| Twenty Thousand Roads |
| Twenty Thousand Roads |
Now available in the UK - see the UK Reviews.
TWENTY
THOUSAND ROADS
The Ballad of Gram Parsons and his Cosmic American Music
David N. Meyer
Chosen as one of the Top 3 New Rock Books of 2008 by Rolling Stone Magazine
Gram Parsons lived fast, died young and left a beautiful corpse - a corpse his friends stole, took to Joshua Tree National Monument and set afire in its coffin. The theft and burning of his body marked the end of Gram Parsons' life and the beginning of the Gram Parsons legend.
As a singer and songwriter, Gram Parsons stands at the nexus of countless musical crossroads, and he sold his soul to the devil at every one. Gram Parsons had everything- looks, charisma, money, style, glamorous women , the coolest friends, the best drugs, the most moving, heartbreaking voice -and threw it all away with both hands. Parsons' ballad is one of gigantic talent colliding with epic self-destruction.
Gram Parsons led the Byrds to create the seminal country rock masterpiece Sweetheart of the Rodeo. He formed the Flying Burrito Brothers, taught the Rolling Stones about American roots music and found his musical soulmate in Emmylou Harris. Parsons' solo albums, GP and Grievous Angel, are now recognized as visionary masterpieces of the transcendental jambalaya of rock, soul, country, gospel and blues Parsons named "Cosmic American Music." Four months before Grievous Angel was released, Parsons died of a drug and alcohol overdose at twenty six.
In
this masterfully readable, raucous, meticulously researched biography, David N.
Meyer gives Parsons' mythic life its due. From Parsons' privileged Southern Gothic
upbringing to his early career in Greenwich Village's folk-music scene to his
Sunset Strip glory days in with Keith Richards, William Burroughs, Marianne Faithful,
Peter Fonda, Roger McGuinn, Clarence White and Emmylou Harris, Twenty Thousand
Roads paints an unprecedented portrait of the man who linked country to rock.
Parson's creative genius gave birth to a new sound, rooted in the past, that defined
the future.
David N. Meyer's books include The
100 Best Films to Rent You've Never Heard Of and
A
Girl and a Gun: The Complete Guide to Film Noir on Video. He contributed
to the renowned underground humor classic The
Book of the Subgenius. His writing has appeared in Entertainment
Weekly, The New York Times, Wired, Glamour, and The Rocket. Mr. Meyer teaches
in cinema studies at the New School in New York City and is the film editor of
the arts magazine Brooklyn Rail.
