Gram Parsons "GP" - Original 1973 Gatefold LP - Reprise MS 2123 - Emmylou - Rare

$

40

I'm selling my personal record collection in preparation for moving.  I do not ship internationally or to Alaska, Hawaii, US Protectorates or APO/FPO addresses.
GP is American singer-songwriter Gram Parsons' debut solo album. It was originally released in a gatefold sleeve in 1973. GP received critical acclaim upon release, but failed to reach the Billboard charts. In the original Rolling Stone review, which individually covered both GP and its follow-up, Grievous Angel, the reviewer praises Parsons' vocals and delivery paraphrasing Gram's lyrics, "boy, but he sure can sing".
Initially, country megastar Merle Haggard agreed to produce Parsons's first solo album but backed out at the last minute. According to Meyer's Twenty Thousand Roads, Warner Bros. arranged a meeting at Haggard's Bakersfield home and the two musicians seemed to hit it off but later, on the afternoon of the first session, Haggard canceled. Parsons, an enormous Haggard fan, was crushed, with his wife Gretchen telling Meyer, "Merle not producing Gram was probably one of the greatest disappointments in Gram's life. Merle was very nice, very sweet, but he had his own enemies and his own demons." Parsons did manage to hire Haggard's engineer Hugh Davies for his upcoming album, as well as the core of Elvis Presley's band: James Burton (who had also played on Haggard's records) on guitar, Glen D. Hardin on piano and organ, and Ronnie Tutt on drums. Parson's biggest coup, however, was discovering Emmylou Harris, an unknown singer from Washington, D.C., who was recommended to Parsons by Chris Hillman. In the BBC documentary Beyond Nashville Harris recalls, "I would say until I had met Gram and started working with him I didn't really understand or have a real love or feel for country music. Like most of my generation, you know, country music was politically incorrect for us at that point. It was associated with Republicans and Right Wing and that sort of thing. He taught me the beauty and the poetry, the simplicity, the honesty in the music. And the love of harmony came from really singing with him."

The sessions for GP ran from September through October 1972 and were produced by former Blind Faith bassist Ric Grech. Parsons was beside himself with excitement at being surrounded by such stellar musicians but also severely intimidated by their presence; in a February 2013 cover story for Uncut, David Cavanagh recalls the singer's reticence: "Rehearsals for GP descended into drug binges. The songs were coming together – 'Still Feeling Blue' (a Parsons original), 'Kiss The Children' (by Grech), 'Streets of Baltimore' (a 1966 composition by Tompall Glaser and Harlan Howard) – but Gram was falling apart at the seams. He was in the grip of alcoholism. He gorged on cocaine. He was bloated and sweaty; friends in Los Angeles estimated he'd put on three stone since his Burrito days.(42 pounds) Singer and rhythm guitarist Barry Tashian remembers him being 'nervously excited' about the album, but strangely paralysed by inaction." In the 2004 documentary Gram Parsons: Fallen Angel, Harris admits, "Gram was drinking a lot during that recording, and so there were times when he was together and times when he wasn't. I hadn't done that much recording in my life but I thought, 'If this is the way people make records, I just don't get this.'" Realising he could be blowing his big chance, Parsons cut back on his drinking and finished the sessions.

The songs on GP display Parsons appreciation for both the Bakersfield sound pioneered by Haggard and Buck Owens as well as his love for both mainstream country music and R&B. The album is just as much a showcase for Harris, who performs two proper duets with Parsons in the style of George Jones and Tammy Wynette on "That's All It Took" (a song penned by Jones) and "We'll Sweep Out the Ashes in the Morning." The latter is classic country fare about two lovers racked by guilt and who agree their affair has to stop – but not yet. As Mojo's David Cavanagh observed in 2013, several songs on the album, such as "A Song For You" and "She," are about "the South Parsons emerged from – or at least the way he would wish to portray it to us – with Biblical imagery in every vista and trembling earth that shakes the trees loose...If it has such a thing as a concept, GP is a country album about country music itself." Parsons demonstrates a quiet, restrained vocal approach on several songs, such as "Kiss the Children" and "How Much I've Lied," infusing the material with a maturity that was not as evident on his previous recordings where his singing is noted for its almost childlike vulnerability. Parsons also recorded the J. Geils Band song "Cry One More Time," transforming the standard R&B lament into what he often referred to as Cosmic American Music, a mixture of several American musical styles. Engineer Hugh Davies would later recall to Parsons biographer David Meyers in 2007, "It was sort of funky country. Not quite rock, but beyond traditional country."

The cover of GP features Parsons sitting in a chair at the Chateau Marmont in Hollywood, where he lived with his wife when the first album was recorded.

Track listing

All tracks are written by Gram Parsons unless otherwise indicated.

Personnel

• Gram Parsons – vocals, acoustic guitar
• Emmylou Harris – vocals
• Barry Tashian – vocals, rhythm guitar
• Ric Grech – bass guitar
• John Conrad – bass
• Ron Tutt – drums
• John Guerin – drums
• Sam Goldstein – drums
• Glen D. Hardin – piano, organ, bandleader
• James Burton – electric guitar, Dobro
• Al Perkins – pedal steel guitar
• Buddy Emmons – pedal steel guitar
• Byron Berline – fiddle
• Alan Munde – banjo on "Still Feeling Blue"
• Ron Hicklin, Tom Bahler, Mitch Gordon, Lewis Morford – backing vocals on "Kiss the Children"
• Hal Battiste – baritone saxophone on "Cry One More Time" GP Studio album by  Gram Parsons Released January 1973 Recorded September–October 1972 Studio Wally Heider Studio 4, Hollywood, California Genre Country rock Length 38:26 Label Reprise Producer Gram Parsons, Ric Grech