Sweetheart Of The Rodeo (1968)

If you can't tell, I'm a junkie for some good country. I feel it's a genre that's unfairly lumped into music that's easily replicable, unadventurous, and pandering. When a lot of the greatest country music can be exactly the opposite and feature some really stellar musicianship. I'm an even bigger junkie for artists climbing out of their comfort zone and doing a country-adjacent project; like Jonathan Richman or Cyndi Lauper, no matter how successful I feel they may be. And one of the best bands that temporarily converted to country has to be The Byrds. After a significant lineup change and the eventual addition of Gram Parsons, The Byrds attempted to break into the country scene and do to country what they did with folk music.

On paper it's about the same as most other Byrds records: Do a couple of covers, a couple originals, keep the playing tight, and throw Dylan a bone. It's just now everything is countryfied down to the strangely mesmerizing cover art. One of the reasons why the transition seems so smooth is The Byrds always had at least one foot in the folk/country scene. They even closed out their sophomore LP with a rocking rendition of "Oh, Suzannah!". So needless to say the quartet sounds really relaxed playing this set of tracks. The country premise also delivers a more cohesive record than even some of the band's greatest material like their Byrd Brothers record. Probably the most consistent since their debut.

And one of the best aspects of the songs has to be the close vocal harmonies and melodic delivery that the group is known for. Roger McGuinn is absolutely in top form here, he delivers a range of emotions from earnest, to melancholy, to confident. And his youthful tone harkens back to a golden era when country was a younger man's game. Now there was apparently a controversy where McGuinn had replaced vocals from some of Gram Parsons's songs, and these original takes can be heard in various deluxe editions of the record. I personally like McGuinn's voice better and I especially like his harmonies with bassist Chris Hillman on Gram's "One Hundred Years".

But the original cuts aren't that drastically different as Parsons and McGuinn share an eerily similar voice at times. Speaking of deluxe editions, I am 100% certain that this album is best appreciated with three bonus tracks added after the original closer. Those being "You Got A Reputation", "Lazy Days", and the downright devilish "Pretty Polly". They add even more variety to the original tracklist and are all highlights of the record. How they were left off is a mystery to me, but this is generally a running joke with Byrds albums. I can't get enough of this nugget of a country gem and I'm glad to see it's garnered a larger reputation than when it first came out. The comfort and confidence with which the band executes the material is intoxicating and has easily made this my most listened to Byrds record. If the band's longtime problems hadn't come between them and Parsons, we could've easily gotten a second round of great material.