Twenty Thousand Roads: The Ballad of Gram Parsons and His Cosmic American Music (Hardcover)

~ David Meyer (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. Gram Parsons is remembered as much for wearing sequined cowboy suits on stage and for being illegally cremated in the desert by one of his friends after dying of a drug overdose as he is for the half-dozen albums he played on in the late 1960s and early 1970s, including the Byrds' classic Sweetheart of the Rodeo. Meyer (A Girl and a Gun) covers both aspects of the legend, but he gives particular attention to the way Parsons brought together elements of country and rock music to forge a new sound. After a leisurely telling of Parsons's rich white trash family drama in Florida and Georgia, including his father's suicide and the barely contained contempt of his mother's family, the biography plunges into his musical career, careening from one band to the next just as Parsons himself did. Meyer is appreciative but never adulatory of Parsons, who he believes threw his talent away; while citing the influence of the Flying Burrito Brothers' debut album, for example, he repeatedly mentions the band's unbelievably sloppy sound. This isn't the first biography of Parsons, but Meyer's semidetached stance as a critical fan makes it a valuable one, in the vein of Peter Guralnick or Greil Marcus. (Oct. 30)
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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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Product Details

• Hardcover: 592 pages
• Publisher: Villard; 1ST edition (October 30, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0375505709
• ISBN-13: 978-0375505706
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.4 x 1.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (26 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #444,878 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

19 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Meyer's "Gram" Bio in the Pantheon of Rock Bios with Guralnick, Marcus, October 30, 2007

By	GP Fan - See all my reviews

This is a passionate, well-researched rock bio of Gram Parsons. It's an easy read, wonderful for those who love the music, great for those who are learning it. An amazing saga. Meyer's other books contain some of the funniest, incisive criticism of film; as he turns his attention to the fabled rocker, few old myths are left standing, but Parsons emerges as a human figure who we now know as never before.

15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The Best Gram Book Yet!, January 6, 2008

By	Matt - See all my reviews

Mr. Meyer has given us, without a doubt, the best book on Gram Parsons yet. Wheras Ben Fong-Torres' work focused on the historical, "dry-er" side of Parsons's story, Meyer perfectly combines fact with fiction. The result is a wonderfully balanced view of Gram as the supposed "father" of Cosmic American Music and Gram, the self-destructive human being who couldn't stay out of his own way.

I would like to point out a few problems I have with this book, though. One of Meyer's strengths is the exclusion of his personal viewpoints. Unless they're dumbly obvious- that "Burrito Deluxe" does not even compare to "The Gilded Palace of Sin," for example. Meyer crosses into subjectivity once, however, and I found it rather ridiculous- he insists that "GP" is a better album than "Grievous Angel."

I admit that, personally, I think that "Grievous Angel" is one of the best albums ever whereas "GP" is a good album (just ask Tom Petty). But that's not the issue- Meyer never backs up his claim. He states that the high points of the album are as best as Gram ever did, and then continues to name all but one or two of the tracks as exemplary. So why is "GP" better? Perhaps Meyer wants it to be better, because it (arguably) combines more genres of music (the R&B-based "Cry One More Time", for example), giving more claim to the term "Cosmic American Music". Perhaps not. But in either case, he doesn't substantiate his one truly subjective input.

Also, with regards to Emmylou Harris's and Gram's relationship, Meyer doesn't point to Harris's recent comment that she really WAS in love with Gram and was waiting to tell him! Seeing as how Meyer devotes a few paragraphs to addressing their (platonic?) relationship, I can't figure out why he didn't deem her comment worth mentioning.

Besides these two main points, I think "Twenty Thousand Roads" is fantastic. It's extremely well written and insightful, and should be purchased by any fan of country and rock and roll music.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Comprehensive and excellent biography of Gram Parsons, December 17, 2007

By	Scott J. Regner "Rotscegner" (Nottingham, Maryland USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This book has all the elements of a well written biography--it's incredibly comprehensive in Grams' details from birth to death and the aftermath, it's easy to read and follows smoothly, it doesn't judge and presents many contemporaries' and close friends' points of view, and it provides a lot of data for proposing that Gram was one of the main and most dedicated creators of the blending of country, soul and rock music in the mid-sixties--Which were at great odds with each other culturally at that point in time.
For folks like me who lived through the era it reveals how a lot of the connections I saw occurring in music--why the Rolling Stones went roots-country-blues on Exile on Main Street (after sucking at psychedelia), where Poco, Manassas, Pure Prairie League and especially Emmylou Harris suddenly sprung from in the early '70's etc., etc
A great read of a sad, short but fruitful life--and an encyclopedic rendering of the beginnings of alt-country, outlaw country music...