We’ve talked about Gram Parsons a lot here already while talking about records by The Byrds and Emmylou Harris. As a refresher, he was the grandson of Florida Orange growing magnates who developed a love of Country Music (Gram, not the orange growing magnates, although they too may have been fans) when he heard Merle Haggard while at Harvard! Not yer usual Country stars path, granted. He converted The Byrds to Country on “Sweetheart Of The Rodeo”, hung out with the Rolling Stones and helped them write “Wild Horses”. He then discovered Emmylou Harris, made two of the greatest Country Rock (or as he called it Cosmic American Music) albums to date and died of a drug overdose aged 26 and his Road manager then kidnapped his body and burned it under a Joshua Tree in the desert…Phew!

I was already a fan of The Byrds and one day while on tour in the US I asked Martin “Fiddley” Bell “If I like The Byrds will I like Gram Parsons ?”. He told me I would so I went to the record store directly opposite the venue we were at in Boulder, Colorado (Nanu Nanu !) and bought a double CD feauturing “GP” and “Grievous Angel”. For once “Fiddley” Bell was right, I did like Gram Parsons. The band on “GP” are quite the players. There is a big chunk of Elvis Presley’s Las Vegas band, guitarist James Burton, drummer Ronnie Tutt, keyboards by Glen D Hardin. Then there’s the Flying Burrito Brothers fiddle player Byron Berline and banjo player Alan Munde and not one but two legendary pedal steel players in Al Perkins and Buddy Emmons. Oh and Blind Faith/Traffic bass player Ric Grech. Add to that Gram and harmony vocals by Emmylou Harris and you have quite the lineup.

The album was originally scheduled to be produced by one of Gram’s great heroes, Merle Haggard. But after a meeting with Gram that seemed to go well, Haggard pulled out of the job. He had his own demons to deal with and it has been suggested he saw some of the same things in Gram. Parsons was reportedly crushed by Haggard’s vacating the production chair.

“GP” starts out quite traditionally with the Bluegrass hoedown that is “Still Feeling Blue”. Fiddles and pedal steels gallop through the song with swooping, interlocking lines whilst Emmylou adds perfect harmonies on the chorus. Emmylou is back on next song "We'll Sweep Out the Ashes in the Morning”. This one isn’t so much her singing harmony as duetting with Gram, which is really how their musical relationship works. She even gets a verse to herself.

Toward the end of Side one is one of Gram’s finest performances. “Streets Of Baltimore” was written by Tompall Glaser and Harlan Howard in 1966. It’s been recorded by many people over the years (Willie Nelson, The Lemonheads, Uncle Tupelo, John Prine the list goes on) but it was Gram’s version that made the song famous. It tells of a young married couple who sell their farm so the husband can take his wife where she really wanted to be, Baltimore. Eventually he realises that his wife likes the city and its nightlife more than him and he returns to Tennessee while his “baby walks the streets of Baltimore”, make of that last line what you will. The song was also heard in the soundtrack of TV series The Wire, set in Baltimore. That’s followed by “She”, a beautiful ballad written by Gram and Chris Ethridge which I’ve always thought was about Emmylou (“oh but she sure could sing”) who also covered it.

“GP” set the template for what would come to be called Country Rock. The likes of the Eagles and Poco took the template and ran with it, members of both bands had orbited around the scene that Gram was part of (Byrds, Burrito’s etc.) and his hand in all of that should never be underestimated.

Streets Of Baltimore - https://youtu.be/Xi0c2clOqp0?si=EOkOOldcquxgOc2w

Another out of order recent find for you (last one for a while)…I don’t recall who first clued me in to Beagle. It was definitely in the mid 90’s when I was working at Birmingham Airport because I remember listening to them (and Things Of Stone And Wood who sadly have never had a release on vinyl) endlessly on my walk in to start the early shift. It would have been one of that international group of CD swappers I’ve talked about before, I suspect most likely it was David Smith in New Jersey but could easily have been Curtis Malasky elsewhere in the US, it was definitely one of the Americans because that’s where my CD copies came from when I had them. Whoever it was, thanx, they’ve been occasional companions ever since and hearing them always puts a smile on my face and a spring in my step.

