Chris Hillman, Desert Rose (1984)

After the stupefyingly lackluster late-70s solo LPs, Hillman spent the first half of the 80s regrouping with some low-key albums of laid-back country ditties, mostly covers. Desert Rose has the casual feel of a hootenanny among friends, with longtime Hillman associates like Herb Petersen, Bernie Leadon, Al Perkins, et al., all having a good time dishing out solid background music. Nothing memorable here, but it’s all likable enough, and a dry run for the more polished pop-country of Hillman’s Desert Rose Band—which took not only the name, but also a spruced-up “Ashes of Love” rendition, from this. As questionable as the Nashville gloss would be in many cases, the fact is, Desert Rose shows how complacent Hillman had gotten, so the new band would also constitute something of a kick in the ass after his many years in the doldrums, of which this represents the end.

My $5 copy from Amoeba in Los Angeles is autographed; I have a hard time imagining anyone faking a Chris Hillman auto, so I’m going to assume it’s legit.

The International Submarine Band, Safe at Home (1968)

In which Gram Parsons discovers country music and gives it a dry run before offering it up to the Byrds. As a songwriter, he’s got something, though at this point it’s still more promise than materialization. As a singer, he’s holding back, not quite sure how far to take this game. Brevity pays off—at just under a half-hour, it would be pretty tough to overstay its welcome, and it’s not unwelcomed to begin with. It might all peak with “Blue Eyes” at track one, but the “Folsom Prison Blues/That’s All Right” medley is my secret key to the entire Parsons project: instead of wanting to be Johnny Cash or Elvis specifically, he just wanted to iconic, period. Probably could just as well have been Sinatra and the the New Soft Bobby-Sox, so all things considered, lucky how the pieces fell here. I’d hate to think of the Byrds gone Rat Pack.

Gram Parsons, Grievous Angel (1974)

Widely considered sacrosanct, and I can see why, for about half of it. Just under, really; already thin at nine tracks, about half the running time is sheer padding. I like Tom T. Hall more than most people, but Parsons’s take on his “I Can’t Dance” is a preview for a Grounded Burrito Bros album nobody wishes existed. “Las Vegas,” well, speaks for itself. “Love Hurts” is better than the Nazareth version, but mostly because of Emmylou Harris, who admittedly improves everything she sings on.

But the core of the album is the Parsons originals. Most of them—“Brass Buttons,” “In My Hour of Darkness,” “Return of the Grievous Angel”—have a purity and simplicity that makes them near-staggering, but also suggests they were the end of the road; you can’t get much more elemental than this. “$1000 Wedding,” on the other hand, shows some narrative flair that would never be further developed.

He peaked with GP, and all indications here are of a talent all too eager to squander itself—we hear the squandering in each wasted filler track. Too bad he was so casual about his occasional ability to achieve majesty.