Sweetheart of the Radio cover

Sweetheart of the Radio

The Byrds

Album · 1968

Sweetheart of the Rodeo was the Byrds’ sixth studio album, released by Columbia in August 1968 as CS 9670. By then the band was down to Roger McGuinn and Chris Hillman, with Hillman’s cousin Kevin Kelley on drums and Gram Parsons, who joined in February 1968. McGuinn had planned a record that would survey the history of American popular music. Under Parsons’s influence it became a country album instead.

Recording began at Columbia’s Studio A in Nashville, where the band cut eight songs between 9 and 15 March 1968. It continued at Columbia’s studios in Hollywood from 4 April to 27 May. Gary Usher produced. The session players included Lloyd Green and JayDee Maness on pedal steel, Clarence White on electric guitar, John Hartford on banjo, fiddle and guitar, Roy Huskey on bass and Earl P. Ball on piano. The songs came from several directions: two numbers from Bob Dylan’s then-unreleased Basement Tapes, “You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere” and “Nothing Was Delivered”; the Louvin Brothers’ “The Christian Life”; Merle Haggard’s “Life in Prison”; Woody Guthrie’s “Pretty Boy Floyd”; Cindy Walker’s “Blue Canadian Rockies”; William Bell’s Stax hit “You Don’t Miss Your Water”; and the traditional “I Am a Pilgrim.” Parsons brought two originals, “One Hundred Years from Now” and “Hickory Wind,” which he wrote with Bob Buchanan. When the Byrds played the Grand Ole Opry on 15 March, Parsons sang “Hickory Wind” in place of the song Tompall Glaser had announced.

After the sessions, Lee Hazlewood contested Parsons’s appearance on the album, saying the singer was still under contract to his LHI label. While that was being settled, McGuinn replaced Parsons’s lead vocals on “The Christian Life,” “You Don’t Miss Your Water” and “One Hundred Years from Now.” Parsons is still the lead singer on “Hickory Wind,” “You’re Still on My Mind” and “Life in Prison.” His original takes of the other three came out on the Byrds’ 1990 box set and the 2003 Legacy Edition of the album. Parsons left the band in July 1968, before the record was released, and it reached number 77 on the Billboard album chart. He and Hillman went on to form the Flying Burrito Brothers.

Tracklist

  1. 1 You Ain't Goin' Nowhere 2:33
  2. 2 I Am a Pilgrim alt version 2:32
  3. 3 The Christian Life 2:30
  4. 4 You Don't Miss Your Water 3:48
  5. 5 You're Still On My Mind 2:25
  6. 6 Pretty Boy Floyd 2:34
  7. 7 Hickory Wind alt version 3:31
  8. 8 One Hundred Years from Now 2:40
  9. 9 Blue Canadian Rockies 2:02
  10. 10 Life in Prison 2:46
  11. 11 Nothing Was Delivered 3:24
  12. 12 You Got A Reputation 3:08
  13. 13 Lazy Days 3:26
  14. 14 Pretty Polly alt version 3:33
  15. 15 The Christian Life - rehearsal - take #11 2:55
  16. 16 Life In Prison - rehearsal - take #11 2:59
  17. 17 You're Still On My Mind - rehearsal - take #43 2:29
  18. 18 One Hundred Years From Now - rehearseal - take #2 3:20
  19. 19 All I Have Are Memories - instrumental 4:47

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