Beagle were an alternative pop band formed at university in Lund, Sweden in 1990. They released just 2 LP’s “Sound On Sound” in 1992 and “Within” in 1993 (I still need to track down a copy of that one). The two main players were songwriters Magnus Börjeson and Daniel Sandström, who between them wrote every song on Beagle’s two albums. This 1992 Swedish issue I’ve acquired also contains a song, “Crap” (!), that wasn’t on the CD copy I had so I get to hear new Beagle music after all these years.

So what do they sound like ? This is pure, joyous pop music made with acoustic guitars, fiddles, mandolins, keybpards and the like. It’s NOT folk music it’s most definitely pop, great songs with singalong choruses and nagging tunes that get lodged in your head and won’t shift. If I had to compare them to anyone you’d know to give you some vague idea of where this is coming from then think of that record “Breakfast At Tiffany’s” by Deep Blue Something, but (and it's a big BUT) Beagle are so, so much better than that. This is uplifting happy pop music, it’s not gonna change the world or tell you anything deep and philosophical but they brighten my day whenever I hear them.

And So It Goes On - https://youtu.be/NteuM38sDLY?si=DWCVNYkxibs_rkhW

Back in 1994 sometime I was lazing at home with MTV on (in those long-lost, far-off days when MTV actually played music) and on came this amazing song. The band were called Orange and the song was “Judy Over The Rainbow”. I rushed out the very next day and bought a copy and to this day it remains a huge favourite and one of the great lost singles of the 1990’s. If only “the kids” had picked up on Orange and not some other band beginning with O around then the musical world of the 90’s could have been a very different and consequently better place. “Judy Over The Rainbow” was to be Orange’s only release and they promptly disappeared. 

Thanx to the development of the Internet since then I would occasionally look for any other shred of info about them and eventually turned up that Orange was basically songwriter Rick Corcoran from Sheffield. I also found out he had formed another band called The Orgone Box who released a CD in Japan in 1996 that was almost impossible to find. Then, very recently, I discovered that a small Indie label in Tunbridge Wells had re-issued it on Green vinyl and here it is.

I dropped the needle for the first time with great trepidation thinking “this is either gonna be majestic or shite”. Well, it’s neither. It’s certainly no “Judy Over The Rainbow” (even though there is a version of that song on here) but it is a million miles from being shite. Imagine if you would that prime ’67 Syd Barrettt had made a collaboration album with Jellyfish while all of them had spent a lot of time listening to the Dukes of Stratosphear while living in a flat in Liverpool and you’ll be somewhere close to where The Orgone Box are coming from.

Opener “Hello Central...Give Me Ganymede” and final track “Ticket With No Return” both fit that last paragraph’s description perfectly (while also being the best two songs on the record), a twangy 60’s guitar riff, strange lyrics and an overall pop-psyche feel that naggingly feels like it should come from Liverpool but doesn’t. It’s all less than perfectly recorded, a lot of the tracks have the feel of demo’s about them, in fact if you played me this albums version of “Judy Over The Rainbow” and told me it was a demo by Orange, I’d believe that. Rick Corcoran seemingly hated the major label experience and the recording processes that came with it. After recording “Judy Over The Rainbow” with Orange I’ve read he walked away from his major deal, borrowed some basic recording equipment and that’s where these recordings spring from.

I can’t help but feel that we all missed out on something of a talent when Rick Corcoran walked away from Orange and the music biz but so long as he was happy making these low key/low-fi-ish recordings then who am I to question him ? Have a listen to the two versions of “Judy Over The Rainbow” and forever wonder why it wasn’t a huge success…

Judy Over The Rainbow (Orgone Box) - https://youtu.be/L5nl8aW1v4s?si=NdJRSp1yg1zbRs4L

Judy Over The Rainbow (Orange) - https://youtu.be/UjRzr7p0reU?si=J200GbBYb2a2KS8F