The Flying Burrito Bros, Airborne (1976)

The sole point of interest here is the head-scratcher question of how a group of scraggly, skeevy, second-tier country-rockers managed to convince Stevie Wonder to take time off from his astonishing run of 1970s albums to sit in on piano for an inert rendition of his own “She’s a Sailor.” Otherwise, it’s modest, unremarkable stuff through and through. The Byrds presence has doubled from the last LP; Gene Parsons is now joined by Skip Battin, meaning the Burrito Bros have now perversely replicated the earlier band’s personnel shifts of the last decade, with the Hillman/Gram Parsons/Clarke lineup giving way to the late-Byrds rhythm section—and the accompanying decline in quality. I suspect this also speaks to the insularity of the mid-decade country-rock scene; apparently Richie Furay was busy this year. But it’s all harmless enough, and they seem to be having fun, so it’s as difficult to resent this as it is to remember it ten minutes later.