Customer Reviews

Grievous Angel : An Intimate Biography of Gram Parsons

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

I really enjoyed this book and found it the most user friendly of all the books written about country rock legend Gram Parsons. It presents him in a realistic light, warts and all. He was a remarkably talented young man who had it all. Unfotrunately the one thing he lacked was self-discipline and that ended up being the end of him. Nonetheless, the musical and social/personal journey he had in his short life make for great reading. I highly recommmend it. I found it fun to be playing some GP music softly in the background while I read it. This really made some cool ambience.

Sadly, Gram Parsons becomes a fictional character in his own biography. I was really hoping this would be a better read then the Ben Fong-Torres bio, but boy was I wrong. I appreciate Jessica Hundley's effort, but this "bio" is made up at best and sheds no light on the Southern Gothic story that is Gram & the Snively clan. The writing and research are sloppy and lazy. She tends to use clunky, overly dramatic descriptions often ("Gram looked out at the upturned faces; a hundred eyes watched as his hands played and watched his face as he held a note in his throat. Something that had been inside him suddenly slipped together again. He felt his lungs and his cheeks go hot. He smiled, gazing into the pale face of a girl in front for just a moment too long, felt her surrender, saw the boys and their envy, and for the first time, felt whole.") Ugh. Gram says and thinks a lot of things in this book. He also winks, smiles, stares at himself in the mirror, thinks deeply about things, etc.

Important facts are downplayed or left out (we don't find out that Gram Connor is immediately adopted by his stepfather and becomes Gram "Parsons" until way into the book -- he's just Gram until the "oh yeah, forgot to mention" moment); the Connor clan and his relationship with them is barely mentioned, etc.

Also, editing is pretty terrible, especially in a book about a musician --we're treated to Arthur Conley's "That's Alright, Mama" & Bourdeleaux Bryant's "Love Hurts" (it's Arthur Crudup & Boudleaux Bryant). At one point, even Gram's little sister Avis ("Little Avis") becomes "Little Avril" on page 190. Some accepted facts are wrong -- in Fong-Torres' book, Bernie Leadon sings the hymn "Farther Along" at Clarence White's funeral, a very poignant and touching moment. In this book, it's not Bernie but Gram, who "sick in his guts and sad to the core" starts to sing "an old hymn" as others join in, "fill(ing) their lungs with their grief."

I really, really wanted to like this book. What I can't fathom is why Jessica Hundley decided to make most of it up. What this amounts to is a fairy-tale fanbook with only some basis in the truth. How about some interviews? The Snivelys are still in the citrus business in Florida. I'm sure there are some Connors still around in Tennessee. Emmylou, Road Mangler, Bernie Leadon, Hillman, McGuinn, James Burton, Roland White, Merle Haggard, are all still alive. Why not travel to Winter Haven, Jax, Waycross, Tennessee, etc., and get the feel for what Gram experienced? What's with all the "fan" interviews? Who cares?

Unfortunately, what this book does is turn Gram into a semi-fictional character who somehow became an influential musician. Simply making up words and thoughts for Gram does nothing to highlight the complex and troubled character he must have been. It only makes me wish Jessica Hundley had written an actual biography and not a book based on a true story. It hurts me to say this because I admire the fact that Ms. Hundley wanted to share a story and seems to truly love the subject, but the book is pretty terrible -- in many ways, it's her story, not Gram's. Get Ben Fong-Torres' book instead.

Save your money. There's nothing new here except the author's thoughts attributed to Gram as if she could read his mind. Buy the Ben Fong-Torres book and just look at the pictures in this one.

Is there anything new that can be said about the life of Gram Parsons? Perhaps not, but his fascinating and tragic life still makes for interesting, if not compelling reading in the hands of talented writers. Jessica Hundley and Polly Parsons' "Grevious Angel" will not supplant Fong-Torres' "Hickory Wind" as the main reference source on his life. Their book is not based on the same extensive research as "Hickory Wind"; however, "Grevious Angel" does contain numerous text boxes of usually one to three page duration which contain testimonials about Parsons' influence or first-hand accounts of the man himself. While Hundley and Parsons do portray Parsons as a musical visionary, they do not understate, nor excuse, nor glorify his terrible substance abuse and reckless lifestyle, which resulted in his untimely demise. Overall, the book is likely to appeal to younger or recent fans of Gram Parsons, rather than the old timers, who probably know his life triumphs and tragedies in greater depth than the account presented here.

besides the cool pics in this book.... the author has seemed to have forgotten that u can not make up things in a biography... she puts her own thoughts into the book as if they were grams... the book is very inaccurate... the author doesnt even have a bibliography its like wikapedia u can not trust it... do not buy it... twenty thousand roads by david n meyer is the best and most accurate bio on gram and it comes with a very detailed bibliography so u know its real and not some dumb opinion from a moronic author... shame on jessica hundley for wirtting this book..

