On March 3, 1972,
Chuck Cassell
taped a lengthy interview with
Gram Parsons
at
A&M Records
, with the purpose of getting some background information for
the Flying Burrito Brothers
' then-upcoming live album
The Last of the Red Hot Burritos
(even though
Parsons
didn't actually play on the recording). It's turned out to far outlive its original design, both since it was an extremely in-depth interview covering
' entire career up to that point, and since there wouldn't be many more opportunities for such interviews with him, as he died a year-and-a-half later. This CD doesn't have the whole interview, but it does have a 69-minute excerpt, in which
talks frankly about
the Byrds
,
the Burritos
the International Submarine Band
, and
country
music. Along the way are some sharp criticisms of some of the people he worked with, including
Chris Hillman
Michael Clarke
Chris Ethridge
, and producers
Jim Dickson
and
Terry Melcher
, though some praise for
Hillman
is granted as well. He's particularly critical of fellow
Burritos
Clarke
Ethridge
's unsuitability, in his view, as
country-rock
players. The sound quality isn't great, and
Cassell
's questions aren't clearly audible, but this doesn't matter so much, since
' answers are easily understood, and it's a spoken-word disc anyway. A much longer transcript of this interview, incidentally, appears in
Sid Griffin
's book
Gram Parsons: A Music Biography
. ~ Richie Unterberger