Over a half-century since the Byrds’ Sweetheart of the Rodeo came out (released 8/30/68), it’s debatable whether either the band or the album has received the accolades it deserves. But any latent misperception of this early marriage of country music with rock and roll may be grounded in the reality that the album as it was originally released is not exactly how it was recorded.
The internal tumult that had begun to afflict the Byrds in 1966 continued apace during the recording of their close-to-magnificent fourth album, Younger Than Yesterday. The dissension was ratcheted up even further with the departure (firing?) of David Crosby during the course of recording the next album, The Notorious Byrd Brothers, while the enlistment of vocalist/songwriter Gram Parsons that followed not only furthered the nascent leanings toward country strains in the band’s music, but also the clash of egos within the group.
The wonder of it all is that, whether in its original or altered form, Sweetheart of the Rodeo remains as honest in its intentions as in its homage to the roots-oriented influences in which the Byrds had dabbled on previous LPs. In fact, all the way back to their sophomore album Turn! Turn! Turn!, the inclusion of “Satisfied Mind” was a nod to 1955 country and western chart-topper for Porter Wagoner. Still, only the most broadminded fans and music lovers might hold in high esteem the first version of Sweetheart of the Rodeo as originally submitted to Columbia Records: Parsons is the lead singer on five cuts, effectively relegating the well-established sound and position of Jim, nee Roger, McGuinn to a secondary role within the group he helped found.
Still, Gram’s vocals, juxtaposed with the latter’s as well as bassist Chris Hillman’s on “I Am A Pilgrim” and “Blue Canadian Rockies” posits the Byrds with three distinct lead voices and, combined with the new recruit’s composing skills, those combined attributes render the band more formidable at this point than at any time in its history since the abrupt departure of Gene Clark in 1966.
Unfortunately, Parsons’ high profile in dual roles of prominence was a bit of a bridge too far for McGuinn, notwithstanding the fact he was not (then or before or after this record) a prolific composer. The wielder of the famous Rickenbacker guitar, a former sideman for the Limeliters, the Chad Mitchell Trio, and Judy Collins, thus designed to re-record his own lead singing on three cuts that originally featured Gram as the primary vocalist; resequencing the tracks on CD one of the double-disc Legacy Edition of Sweetheart of the Rodeo is then nothing short of revelatory as it depicts Gram Parsons as the central figure in the reconfigured axis of the Byrds.
That arbitrary move of McGuinn’s was just one such disruption in the recording sessions and the supporting activities on behalf of the LP (one debacle of which, on Nashville radio, gave birth to the wicked satire-in-song that is “Drug Store Truck Drivin’ Man”). Yet, even as released in modified form, the album closely approximates, if a bit tentatively so, the fusion of country music and gospel that Parsons dubbed ‘cosmic American music.’
Still, as a sign of continuity with Byrds’ records past, as well as a pointed reassertion of their well-established group harmonies, covers of Bob Dylan open and close the eleven cuts. The knowing good humor in “You Ain’t Going Nowhere” is equally apparent in “Nothing Was Delivered,” and that lighthearted air effectively sets a tone for the song cycle. In fact, this bookending of Parsons’ vivid presence with ever-so-familiar stylistic themes should’ve been enough to maintain continuity with the most loyal Byrds fans if not the general public.
Produced by long-time Byrds studio supervisor Gary Usher, basic tracks were correspondingly festooned with just the right proportion of sweetening courtesy pianist Earl P. Ball, banjoist John Harford and steel guitarist Jaydee Maness, among other sessions. As a result, cuts such as this cover of Woody Guthrie’s “Pretty Boy Floyd” are as polished as anything else coming out of Music City at the time, but are nowhere near so slick.
The musicianship instead retains a pungent realism that complements the mournful vulnerability of Parson’s persona, yet another sign of the man’s engineering of a paradigm shift on behalf of an already famous rock and roll band that, in hiring him in the first place, aspired to keep changing, and thereby influencing, both music and culture.
The wry undercurrent established on the aforementioned songs of the Nobel Laureate’s songs also precludes an overly solemn attitude from permeating “You Don’t Miss Your Water” and “Life In Prison.” The Byrds circa 1968 actually heightened the legitimacy of their efforts by not taking themselves or the music too seriously.
All that authenticity did not come to full fruition, however, at least in the short term. Before Sweetheart of the Rodeo even came out, Parsons was gone from the Byrds in a cloud of confusion, to be followed in such short order by Hillman, they quickly went on together to form the Flying Burrito Brothers whose debut album, The Gilded Palace of Sin, is such a direct extension of the Byrds work it might well be considered a sequel.
In the meantime, Roger soldiered on as the sole remaining original member of that hallowed group that was the Byrds for 1969’s Dr. Byrds & Mr. Hyde, after which the personnel continued to shift till the final lineup solidified in the form of the brilliant guitarist Clarence White (who had played for the group as far back as Younger Than Yesterday), drummer Gene Parsons and bassist Skip Battin.
The Ballad of Easy Rider from that ensemble invited credible comparisons to the early work of The Band. But the overproduced Byrdmaniax revealed the Achilles heel of the Seventies Byrds: lack of a reliable source of original material: when they had the songs, as on Untitled with its bonafide highlight “Chestnut Mare,” the Byrds were still a force with which to be reckoned, especially as the live half of that double LP documented their adventuresome instrumental synchrony.
But after the quick rebound of Farther Along, late in the same year of 1971 as its predecessor, the reunion of the Byrds’ original members two years later involved Crosby’s demands that McGuinn stop leading a group under the well-respected name. The latter then embarked upon a spotty solo career, the high points of which involved significant collaborators: in the case of Back to Rio, it’s Tom Petty, while the presence of Dylan’s Rolling Thunder Revue band informs Cardiff Rose.
In a general sense, though, the degree to which the Byrds held sway over the formative years of musicians like the late Floridian leader of the Heartbreakers is indisputable. And while Sweetheart of the Rodeo may not always accrue all the credit it deserves, it has not only served as the focal point of its own contemporary country idiom–a plaudit for which too often and erroneously goes to the Eagles–but also provided a rousing point of inspiration for subsequent generations of musicians: see New York musician/songwriter/bandleader Christian Parker’s brilliant 2023 release Sweethearts: A Tribute to The Byrds.
Perhaps if Roger McGuinn and Chris Hillman had more often shone a spotlight on their groundbreaking work with extended touring over and above recognition of the record’s fiftieth anniversary (with modern C&W star Marty Stuart); Sweetheart of the Rodeo would not seem almost like a mere musical curio fifty-five years after its release.
