Nobody’s ever going to mistake Chris Hillman for a
charismatic frontman, but with Gram Parsons off en route to an early death and
Rick Roberts departed for more of a slow artistic death in Firefall (after a
strange alternate/parallel-Burrito-Bros tour, it seems), it fell on Hillman to steer the
good ship Burrito. That he did so by charting course for bluegrass
instrumentals halfway through side 1 of this live LP probably helped seal the
commercial fate of the record, though it does have a loopy integrity (unlike
the disingenuous liner notes, which begin with a meaty Parsons interview, his
absence from the album be damned).
Nothing here catches fire—lord knows this “Hot Burrito #2”
ain’t red hot at all—but Hillman gives “Six Days on the Road” a solid
journeyman go, and it’s got that contract-filler brevity that keeps things from
overstaying their welcome. Still, a pretty inauspicious way for the last
lingering vestiges of the original FBB lineup to say goodbye and clear the
decks for the hacks who replaced them.
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