All my records have been cleaned and visually graded as accurately as possible.  If you’re not completely satisfied with your purchase, please contact me for a refund.  Will combine shipping on multiple purchases. Thanks for looking!
**Note: Original plain paper sleeve replaced with protective polyurethane/paper sleeve.** 
Sweetheart of the Rodeo by ReleasedAugust 30, 1968RecordedMarch 9–15, Columbia Studios, Nashville, TN
April 4–May 27, 1968, Columbia Studios, Hollywood, CA, Length32:35 chronology
(1968)Sweetheart of the Rodeo
(1968)
(1969) chronologywith
(1968)Sweetheart of the Rodeo
(1968)with 
(1969) from Sweetheart of the Rodeo ""
Released: April 2, 1968 "I Am a Pilgrim"
Released: September 2, 1968

Sweetheart of the Rodeo is the sixth  by American    and was released on August 30, 1968 on  (see ). Recorded with the addition of  pioneer , it was influential as the first major country rock album by an established act and represented a stylistic move away from the  of the band's previous , . The Byrds had occasionally experimented with  on their four previous albums, but Sweetheart of the Rodeo represented their fullest immersion into the  thus far. The album was also responsible for bringing Gram Parsons, who had joined The Byrds prior to the recording of the album, to the attention of a mainstream rock audience for the first time. Thus, the album can be seen as an important chapter in Parsons' personal and musical crusade to make country music fashionable for a young audience.

The album was initially conceived as a musical history of 20th century , encompassing examples of country music,  and , among other genres. However, steered by the passion of the little-known Parsons, who had only joined The Byrds in February 1968, this proposed concept was abandoned early on and the album instead became purely a country record. The recording of the album was divided between  in Nashville and Los Angeles, with contributions from several notable , including , , JayDee Maness and . Tension developed between Parsons and the rest of the band,   especially, with some of Parsons' vocals being re-recorded, partly due to legal complications, and by the time the album was released in August, Parsons had left the band. The Byrds' move away from  and  towards country music elicited a great deal of resistance and hostility from the ultra-conservative Nashville country music establishment who viewed The Byrds as a group of long-haired  attempting to subvert country music.

Upon its release, the album reached #77 on the  chart, but failed to reach the charts in the United Kingdom. Two attendant singles were released during 1968, "", which achieved modest success, and "I Am a Pilgrim", which failed to chart. The album received mostly positive reviews in the , but the band's shift away from  alienated much of its pop audience. Despite being the most commercially unsuccessful Byrds' album to date upon its initial release,Sweetheart of the Rodeo is today considered to be a seminal and highly influential country rock album.

Background (January–March 1968)

The initial concept by  for the album that would become Sweetheart of the Rodeo was to expand upon the genre-spanning approach of The Byrds' previous LP, The Notorious Byrd Brothers, by recording a  overview of the history of . The planned album would begin with  and  music, then move through , jazz, rhythm and blues, and , before culminating with futuristic proto-, featuring the .

But with a U.S. college tour to promote The Notorious Byrd Brothers looming, a more immediate concern was the recruitment of new band members.  and  had departed the band in late 1967, leaving  as de facto leader of The Byrds, along with , the only other remaining member of the band. To address this problem, McGuinn hired Hillman's cousin,  (formerly a member of the ), as the band's new drummer, and it was this three-piece line-up, with McGuinn on  and Hillman on , that embarked on the early 1968 college tour. It soon became apparent, however, that The Byrds were having difficulty in performing their studio material live as a , and so it was decided that a fourth member was required. McGuinn, with an eye still on his envisaged American music concept album, felt that a pianist with a jazz background would be ideal for the group.

A candidate was found by Larry Spector, the band's business manager, in the shape of 21-year-old . Parsons, a marginal figure in the L.A. music scene, had been acquainted with Hillman since 1967 and he auditioned for the band as a piano player in February 1968. His faux-jazz piano playing and genial personality at audition was enough to impress both McGuinn and Hillman; so Parsons was recruited as the fourth member of the band, although he quickly switched to playing guitar instead of piano. Although Parsons and Kelley were considered full members of The Byrds, they both received a salary from McGuinn and Hillman, and did not sign with Columbia Records when The Byrds' recording contract was renewed on February 29, 1968.

originally intended the album to be an overview of 20th-century American popular music.

