Twenty Thousand Roads: The Ballad of Gram Parsons and His Cosmic American Music | 
| Author: David Meyer
Publisher: Villard
Category: Book
List Price: $29.95
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Rating:  22 reviews
Sales Rank: 348009
Media: Hardcover
Pages: 592
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 2
Dimensions (in): 9.1 x 6.4 x 1.6
ISBN: 0375505709
Dewey Decimal Number: 782.42166092
EAN: 9780375505706
ASIN: 0375505709
Publication Date: October 30, 2007
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
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 stood at the nexus of countless musical crossroads, and he sold his soul to the devil at every one. Parson hung out with glamorous women and the coolest friends. His intimates and collaborators on his journey included Keith Richards, William Burroughs, Marianne Faithfull, Peter Fonda, Roger McGuinn, Clarence White, and Emmylou Harris. Parsons had everything–looks, charisma, money, style, the best drugs, the most heartbreaking voice–and threw it all away with both hands. His ballad is one of gigantic talent colliding with epic self-destruction.
Parsons led the Byrds to create the seminal country rock masterpiece Sweetheart of the Rodeo. He formed the Flying Burrito Brothers, helped to guide the Rolling Stones beyond the blues in their appreciation of American roots music, and found his musical soul mate 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 age twenty-six.
In this beautifully written, 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, Twenty Thousand Roads paints an unprecedented portrait of the man who linked country to rock. Parsons’ creative genius gave birth to a new sound that was rooted in the past but heralded the future.
From interviews with hundreds of the famous and obscure who knew and worked closely with Parsons–many who have never spoken publicly about him before–Meyer conjures a dazzling panorama of the artist and his era. Shedding new light and dispelling old myths, Twenty Thousand Roads is a breakthrough in rock-and-roll biography and more–a chronicle of creativity, drugs, excess, culture, and music in the ferment of late-1960s America.
Visit the official website: www.twentythousandroads.com
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| Customer Reviews: Read 17 more reviews...
 tragic life,great read June 29, 2009
Thomas A. Starr (eugene, or United States)
I was completely entertained by this book.What a spoiled rich boy with awesome talent and genes that would kill most.
 Great subject, great author..... May 28, 2009
Lillie Langtry (West Islip, NY United States)
This book was so good because not only the subject was great, but the author is a very gifted writer, and his interpretations of certain people were right on, which explained much of the behavior of Gram. It clears up alot of the confusion about Gram, and what lead him down the roads that he went down. The author is one of the biographers I have ever read.
Thank You January 10, 2009
Dermot (maryland)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
We're not in the age of letters anymore, so be thankful that D. Meyer performed the work of interviewing those connected to GP before...well, before that is no longer possible. This book is characterized by Meyer's focus on GP's psychology--and especially for the specific evidence rather than the broad and incomplete rock-legend myths. For me, the early pages are fantastic...the unique social and psychological world that would produce the results. Cypress Gardens indeed.
Solid bio December 16, 2008
Bryan Moore (Jonesboro, AR United States)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Meyer patiently, carefully lays out what he can of the life of Gram Parsons, from well before his birth to well after his death in 1973. While no biography can ever claim to be exhaustive (not Boswell's fat Life of Johnson, nor Malone's 6-volume Jefferson), Meyer does as fine and thorough a job of explaining GP's life as one might expect. At well over 500 pages, the book never seems too much in a hurry, and this is mostly a positive, though I learned a bit more about the pre-Gram days than I cared to.
But it's all here, laid out well: family wealth and decadent, alcoholic lifestyles, his father's--Coon Dog's--suicide, his mother Avis's death by alchohol, his stepfather's (Bob Parson's) later death by the same, his love of music (the ongoing explanation of this is one of the book's greatest strengths), early bands, flunking out of Harvard, various love interests (or the major ones), life in NYC, then LA, playing with the Intl Sub Band, the Byrds, the Burritos, and his solo career (w/ Emmylou), his friendship with Keith Richards (and the jealously of Mick), drug use (and more drug use), commercial failures and artistic successes, the fateful day at Joshua Tree and the tragic foolishness regarding his corpse. Meyer leaves few stones unturned. He has done his homework on Parsons, he has obviously spent a lot of time interviewing familiy members and friends, and he has great respect for and understanding of Parsons's music, as well as that of his contemporaries and his many influences (Elvis, Buck Owens, Merle Haggard, George Jones, the Louvin Brothers, etc.).
