Gram Parsons with the Flying Burrito Bros, Live at the Avalon Ballroom 1969 (2007)

The first impressions of this 2-disc set effectively cancel each other out: Amoeba has outdone itself with lovely packaging, full of great archival photos and two short essays, one a loving recollection of Parsons and the Burrito Bros by Pamela Des Barres, the other a nicely detailed recounting of digging through the Grateful Dead archives (for whom the FBB were opening) for these tapes, and then the desperate quest to secure rights, by Dave Prinz. But then, that title: I’m hardly here to demand a place on the marquee for Michael Clarke, but it simply misrepresents things—as the opening audio itself makes clear—to credit this to Parsons and reduce the FBB to a supporting band. For a release so committed to musical history, that’s an unfortunate concession to (admitted) market realities, and a bit of an insult to (perhaps overly sensitive) listeners.

Well, there’s also music here—though mostly, nothing crucial from the two (April 4 and 6) very-similar live sets that replaces any LP versions. The real treasures are the two demos on disc 1, especially a spare, heartbreaking “Thousand Dollar Wedding.” "Nothing crucial" doesn't mean unworthy of a listen, though--learning the story of the "old boy" line from "Hot Burrito #1" while hearing it is worth a sniffle or two. 

Dillard & Clark, The Fantastic Expedition of Dillard & Clark (1968)

The Byrds all went rustic concurrently in the late 60s, despite being apart. Unsurprisingly, Gene Clark did it best; while the remaining official-Byrds began strip-mining the past for inspiration, Crosby rotted away on a farm with CSNY, and the Burrito Brothers only slowly eased into place, the best songwriting, melodies, and singing were all to be found here—naturally, in the shadows of all those albums, in terms of public profile.

It is a literal expedition—down to New Orleans, from Memphis to Colorado, crossing into San Bernardino (in the restored outtake “Lyin’ Down the Middle”)—and unlike the space-age flight fixations of Roger McGuinn, Clark still travels the old routes; “Train Leaves Here This Morning” is both song and entire worldview. He drifts from one heartbreak to the next, and if it’s not quite as sorrowful as subsequent solo albums, Dillard’s ace picking and strumming has a lot to do with it. Clark is in righteous form as always, forlorn until he tears it up on a (non-LP) “Don’t Be Cruel” that sounds like an instruction manual for Gram Parsons, who wished he could do this (and whose fellow Burritos pop up, including a mini-Byrd reunion with Chris Hillman and Michael Clarke). It’s hard to believe these are nearly all originals—they whisk by in under a half-hour, sounding effortless and timeless.