparing the material we have available for this album with the songs they recorded then, however, one thing that's clear is that there is much more original material available for us right now, as those three seem to have started writing songs after recording the album. Which means we will be doing the exact opposite to Sweetheart in that aspect, and have only two cover songs (one from the Burrito side and one from the Byrds side), with the rest of the material consisting of new stuff. That "nine original tunes and two covers" ratio was already used in the album immediately preceding our timeline, The Notorious Byrd Brothers, which means they'd likely return to it as well. Other than that, no songs written outside the mid-to-late-1968 period will be included, as this is the timeframe of the recording and writing of both Byrds and Burritos albums, and most songs included here will also have to have been recorded during sessions for the aforementioned albums, with only one exception which will, as usual, be explained later. The album would've been recorded in Nashville, as was the case with Sweetheart of the Rodeo, and produced by the Byrds' typical producer Gary Usher. And without any further ado, here's what our reconstructed album will end up looking like:

The Devil in Disguise (The Gilded Palace of Sin)
Sin City (The Gilded Palace of Sin)

King Apathy III (Dr. Byrds & Mr. Hyde)

Do Right Woman (The Gilded Palace of Sin)

Bad Night at the Whiskey (Dr. Byrds & Mr. Hyde)

My Uncle (The Gilded Palace of Sin)

-

Wheels (The Gilded Palace of Sin)

High Fashion Queen (Burrito Deluxe)

Stanley's Song (Dr. Byrds & Mr. Hyde)

Juanita (The Gilded Palace of Sin)

Drug Store Truck Drivin' Man (Dr. Byrds & Mr. Hyde)

This Wheel's on Fire (Dr. Byrds & Mr. Hyde)

Bonus tracks:
Old Blue (Dr. Byrds & Mr. Hyde)

Dark End of the Street (The Gilded Palace of Sin)

Kelley, Parsons, McGuinn, and Hillman sometime in early 1968.

The Flying Burrito Brothers' first album featured eleven songs, with two cover songs included. Of those, we will only include five, those being "The Devil in Disguise", "Sin City", "My Uncle", "Wheels" and "Juanita". Unfortunately, both Hot Burritos were written in collaboration with Burritos bass player Chris Ethridge, which means the songs would've not have been written in this timeline. "Do You Know How it Feels" is a song from Gram's International Submarine Band period, and "Hippie Boy" is just a horrible song, which means both will have to go as well. That means we already have five originals, with three Gram leads and two Chris vocals. One song we will be including, however, is "High Fashion Queen", from the followup record Burrito Deluxe. Apparently, it was written during the same writing sessions as most of Gilded Palace of Sin, and was inexplicably left off the album. It's included as it has a more rock and roll sound than the other Burrito tracks, and helps give this album some cohesion. As for The Byrds' album, it features four covers and six original tracks, of which we'll include three, with those being "King Apathy III", "Bad Night at the Whiskey" and "Drug Store Truck Drivin' Man". Neither "Candy" nor "Child of the Universe" are included, as they were both not meant for the Byrds (they were part of the soundtrack to the movie Candy) in the first place, and are simply bad songs. We will be including outtake "Stanley's Song", however, as it feels at home with the Burritos tracks, and as with "High Fashion Queen", helps keep the album cohesive. And as for the covers, we'll include the obligatory Bob Dylan cover, "This Wheel's on Fire", representing McGuinn and the new Byrds lineup, and the best of the two covers included on the Burritos' two albums, "Do Right Woman", with Gram providing the lead vocals. With that, we only need to sequence the album and call it a day.

We will start off the record as with TGPoS, with the opening combo of "The Devil in Disguise" and "Sin City". Since the original recordings were sped up about half a key in order to speed up the tempo of both songs, I reverted this effect by slowing down the tracks by half a key in Audacity, with both of them finally sounding right to my ears. They are followed by the first rock songs on the album, "King Apathy III", and the countrified cover of soul music classic "Do Right Woman", which provide some contrast to the proceedings. Yet another McGuinn original, "Bad Night at the Whiskey", another more psychedelic song, is followed by a bluegrass song about dodging the draft, "My Uncle", closing out side one as it did on the Burritos' record. Side two also opens as it does in our timeline with the mellow "Wheels", which is followed by the rockier "High Fashion Queen", and by sci-fi country tune "Stanley's Song". But moving on, we have "Juanita", followed by the only McGuinn-Parsons song ever written, "Drug Store Truck Drivin' Man". Given its importance, I had it become the second-to-last track on the album, with only "This Wheel's on Fire" coming after it, as it's probably the best album closer out of the material we have. As for what group would perform on these tracks, I can see a main band of the four Byrds, with Gram handling all keyboard parts and Hillman still on bass, with Roger McGuinn singing all of Chris Ethridge's backing vocal parts, and Gram Parsons singing harmony with Roger on "Drug Store Truck Drivin' Man", which he co-wrote. They would be joined by pedal steel player JayDee Maness (whom Gram wanted to become a member of the Byrds!) on all Burritos songs and "Drug Store Truck Drivin' Man", and Clarence White on all Byrds songs and also on "High Fashion Queen".

The record will still be titled The Gilded Palace of Sin, as that is a reference to "Sin City", probably the greatest song on the record, and it just sounds like as great LP name. To keep some sort of "conceptual continutity" going with the album that came before it, I used a painting by artist Jo Mora, the same man who painted the cover of Sweetheart. Given the album title, I used a painting that also featured a girl at center stage, but instead of a cowgirl, I chose one which had a more, well, sinful nature. The fact that she's wearing a golden crown makes it even better. Divided into two 20-minute sides, TGPoS is nothing short of an equal to its predecessor, continuing its fusion of country and rock and tipping the balance a little more towards rock, which to my mind is a good thing. A problem which might arise is that there's no clear lead single in the album, although both "The Devil in Disguise" and "This Wheel's on Fire" could serve that purpouse pretty well, even if we know neither of them could become smash hits like the ones the group saw in the past. This album is also pretty well balanced in the lead vocal department, with five leads by McGuinn, four by Parsons, and three by Hillman. This also has the distinction of being the first Byrds record to feature 12 tracks since Mr. Tambourine Man, which might be controversial to some of you Byrds purists. To sort that out, simply remove the weak "Stanley's Song" from the sequence, and your wish of an 11-track album is granted! It's a shame that the mercurial Parsons could never stay in one place or band for long enough, and the music world really suffered for it in this case. If only Parsons and Hillman had managed to stay on just a little bit longer, before flying off to greater things, and had given one of the greatest albums of all time the sequel it deserved.

Sources:

The Byrds - Dr. Byrds & Mr. Hyde

The Flying Burrito Brothers - The Gilded Palace of Sin

The Flying Burrito Brothers - Burrito Deluxe