Maybe it's me, but Meyer's occasional use of the colloquialism is a bit annoying, and the book is plagued (though not fatally) with some wordiness and repetition. The length doesn't bother me so much as some laziness in revision. Tightly-written prose this is not. Also, some of Meyer's opinions seem questionable. As one reviewer points out, the idea that GP is a superior record to Grievous Angel is a bit odd, at best. Fans will, of course, disagree, but I think Grievous is GP's very best record, though I also love the first Burritos record. (I'd put GP third.) Meyer goes on and on about how badly it--the first Burritos (Gilded Palace of Sin)--is produced. I say, make your point and move on, man! It doesn't seem all that badly produced; I like its rawness. I also disagree with him regarding Parsons's touring band, the Fallen Angels, which he disses pretty throroughly as a "mediocre band." They were actually pretty good. Meyer makes other claims that strike me as iffy, at best.
Meyer claims that Parsons is more central in American music than Dylan or anyone else. That is hogwash. For what it's worth, I don't think ANYONE is as central as Dylan, though, to say the least, it's difficult to quantify influence. Yet I do believe that Parsons's influence is enormous and enduring, and Meyer gives good insight into why this is true. I recommend this book without hesitation to anyone interested in knowing more about this great musician. Not that I don't want to know about his drug use, girlfriends, palling around with the rich and famous, and so on, but I care much more about the life of the mind--what makes the man tick--and Meyer delivers sufficiently on that.
P.S. Living in northeast Arkansas, I was horrified and embarrassed to read Meyer's account of GP's rough--but perhaps partially justified--treatment by the Blytheville police in 1973. (Some of the Stones, following Parsons' lead, would get busted in the state a few years later!) But the explanation of what led the police to beat and arrest him, supplied by Fallen Angels guitarist Jock Bartley, made me laught out loud. At 2:30 AM Parsons and his wife are arguing loudly in their motel room, so responding to a complaint, the police arrive and pound loudly on his motel door. Bartley: "Gram, reacting to the aggressive police, staggers and takes a step back and launches a roundhouse right punch that misses by three or four feet, I mean it wasn't even close." The next day Parsons was out of jail, and the band couldn't leave Arkansas quickly enough.
GRAM PARSONS "TWENTY THOUSAND ROADS" BOOK November 7, 2008
Gary Covington (LA)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
THIS IS AN EXCELLENT COMPANION TO THE DVD "GRAM PARSONS - FALLEN ANGEL".
IT IS VERY COMPREHESIVE, AND COVERS GRAM'S LIFE FROM CHILDHOOD, THROUHGOUT HIS LIFE AND CAREER. IT COVERS HIS BIRTH IN WINTERHAVEN, FLORIDA (HE WAS BORN TO A WEATHLY SOUTHERN FAMILY WHO OWNED NEARLY HALF OF THE ORANGE GROVES IN FLORIDA). IT COVERS THAT HE MOVED TO WAYCROSS, GEORGIA AS AN EARLY CHILD, AND THE INFLUENCE THAT HIS SOUTHERN UPBRINING HAD ON HIM.
THE BOOK COVERS HIS MUSICAL CAREER IN THE INTERNATIONAL SUBMARINE BAND, THE BYRDS, THE FLYING BURITTO BROTHERS, AND HIS SOLO ALBUMS (WITH EMMLY LOU HARRIS).
HIS MUSIC WAS VERY UNIQUE AND SPECIAL!!!
GRAM WAS LEGENDARY FOR BRIDGING THE GAP BETWEEN COUNTRY MUSIC AND ROCK AND ROLL. HE LIKED TO CALL IT "COSMIC AMIERICAN MUSIC".
MOST OF HIS CAREER WAS SPENT IN CALIFORNIA. HE LOVED THE JOSUHA TREEE NATIOANL PARK.
THE BOOK COVERS HIS EARLY DEATH AT THE JOSUHA TREE PARK LODGE. IT COVERS THE CONTROVERY OVER THE STEALING OF HIS BODY, WHERE MOST OF IT WAS BURNED IN THE JOSUHA TREE PARK. (THIS WAS A PACK HE HAD MADE WITH HIS MANAGER). HOWEVER, HIS REMAINING FAMILY WANTED HIM TO BE BURIED IN NEW ORLEANS, SO WHAT WAS LEFT OF HIS BODY, WAS BURIED IN METARIE, NEAR NEW ORLEANS.
THIS IS A GREAT BOOK, ABOUT A GREAT AMERICAN MUSIC LEGEND, WHO DIED WAY TOO SOON. HOWEVER, HIS MUSIC WILL LAST FOREVER!!!
THIS IS A GREAT BOOK TO GO WITH THE DVD GRAM PARSONS "FALLEN ANGEL"!!! I RECOMMEND THEM BOTH!!!
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