Sweetheart of the Rodeo - Country Classic

With the current fascination for all things alt.country, it's a fine time to revisit one of the early classics of the genre. Sweetheart of the Rodeo was a brave excursion for The Byrds into what was widely held by the rock community as a genre characterised by hick attitudes and boho sentiments, the kind of things the younger generation were busy rebelling against.

However, country music had always been in the Byrds sound - bassist Chris Hillman had played with bluegrass groups before joining the band - and could be detected on many of their previous albums such as The Notorious Byrd Brothers from January 1968. There, country shared space with psychedelia and space rock, but by the time Sweetheart was made, the band had all but jettisoned them in favour of a return to what Roger McGuinn saw as the roots of American music.

McGuinn's original plan was to create a history of 20th century music, from jazz and folk right up to modern synthesiser experiments. Traditional country was supposed to be the starting point for this expedition. However, under the influence of new recruit Gram Parsons (ironically hired as a jazz pianist) the concept never got further than the country. Parsons found an enthusiastic ally in Hillman, and the pair set about turning McGuinn away from his original plans, embracing their new direction with the passion of zealots. The songs were largely drawn from a mix of classic country artists such as The Louvin Brothers and Merle Haggard, a brace of twanged up Dylan covers and the odd folk tune. Despite writing many of the band's classic songs on previous albums, neither McGuinn nor Hillman contributed any original material. Parsons, on the other hand, brought the achingly beautiful Hickory Wind and the mildly rocking One Hundred Years From Now.

The album marked a turning point for The Byrds. They became the first rock band to play at the Grand Ole Opry, and were set for tour of South Africa when Parsons quit, ostensibly in protest at the apartheid regime. His vocal contributions to the still unreleased album were removed, although they would later resurface on CD re-issues. He was later joined by Hillman, the pair going on to form the superlative Flying Burrito Brothers, before Parsons left once more to pursue his vision of "Cosmic American Music" before overdosing in 1974.

McGuinn, the sole remaining original member, would lead ever changing line-ups of the band through a succession of increasingly patchy albums before finally calling it quits. Sweetheart of the Rodeo marked the last time the band was truly groundbreaking. It also proved, however unintentionally, to be their most influential album, marking a retreat from psychedelic excesses to a more comforting terrain which was visited by Bob Dylan on Nashville Skyline and by The Band on Music From Big Pink. Eventually even those psych visionaries The Grateful Dead would make country influenced albums. The path started by Sweetheart of the Rodeo also led directly to the blow dried cocaine country of The Eagles, but why hold that against it?