Unbeknownst to McGuinn or Hillman, Parsons had his own musical agenda in which he planned to marry his love of traditional country music (which he saw as being the purest form of American music) with youth culture's passion for rock. He had already successfully attempted this fusion as a member of the little-known , on the album , but Parsons' new status as a Byrd offered him an international stage from which to launch his bid to reclaim country music for his generation.

Following his recruitment, Parsons began to lure Hillman away from McGuinn's proposed concept album idea and towards a blend of what Parsons would later term "Cosmic American Music". In essence, this was a hybrid of various  forms, primarily oriented towards   but also encompassing , , rhythm and blues,  and contemporary rock. Hillman, who had come from a musical background firmly rooted in bluegrass, had himself successfully persuaded The Byrds to incorporate country influences into their music in the past, beginning with the song "" on their 1965 album,  Many of Hillman's songs on the  and The Notorious Byrd Brothers albums also had a pronounced country feel to them, with several featuring  (a renowned bluegrass guitar player and session musician) on , rather than McGuinn. During time spent singing old country songs with Parsons, Hillman became convinced that Parsons' concept of a country-oriented version of The Byrds could work.

Parsons' passion for his country rock vision was so contagious that he even convinced McGuinn to abandon his plans for The Byrds' next album and follow Parsons' lead in recording a country rock album. Parsons also persuaded McGuinn and Hillman to record the album in the country music capital of , as  had done for his  and  albums. Although McGuinn had some reservations about the band's new direction, he decided that such a move could expand the already declining audience of the group. After long-time Byrds'  , who had little interest in producing McGuinn's proposed concept album, indicated a preference for the country concept, McGuinn finally acquiesced. On March 9, 1968, the band decamped to Columbia's recording facility in Nashville, with Clarence White in tow, to begin recording sessions for Sweetheart of the Rodeo.

Recording (March–May 1968)

Between March 9 and March 15, 1968, the band, accompanied by several prominent session musicians, recorded multiple  of eight songs at Columbia Records' recording studios in the  area of Nashville. Recording sessions for the album continued from April 4 through May 27, 1968 at Columbia Studios in , with a further seven songs recorded during these sessions and finishing touches applied to many of the tracks recorded in Nashville.

MENU 0:00 A sample of The Byrds' cover of Bob Dylan's "". The inclusion of two Dylan songs on Sweetheart of the Rodeo helped to forge a link with the band's earlier folk-rock incarnation. Problems playing this file? See .

The songs that The Byrds recorded for the album included "" and "Nothing Was Delivered", two country-influenced Dylan  from his then-unreleased  sessions. Despite the change in musical style that the Sweetheart of the Rodeo album represented for The Byrds, the inclusion of two Dylan covers provided a link with their previous  incarnation, when Dylan's material had been a mainstay of their repertoire. The Byrds also recorded a trio of classic country songs for the album: the traditional "I Am a Pilgrim", which had been popularized by  in the late-1940s; the -penned "Blue Canadian Rockies", which had been sung by  in the 1952 film of the same name; and "The Christian Life", written by , which was the antithesis of a traditional rock song with its gentle  extolling the simple pleasures of  as a lifestyle.

The band supplemented these older country  and Dylan covers with a couple of contemporary country songs: 's maudlin convict's lament, "Life in Prison"; and 's "You're Still On My Mind", a sorrowful tale of a heartbroken drunkard failing to find solace at the bottom of a bottle. Additionally, The Byrds gave  hit, "", a country flavored make-over, highlighted by the band's trademark crystal clear  and contributions from JayDee Maness and Earl P. Ball, on  and respectively. With its fusion of country and soul, "You Don't Miss Your Water" was a perfect example of what Parsons would later define, with his self-coined phrase, as "Cosmic American Music".

MENU 0:00 An excerpt from "" featuring Gram Parsons harmonizing with Chris Hillman. The contributions of Lloyd Green and John Hartford, on  and  respectively, are clearly audible. Written by Parsons and Bob Buchanan, "Hickory Wind" was one of three songs on Sweetheart of the Rodeoto feature Parsons as lead vocalist. Problems playing this file? See .

Lacking any country songs of his own, McGuinn delved into his pre-Byrds folk song repertoire instead, contributing 's "", a romanticized portrayal of the real-life  and . The March 12, 1968 recording session that produced "Pretty Boy Floyd" saw McGuinn attempting to play the song's  accompaniment, but feeling dissatisfied with his efforts he finally ceded the part to session player . The Byrds also recorded a Kelley original, "All I Have Are Memories", 's "You Got a Reputation", and the  song, "", but none of these songs were selected for the final Sweetheart of the Rodeoalbum.

