Overview
Objectives
- Identify the defining stylistic characteristics of country rock
- Identify the defining stylistic characteristics of Southern rock
- Recall the instrumentation, musical influences and backgrounds, and lyric themes of several country rock and Southern rock artists
Country Rock continued
Parsons quit the Byrds the same year that he joined, and then he started another band called the Flying Burrito Brothers. The music recorded by this group was closer to a true fusion of rock and country because it included pedal steel guitar, the strong rock backbeat, and close, rockabilly style vocal harmonies reminiscent of the Everly Brothers. In 1970, Parsons left the Flying Burrito Brothers, and he recorded two albums on Reprise Records as a solo artist: GP (1972) and Grievous Angel (1973).
Parsons included instruments from country music and bluegrass, such as fiddle, banjo, dobro, and pedal steel guitar, but he also used instruments from rock music, such as electric guitar, keyboard, and electric bass. Both of these solo albums feature Parsons and Emmylou Harris on vocals. Their musical partnership was cut short in 1973 when Parsons died of a drug overdose. After Parsons’s abrupt death, Harris kept working in the country rock genre, and she continues to write and record music to this day. Her song "Boulder to Birmingham ♫" (1975), which expressed her grief over the Parsons’s death, has become one of her signature songs.
Another early representation of country rock can be found in the music of Buffalo Springfield. A few of the group’s songs, such as "Go and Say Goodbye ♫" and "Hot Dusty Roads ♫," have a distinctly country sound. Although the band itself was not specifically a country rock group, many of its members went on to record country rock music. Guitarist and singer Neil Young, guitarist and singer Stephen Stills, guitarist and singer Richie Furay, and bassist and recording engineer Jim Messina all had successful recording careers after Buffalo Springfield disbanded in 1968.
Messina and Furay formed a new country rock group called Poco, which included country music instruments such as pedal steel guitar and dobro in their regular instrumental lineup. Stills formed a rock supergroup with David Crosby (of the Byrds) and Graham Nash (of British group the Hollies), and they occasionally were joined by Young. Crosby, Stills, and Nash as well as Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young are among the most powerful voices in this country rock style of music.
Bob Dylan wrote "Lay Lady Lay" for the 1969 movie Midnight Cowboy, though it was passed over in favor of Harry Nilsson's "Everybody's Talkin'."
