On March 3, 1972, Chuck Cassell taped a lengthy interview with
Gram Parsons at A&M Records, with the purpose of getting some background information for
the Flying Burrito Brothers' then-upcoming live album
The Last of the Red Hot Burritos (even though
Parsons didn't actually play on the recording). It's turned out to far outlive its original design, both since it was an extremely in-depth interview covering
Parsons' entire career up to that point, and since there wouldn't be many more opportunities for such interviews with him, as he died a year-and-a-half later. This CD doesn't have the whole interview, but it does have a 69-minute excerpt, in which
Parsons talks frankly about
the Byrds,
the Burritos,
the International Submarine Band, and country music. Along the way are some sharp criticisms of some of the people he worked with, including
Chris Hillman,
Michael Clarke,
Chris Ethridge, and producers
Jim Dickson and
Terry Melcher, though some praise for
Hillman is granted as well. He's particularly critical of fellow
Burritos Clarke and
Ethridge's unsuitability, in his view, as country-rock players. The sound quality isn't great, and Cassell's questions aren't clearly audible, but this doesn't matter so much, since
Parsons' answers are easily understood, and it's a spoken-word disc anyway. A much longer transcript of this interview, incidentally, appears in
Sid Griffin's book Gram Parsons: A Music Biography.