Parsons also brought three of his songs to the recording sessions: "Lazy Days", "One Hundred Years from Now" and "", the latter of which had been written by Parsons and former International Submarine Band member, Bob Buchanan, during an early 1968 train ride from Florida to Los Angeles. "One Hundred Years from Now" has a quicker  than most of the material on Sweetheart of the Rodeo and functions as a speculation on current human vanities and how they might be viewed by successive generations. The  influenced "Lazy Days" was not included in the final album, but was re-recorded by Parsons and Hillman's later band, , for their 1970 album, .

Nashville reaction and touring , where The Byrds made their appearance at the  on March 15, 1968.

Upon completion of the Music Row recording sessions, the band ended their stay in Nashville with an appearance at the  at  (introduced by future "outlaw" country star ), on March 15, 1968. The band was greeted with derision by the conservative audience because they were the first group of  "longhairs" to play at the venerable country music establishment. In fact, The Byrds had all had their hair cut shorter than they normally wore it, specifically for their appearance at the Grand Ole Opry, but this did nothing to appease their detractors in the audience. The Byrds opened with a rendition of Merle Haggard's "", which was met with derisive heckling, booing, and mocking calls of "tweet, tweet" from the hostile Opry audience. Any hope of salvaging the performance was immediately destroyed when Parsons, rather than singing a song announced by Glaser, launched into a rendition of "Hickory Wind" dedicated to his grandmother. The deviation from protocol stunned Opry regulars such as  and embarrassed Glaser, ensuring that The Byrds would never be invited back to play on the show.

Nearly as disastrous was the group's appearance on the  program of legendary Nashville , , who mocked his guests throughout the interview and initially refused to play an  of "You Ain't Goin' Nowhere". Eventually playing the record, he dismissed it over the air and in the presence of the band as being mediocre. Clearly upset by their treatment, Parsons and McGuinn would make Emery the subject of their song, "Drug Store Truck Drivin' Man", which was written by the pair in London in May 1968. The song appeared on The Byrds' next album, , although this recording did not feature Parsons because he had left the band by this time.

After returning from Nashville, the band played a handful of  throughout the Los Angeles area with the addition of  JayDee Maness, who had played on several tracks on the album. Throughout April 1968, McGuinn came under considerable pressure from Parsons to recruit Maness as a full member of The Byrds, so that the band's new country material would sound authentic in concert, but McGuinn resisted, although Maness has stated in interview that he declined the invitation anyway. Having failed to recruit Maness as a permanent member of the band, Parsons next recommended another pedal steel guitar player, , but once again, McGuinn held firm. Parsons' attempts to recruit new members and dictate the band's musical direction caused a power struggle within the band, with McGuinn finding his position as band leader challenged by Parsons, who was also pushing for a higher salary. At one point Parsons even demanded that the album be billed as Gram Parsons and The Byrds, a demand that was ignored by McGuinn and Hillman.

In May 1968 the band embarked on a short European tour and while in England for concerts at the  and Blaises, The Byrds met with  and  who both expressed concern over The Byrds' intention to tour South Africa during the summer. McGuinn remained undaunted regarding these concerns over the country's  policies, however, having already received the blessing of South African singer, and convinced the rest of The Byrds that a trip to South Africa would be an interesting experience. This meeting between The Byrds and the two  would play an important part in Parsons departure from the band two months later.

Post-production

Upon the group's return to , post-production work on the Sweetheart of the Rodeo album was disrupted when Parsons' appearance on the album was contested by , who contended that the singer was still under contract to his . While the legal problems were being resolved, McGuinn replaced three of Parsons' lead vocals with his own singing, a move that still infuriated Parsons as late as 1973, when he told in an interview that McGuinn "erased it and did the vocals himself and fucked it up." However, Parsons was still featured singing lead vocals on the songs "Hickory Wind", "You're Still on My Mind", and "Life in Prison". There has been speculation that McGuinn's decision to re-record Parsons' lead vocals himself was not entirely motivated by the threat of legal action, but by a desire to decrease Parsons' presence on the album. According to producer Gary Usher:

“McGuinn was a little bit edgy that Parsons was getting a little bit too much out of this whole thing...He didn't want the album to turn into a Gram Parsons album. We wanted to keep Gram's voice in there, but we also wanted the recognition to come from Hillman and McGuinn, obviously. You just don't take a hit group and interject a new singer for no reason...There were legal problems but they were resolved and the album had just the exact amount of Gram Parsons that McGuinn, Hillman and I wanted.” MENU 0:00 With its mix of country and soul music, "" provides an example of Gram Parsons' concept of "Cosmic American Music". The song is also one of three on the album to have had its original Parsons' vocal replaced by Roger McGuinn prior to release. Problems playing this file? See .

