Gram’s Long Road to the Hall of Fame

Gram Parsons is to be inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame

If there was one endorsement which persuaded Rock & Roll Hall of Fame voters to finally induct country-rock pioneer Gram Parsons into their Early Influence Award category, it has to have been the on-going lobbying by Emmylou Harris. It was Parsons, of course, who plucked Harris from obscurity in a DC folk club to become his singing partner. And, from there, she became an Americana legend.

When their collaboration was cut short by Gram’s sudden death at the age of 26 in 1973, it was Harris who picked up the cross-genre mantle Parsons left behind and helped convert it into the multi-faceted musical genre now known as Americana.

Hall of Fame inductees are chosen by an international voting group, comprising around 1,000 artists, historians and music industry professionals. They have access to all forms of pressure and endorsements, and, in Gram’s case, several letters by some of the biggest names in music – Harris, Keith Richards, Elvis Costello and Steve Earle among them. Richards was one of Gram’s closest friends and there is no doubt he had a big influence in the countryfied-period the Rolling Stones went through.

There are 18 artists named among the four categories in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame’s Class of 2026 Inductees. The induction ceremony will be held in Los Angeles in November – the month Parsons would have turned 80 – and his daughter Polly Parsons told Rolling Stone writer Angie Martoccio that she had no doubts who should represent her father at the induction. “My dream scenario is Emmylou and Keith doing a song, and Emmylou inducting him,” she said.

The desire to have Parsons in the Hall of Fame actually goes back to 1991 when the Byrds entered the Hall. Only the original members – Roger McGuinn, Gene Clark, David Crosby, Chris Hillman and Michael Clarke – were named in the citation. There was no room for Parsons, who, to be fair, spent only around six months with the group. However, to many, his exclusion was unjustified, given his artistic vision and input.

“He didn’t get recognized, which was a total bummer,” Polly Parsons told Rolling Stone. “But this recognition (2026) in this category at this time, when we’ve seen Nashville come into this amazing full-circle moment of country blending rock and all these artists crossing over. This is a portion of the DNA of that movement.”

And it was Gram who played a major part in putting the country DNA into rock. His only album with the Byrds, the 1968 release Sweetheart of the Rodeo, is now regarded as the landmark country-rock album. And it was all down to Parsons’ desire to make country music fashionable for a broader, mainly younger, audience.

When he quit the Byrds, he formed The Flying Burrito Brothers and by now he was delivering, in his words, “Cosmic American Music.” Surely the seeds of Americana. He did just two albums with the Burrito Brothers - The Gilded Palace of Sin and Burrito Deluxe. He had a hand in composing 14 of the 22 tracks on the albums and many would, in years to come, end up in the catalogues of some of the biggest names in alt country.

There are two particular tracks on Burrito Deluxe which sit at opposite ends of the music spectrum and perfectly illustrate Gram’s enduring influence across the various music strands. The first is rock. For the album includes the Rolling Stones song “Wild Horses”– some 12 months before the Stones released it on Sticky Fingers. And the second is an early 20th century gospel song, “Farther Along,” to which Parsons would give a honky-tonkish flavour as he strived to bridge the gap between traditional and rock music.

His growing addiction to alcohol and drugs saw him fired from the Burrito Brothers after a couple of years. It was now time for Parsons to go solo. Enter Emmylou Harris. Sadly, they had time to deliver only two studio albums in their two-year collaboration. The first, GP, was released in January, 1973 and five of the 11 tracks were penned by Parsons. The second, Grievous Angels, was recorded later in the same year, but not released until January, 1974, four months after his passing.

Perhaps more significant is a live album, Gram Parsons and the Fallen Angels Live 1973 , which was recorded during a tour to promote his original solo release. It was broadcast live on Radio WLIR-FIM from Garden City, New York, on March 13, 1973. It would not be released until 1982. What makes this compilation so appealing is that the 11 tracks prominently display Emmylou’s astonishing vocal range, whether be in harmony or as a duet.

