Tuesday afternoon in Long Island: Gram Parsons and crew show
up at the local radio station, play a live set, then head on to Philly.
Probably nobody involved would have ever thought of it again, but a decade
later some suit sees green, and presto: posthumous live album. Nothing here
supersedes LP versions, though a sparse “Love Hurts” lets the Gram-and-Emmy
duet vocals run the show, without the distraction of lead guitarist Jock
Bartley, building some cred as a Fallen Angel before shaking it for soft-rock
lucre in Firefall (and thus constituting one more node in the dense web of
Byrdsian connections of 70s rock). All too often, Bartley drenches songs in
what wankers used to call “hot licks,” but the more restrained takes, such as
“The New Soft Shoe,” can be lovely. Parsons’s demeanor ranges from diffident to
dickish in his banter, and he doesn’t seem particularly enthused to be there; the
tired toursong “Six Days on the Road”—which the Parsonsless Burrito Brothers were
also playing at the time—might be the truest thing here.
So, hardly revelatory, but no album with Emmylou Harris has
ever been less than listenable.
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