The three songs that had their lead vocals replaced by McGuinn were "The Christian Life", "You Don't Miss Your Water", and "One Hundred Years from Now", with the last featuring McGuinn and Hillman sharing vocals on the final album version. However, Parsons' lead vocals weren't completely eradicated from these songs and can still be faintly heard, despite having either McGuinn or Hillman's voice  on them. The master recordings of these three songs, with their original Parsons' vocals restored to full prominence, were finally issued as part of   in 1990. These same master recordings, featuring Parsons' lead vocals, were also included as bonus tracks on disc one of the 2003 Legacy Edition of Sweetheart of the Rodeo.

With the legal problems surrounding Parsons' appearance on the album resolved, The Byrds returned to England for an appearance at the  on July 7, 1968.Following the concert, Parsons announced that he would not be accompanying the band on their imminent tour of South Africa in protest over the country's policies of apartheid (a policy that did not cease until 1994). Both McGuinn and Hillman doubted the sincerity of Parsons' protest, believing instead that Parsons had used the apartheid issue as a convenient excuse to leave the band and stay in England to hang out with Mick Jagger and Keith Richards. Consequently, by the time Sweetheart of the Rodeo was released in August 1968, Parsons had been an ex-member of The Byrds for almost eight weeks. Following the South African tour, McGuinn and Hillman replaced Parsons with longtime Byrd-in-waiting Clarence White, and Kevin Kelley was dismissed from the band soon after. In total, the McGuinn, Hillman, Parsons, and Kelley line-up of The Byrds had lasted a mere five months.

Release and reception Professional ratingsReview scoresSourceRating(9.7/10)(mixed)A−

Sweetheart of the Rodeo was released on August 30, 1968, in the United States (catalogue item CS 6970) and September 27, 1968, in the UK (catalogue item 63353). Columbia Records launched an accompanying print advertising campaign proclaiming "This Country's for the Byrds" and featuring the tag line "Their message is all country...their sound is all Byrds." The album is notable for being the first Byrds  to be issued exclusively in  in the United States, although the album was released in  and stereo variations in the United Kingdom. The album reached #77 on the  chart, during a chart stay of ten weeks, but failed to chart in the United Kingdom. The lead  from the album was a  of Bob Dylan's "", which was released on April 2, 1968, climbing to #75 on the  and #45 in the . A second single from the album, "I Am a Pilgrim", was released on September 2, 1968, but failed to chart.

Despite receiving generally favourable reviews from the critics, the country rock style of Sweetheart of the Rodeo was such a radical departure from the band's previous sound that large sections of the group's  following were alienated by its contents, resulting in the lowest sales of any Byrds album up to that point. , in the August 1968 edition of  magazine, said of the album: "The new Byrds do not sound like Buck Owens & his Buckaroos. They aren't that good. The material they've chosen to record, or rather, the way they perform the material, is simple, relaxed and folky. It's not pretentious, it's pretty. The musician-ship is excellent." Gifford added that "The Byrds have made an interesting album. It's really very uninvolved and not a difficult record to listen to. It ought to make the "Easy-Listening" charts. "Bringing it all back home" has never been an easy thing to do."

Rolling Stone also praised the album in its September 1968 issue, with  writing "The Byrds, in doing country as country, show just how powerful and relevant unadorned country music is to the music of today." Landau added "they leave just enough rock in the drums to let you know that they can still play rock & roll." Noted rock critic, , described Sweetheart of the Rodeo in a 1969 article for  as "a bittersweet tribute to country music." However, contemporary reviews of the album were not universally positive, with an anonymous  review from late 1968 deriding the album as "Not typical Byrds music, which is rather a pity." Similarly, , writing in  in November 1968, commented that "The latest Byrds album adheres to most of the 'rules of the game' about country sound, and yet, sad to say, to this old fan of The Byrds, the album is a distinguished bore."