For while the live album did not emerge for nearly a decade, it demonstrates the remarkable vocal synergy achieved by Parsons and Harris, even after just one album. The broadcast turns out to be the first live recording of their remarkable version of the Felice and Boudleaux Bryant classic “Love Hurts,” which would be emerge on Grievous Angel. For many, it is the finest duet in popular music.

There is one song on Live 73 which did not feature in either of Gram’s solo albums. But it again provides a wonderful example of Gram’s pioneering vision. Harris gets to perform solo on the gospel-flavoured bluegrass number “Country Baptizing.” Her interpretation not only introduces a broader audience to her sensational vocal range but again provides another example of the cross-genre sound which, nearly 30 years later, would become Americana.

And there is no doubt that her ground-breaking backing motivated Gram’s record company, Reprise (Warner Music Group), to offer Harris her own recording contract shortly after his death.  Within two years, Reprise would release three of her albums containing songs which very much reflect the multi-faceted music vision of Parsons. And while there are no Parsons compositions on the first Reprise release Pieces of the Sky, there are five of his songs across the  next two albums Elite Hotel and Luxury Liner – the last being the title of a Gram track.

Not only did Harris take Gram’s country roots to Reprise, she also took a bunch of musicians who had appeared on his solo albums - the most significant being lead guitarist James Burton, and keyboardist Glen D Hardin, both on loan from playing in the Elvis Presley famous TCB line-up.

Sadly, the bizarre – if not grotesque - circumstances of Gram’s death would forever over-shadow his music output and vision.

Exhausted after recording his second solo album, Parsons headed off to his favourite destination, the Joshua Tree Inn in the High Desert of California, with his girlfriend and two friends. It was meant to be a relaxing weekend. But on the second day there, Parsons – a problem drinker and drug-user - overdosed after mixing tequila with morphine. He was pronounced dead on September 19, 1973.

And this is where events get weird. On hearing of his death, close friend and his sometime tour manager Phil Kaufman remembered a drunken pact he had with Parsons whereby whoever died first would have his body cremated in the Joshua Tree National Park. Kaufman and a friend were able to hijack Gram’s body at L.A. Airport while en route to New Orleans. The pair then headed off to south-eastern California with the kidnapped cargo. When they arrived at Cap Rock, a prominent feature of the Joshua Tree Park, they placed his coffin on the ground before igniting it with petrol. The pair fled and Gram’s partly-cremated body was found the next morning. His remains were eventually buried in Metairie, Louisiana.

There had been a long-held opinion that Gram’s failure to be properly recognised for his artistic achievements had much to do with such circumstances of his death or, indeed, his much-published reputation as “a drug user and womaniser.” Advocates for Parsons believed such arguments were indeed hypocritical. If such a view existed, they said, then at least half of the Hall of Fame inductees should be shown the door.

Such rumours were firmly put to bed when John Sykes, who has been chairman of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame since 2020, acknowledged that the Hall is “still playing catch-up” in getting full recognition for long-time deserving artists like Parsons. He told Billboard Daily, he was leading the charge to expand the number of inductees each year: “Yes, it is my direction, because there’s a backlog of deserving candidates – artists not candidates – who were long overdue. We try to look at the ones that are glaring omissions, and that really, in many cases, should have been in a long time ago.”

 “There’s some glaring omissions over the past 25 years that we need to rectify,” he added. “I may come up with a couple of names a year with these meetings, but I really leave it up to these committees, which are top publishers, record company executives, journalists, artists themselves. These people are very, very aware and have a very, very deep knowledge of music. It’s amazing the names that come up, and when some of them come up, I go ‘My Gosh, how do we miss this one’?”

Maybe someone should say this to the guardians of the Country Music Hall of Fame? Parsons is still waiting for an induction there. And this, despite the Americana Music Association honouring him with their prestigious President’s Award in 2003.

Polly Parsons, who accepted the AMA award back then, should have the last say: “Gram was so young and so passionate and so obviously authentic in his delivery of preaching the gospel of country and rock and the verging of different genres together. He was so excited and came across in such a lovely way and became so close with certain people at a very powerful time in music that I think it left a lasting impression.”

She concluded: “It’s magical, to be honest with you, for lack of a better word.”

Paul Cutler

Editor Crossroads – Americana Music Appreciation