Definitely worthwhile for any Gram Parsons, Flying Burrito Bros., ISB, Byrds, etcetra fan. A lot of info you already knew, but just from another or different perspective.

What I really liked were the many different interviews with many of those
who were influenced by Gram, such as Emmylou Harris, Jay Farrar, Keith Richards and many more.

The only negative; errors a good editor should've discovered.
It's Arthur "Big Boy" Crudup not "Sweet Soul Music" Conley that wrote "That's All Right Mama".
And it's Joan not John Baez.

Or did I get the only copy with these typo's?
Hopefully.

Otherwise, still worth 5 stars in my opinion. A keeper!

I loved this book, with its trippy, subjective syntax and its hard-edged look at Gram Parsons, one of the distinctive singer-songwriters of the postwar era. What a life he had, however short, and the music he made continues to inspire us and to make us a little weepy. Partly, as Hundley and Parsons show us, Gram always felt a little disconnected himself, for he was an orphan at age 18, and his best memories of his mother were always colored by her "Glass Menagerie" fondness for alcohol and lost dreams and Southern gentility, while the father was the same sort of dad Gram himself grew up to be--good in the short haul, but sort of impatient.

It's sad about the drugs that seem to take over, but even before becoming a drug addict he's sort of a jerk, spoiled and self-indulgent in the way of the boy who's always had more money than anyone else in his class at school, so he could buy himself out of any scrapes his charm couldn't extricate himself from. The story of the Burrito Brothers' train ride throughout the continental USA, staying at the best hotels and wasting millions of dollars of the record company's money, is a real rock legend, but it isn't very pretty really when you look at the facts. You can get only so much mileage out of being a "trustafarian."

Thiss book makes one wonder why there isn't a comprehensive biography of Brandon de Wilde (one of Gram's first friends in New York). Surely Brandon, one of the great child stars who grew up to be a young leading man, and who died of drugs early on, had an even more interesting life than Gram? The glimpses we see of him here, and his attempts to establish a foothold in the music business, are fascinating. Likewise I never knew that Gram helped Peter Fonda record a single--love to hear that one!

Maybe I'm dense but I couldn't figure out if the dying, melancholy Gram, old before his time at 26, actually had an affair with Emmylou Harris or not. Is it perhaps still a huge secret 35 years later? The prose of GRIEVOUS ANGEL dances around the details of this "intimate friendship" but surely enough time has gone by, water under the bridge, for the truth to emerge. If not, just say so in one simple sentence, instead of vague romantic prose poems about the intimate bond the two of them shared. You'd think she was the widow from the way Jessica and Polly write about her.

The Ben Fong-Torres book is much more thoroughly researched, and doesn't rely on the ridiculous invented dialogue that Hundley imagines went on between Parsons and his friends.

If GP was as shallow and moronic as he's portrayed in this book, he could never have written and recorded the beautiful, moving music that he left us.

In addition, Hundley interviews anyone she can think of, including her own friends and people who never had anything to do with Parsons.

WTF?

This was a good book for an overall abbreviated versions of his life. I loved the pictures and interviews. I understood this was a daughter's heart but I didn't understand how the author got inside Gram's head and described how he was feeling or thinking. When I would read those parts the word "opinion" would flash in my head, and if you are reading a biography the word "fact" should be flashing. Even still, I liked the book. I've read three biographies of the man and I still don't understand why people including myself are fascinated. He was an alcoholic and drug addict, things I grew up in and an despised. But lets be honest everyone who surrounded him was living that lifestyle. I loved the songs Hickory Wind and In my Hour of Darkness and he had a hauntingly sadly romantic tone in his voice but what was/is the pull...I can only conclude it is spiritual. So the book is worth your time if only to get that overall view of the dimensions of a person. And to those past friends who harbor some bad feelings toward Gram and all this attention, be mindful you got the better deal,in life there is compromise, something Gram was willing to do for his prize. Can't be legend unless you suffer and die, its a rule.

Being a bit older than some, I can say that I have seen the Byrds, Flying Burrito Brothers, and Gram Parsons/Emmylou harris. and best of all--Emmylou Harris with a variety of others--most recently; Mark Knopfler. I could care less about all the questionable history between GP & ELH. In reality they were awesome together. She remains the torch bearer of the original "Cosmic American Music" theme. She defines being pigeonholed into a specific type of genre. Just listen to all the music they have made, then come to understand "Cosmic American Music". The people they have played with boggles the mind. From Fred Neil, Neil Young, Steven Stills, Linda Ronstadt, John Denver, & so many more, it
Grievous Angel : An Intimate Biography of Gram ParsonsHickory Wind: The Life and Times of Gram Parsonsreally does make you understand who they were and are. They are my musical heros.