In more recent years,  critic Mark Deming noted in his review of the album that "no major band had gone so deep into the sound and feeling of classic country (without parody or condescension) as the Byrds did on Sweetheart; at a time when most rock fans viewed country as a musical "" routine, the Byrds dared to declare that C&W could be hip, cool, and heartfelt." Alexander Lloyd Linhardt, reviewing the album for , described it as "a blindingly rusty gait through parched weariness and dusted reverie. It's not the natural sound of Death Valley or Utah, but rather, a false portrait by people who wished it was, which makes it even more melancholy and charismatic." Journalist Matthew Weiner commented in his review for  that "Thirty-five years after it startled Byrds fans everywhere with its  proclivities, Sweetheart remains a particularly fascinating example of two musical ships passing in the night, documenting both Parsons’ transformation into a visionary country-rock auteur and a pop band’s remarkable sense of artistic risk."

The Byrds' biographer, Johnny Rogan, noted that the album "stood alone as a work almost completely divorced from the prevailing rock culture. Its themes, mood and instrumentation looked back to another era at a time when the rest of America was still recovering from the recent assassinations of  and ." Ultimately, The Byrds' experimentation with the country genre on Sweetheart of the Rodeo was slightly ahead of its time, to the detriment of the band's commercial fortunes, as the international success of country rock flavoured bands like ,  and  during the 1970s demonstrated.

Legacy

Released at a time when The Byrds' surprising immersion in the world of country music coincided with their declining commercial appeal, Sweetheart of the Rodeo was certainly an uncommercial proposition at the time of its release. However, the album has proved to be a landmark, serving not only as a blueprint for Parsons' and Hillman's , but also for the entire nascent 1970s Los Angeles  movement. The album was also influential on the  and  movements, as well as the so-called  genre of the 1990s and 2000s. Among fans of The Byrds, however, opinion is often sharply divided regarding the merits of the album, with some seeing it as a natural continuation of the group's innovations, and others mourning the loss of the band's trademark  guitar jangle and experimentation. Nonetheless, Sweetheart of the Rodeo is widely considered to be The Byrds' last truly influential album.

Although it was not the first country rock album, Sweetheart of the Rodeo was the first album widely labeled as country rock to be released by an internationally successful rock act, pre-dating the release of Bob Dylan's  by over six months. The first bona fide country rock album is often cited as being Safe at Home by Parsons' previous group, The International Submarine Band. However, the genre's antecedents can be traced back to the  music of the 1950s, ' covers of  and ' material on  and , as well as the stripped down  of Dylan's John Wesley Harding album and The Byrds' own forays into country music on their pre-Sweetheart albums. 's debut album, , released in July 1968, was also influential on the genre but it was Sweetheart of the Rodeo that saw an established rock band playing pure country music for the first time.

In 2003, the album was ranked #117 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of , and Stylus Magazine named it their 175th favorite album of all time in the same year.

Sweetheart of the Rodeo went on to inspire the name of the 1980s country duo, , who paid tribute to The Byrds' album with the  of their 1990 album, .

Track listing #TitleWriterLead vocalsGuest musicians/band contributions beyond usual instrumentsTimeSide 11.""McGuinn (pedal steel guitar),  (organ)2:332."I Am a Pilgrim", arranged , Hillman (fiddle), Roy Husky (double bass), Roger McGuinn (banjo), Chris Hillman (acoustic guitar)3:393."The Christian Life"McGuinnJayDee Maness (pedal steel guitar),  (electric guitar)2:304.""McGuinnEarl P. Ball (piano), JayDee Maness (pedal steel guitar)3:485."You're Still on My Mind"ParsonsEarl P. Ball (piano), JayDee Maness (pedal steel guitar)2:256.""McGuinnRoy Husky (double bass), John Hartford (acoustic guitar, banjo, fiddle), Chris Hillman (mandolin)2:34Side 21."", Bob BuchananParsonsJohn Hartford (fiddle), Lloyd Green (pedal steel guitar), Roger McGuinn (banjo), Gram Parsons (piano)3:312."One Hundred Years from Now"Gram ParsonsMcGuinn, Hillman (piano), Lloyd Green (pedal steel guitar), Clarence White (electric guitar)2:403."Blue Canadian Rockies"HillmanClarence White (electric guitar), Gram Parsons (piano)2:024."Life in Prison", Jelly SandersParsonsEarl P. Ball (piano), JayDee Maness (pedal steel guitar)2:465."Nothing Was Delivered"Bob DylanMcGuinnLloyd Green (pedal steel guitar), Gram Parsons (piano, organ)3:24