Gram Parsons: The Early Years EP

This wonderful album contains the complete recorded legacy of the Shilos, nine songs cut as a demo tape at Bob Jones University in March of 1965, and one home recording of Gram Parsons improvising a potential theme song for a park at Cypress Gardens, Florida. The harmonizing on the group numbers is gorgeous, a rival to the best work of the Kingston Trio or the Journeymen, and the playing is spirited and of virtuoso quality. Opening up with a very bracing, energetic cover of Dick Weissman's "I May Be Right," the album carries you through myriad sounds and genres, including a beautiful Parsons original called "Zah's Blues" that sounds like a descendant of the Kingston Trio's "Scotch and Soda," and the sweetly passionate "Mary Don't You Weep." The group was equally fine doing covers of Pete Seeger songs (there's a very animated rendition of "The Bells of Rhymney" here) and gospel-themed material. And then there's "Surfinanny," the Parsons theme park theme song — he never cut another song as sweetly innocent or beguiling in the eight years he had left to live. Any of the tracks here were worthy of release, and "On My Journey Home" and "They Still Go Down" should have been especially attractive as potential singles at the time. Anyone who loves the Kingston Trio or similar groups will have to own this record, and it's worth tracking down, especially with the killer photo book/biography that came with it as an insert.