The Hillmen, s/t (1969)

“The planet earth was not ready for BLUE GRASS,” Chris Hillman’s liner notes explain of the quartet he snuck into as a mere high-school age mandolin picker, “so into the vault went our story … I put down the mandolin, picked up the bass and became a byrdie.” The group never secured a record deal, which is why its 1962-63 recordings emerged only at the end of the decade, but not for lack of effort—notions of purity be damned, they covered Dylan like every other young person with a guitar between JFK and the internet. Though Vern and Rex Gosdin (later affiliated with another Byrd on Gene Clark’s first solo LP) run the show, Hillman sang lead on the “When the Ship Comes In” cover, and the whole affair is sprightly, enjoyable, and of sheerly archival value. It helps stake Hillman’s claim to being the true OG of L.A. country-folk rock, but probably few will confuse this for Bill Monroe.

I do wish I had more to say, since I violated dollar-bin protocol and spent a somewhat unconscionable twelve bucks on this at the Princeton Record Exchange, but it's, y'know, some young guys with stringed instruments doing their thing. With all due respect, I'm pretty sure the world's readiness was not the reason they never took off.