DISGRACELAND - Gram Parsons: A Stolen Body, Heroin, More Rolling Stones and Cosmic American Music

Episode Date: January 12, 2021

Gram Parsons is one of the most influential musicians in rock ‘n’ roll that you’ve maybe never heard of. He created a form of music that has been copied by everyone from the Eagles to Ryan Adams. He directly influenced the Rolling Stones’ greatest album, possibly the greatest rock ‘n’ roll album of all time, Exile on Main Street. And when he died his body was stolen and unceremoniously disposed of. This is the story of Gram Parsons' life, death and very strange aftermath. To see the complete list of contributors, visit ⁠disgracelandpod.com⁠ This episode was originally published on January 12, 2021. To listen to Disgraceland ad free and get access to a monthly exclusive episode, weekly bonus content and more, become a Disgraceland All Access member at ⁠disgracelandpod.com/membership⁠. Sign up for our newsletter and get the inside dirt on events, merch and other awesomeness - ⁠GET THE NEWSLETTER⁠ Follow Jake and DISGRACELAND: ⁠Instagram⁠ ⁠YouTube⁠ ⁠X⁠ (formerly Twitter)  ⁠Facebook Fan Group⁠ ⁠TikTok To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is exactly right. Double Elvis. When a group of women discover they've all dated the same prolific con artist, they take matters into their own hands. I vowed. I will be his last target. He is not going to get away with this. He's going to get what he deserves. We always say that trust your girlfriends. Listen to the girlfriends.

Trust me, babe. On the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This season on Dear Chelsea with me, Chelsea Handler, we have some fantastic guests like Amelia Clark. When like young people come up to me and they want to be an actor or whatever. My first thing is always, can you think of anything else that you can do? Rather be disappointed in. Do that.

David O'Yellowo. I love this podcast, whether it's therapy or relationships or religion or sex or addiction or you just go straight for the guts. Dennis Leary, Gaten Matarazzo from Stranger Things, Tana Monsu, Camilla Morone, Carrie Kenny Silver, and more. Listen to these episodes of Dear Chelsea on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,

or wherever you get your podcasts. Movies can make you feel, make you dream. Sometimes they even make you appreciate architecture. Is there anybody who's been hotter in a doorway than Elizabeth Taylor? That's the kind of analysis you'll find every week on Dear Movies I Love You, the new podcast from the Exactly Right Network. Every Tuesday, we break down the films we're crushing on, from blockbusters to deep cuts. Listen to Dear Movies I Love You on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Disgrace Land is a production of Double Elvis. The stories about Graham Parsons are insane. He died at just 26 years old. His body was stolen, unceremoniously disposed. of and the story became the stuff of instant rock and roll legend. Graham Parsons was a prodigious junky, drunk, and creative confidant of Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards. He was scarred by grief for his deep emotional pain on his sleeve and channeled it as best he could through the music he grew up on, the music of the American South, Country, Soul, Blues, and R&B. In the process, Graham Parsons invented a new genre of music,

Alt-country, and unknowingly inspired a future generation. Graham was with the stones at Altamont and at Elcott for the making of exile on Main Street, and somehow amidst all the chaos and drug use with his bands, the International Submarine Band, The Birds and Flying Burrito Brothers, and then later as a solo artist, Graham Parsons made great music. And that music I played for you at the top of the show, that wasn't great music. That was a preset loop from my mom. Melotron called the Lost Gord MK1.

I played you that loop because I can't afford the rights to Delta Dawn by Helen Reddy. And why would I play you that specific slice of recycled rockabilly cheese could I afford it? Because that was the number one song in America on September 19, 1973. And that was the day Graham Parsons died, setting off one of the most enduring rock and roll legends of all time. stealing of Graham Parsons' body. On this episode, a reservoir of grief, Cosmic American Music, disappearing dead bodies in Grand Parsons.

I'm Jake Brennan, and this is disgrace land. Well, I can shoot him if that's what you want. The handler for the Rolling Stones management didn't want Phil Kaufman to shoot anyone on behalf of his clients. No, you don't have to shoot him. In fact, please don't do that. Just run them off.

The handler was concerned with Hollywood's predatory drug dealers. The Stones were in town to mix their latest long player beggar's banquet, and the last thing they needed was more drug trouble with the authorities. It was 1968, only a year removed from the Rolling Stones' infamous busts, sentencing, appeal, and release in London for drug possession. The whole affair was an utter fiasco, and in the States, the Rolling Stones needed to completely avoid any such trouble. trouble if they were to continue as a working band.

That's why Phil Kaufman was brought in. Someone from Bob Dylan's camp recommended him. Or perhaps someone from the band, as in the band, Dylan's backing band from Canada, Robbie Robertson, Levin Helm, those dudes. Kaufman had done a turn road managing them and things worked out okay, so he was recommended to do the same for the Stones here in L.A. Not necessarily road work as the band would be local, but more accurately babysitting.

the band. Or as Mick Jagger put it, Kaufman was an executive nanny. He took care of things for rock stars, which in the nascent years of the music industry was, as it very much still is, a unique skill set. Phil Kaufman was much more than a road manager. He was uniquely capable of getting whatever needed done, done. Okay, but if I'd run them off and they come back, I'm going to have to shoot him. The Stones Lackey could see that this conversation was going nowhere. It was like arguing with a drunk person, an impossible task. Fine, he thought, yes, you can shoot them if they come back. The dealers would have to be suicidal not to take Kaufman's warning on the first go-round anyhow. And if indeed they were shot, then that would be their own damn fault.

Phil Kaufman's command was hard not to heed. He was an intimidating figure, not necessarily tall, but big, built like a brick shithouse. He wasn't going anywhere if he didn't want to move. And likewise, If you wanted you gone, you best take it on the arches. Phil dressed in the requisite rock and roll biker garb of the day, well-worn leather, greasy denim, t-shirts, big Brando Engineer boots, massive belt buckle, and he carried with him an aura that basically said one thing very clearly. Don't fuck with me.

The air around him gave way to his natural funk, one of motor oil, heavy pomade, unfiltered cigarettes and domestic beer. His friends called him. And the mangler, Phil Kaufman, was every bit the outlaw his image projected him to be. Back in 67, he caught a drug charge and took a state-sponsored vacation at Terminal Island Prison. In jail, he took to a little dude who played the guitar. His name was Charlie.

Charlie was a trip. He actually liked jail. Phil never understood that. Charlie said it afforded him the time he needed to practice his guitar playing, which he did often, but never seemed to progress at. Phil encouraged him, despite Charlie's awful playing, Phil thought his voice was pretty good and his ideas, his words, those lyrics were wild, just like Charlie's sense of humor.

Except Phil could never really be sure when Charlie was joking or not. The guards told Charlie if he didn't stop banging on that guitar and annoying the shit out of them, that they'd never let him get out of there. Charlie responded with, Get out of where? When Phil got out, he told Charlie he'd take care of him when his stint was up, told him he had some music industry connections he could introduce Charlie to. Phil moved into a home in Hollywood up on Waverly with some friends of friends,

ex-cons, turned on head types. When Charlie later got out, Phil arranged for one of his housemates to pick Charlie up from Terminal Island and to bring him back to the house, set him up, give him a place to stay. When Charlie showed up at the house, Tony, in comparison to the institutional life he'd grown up in, he'd never forget the address. 3267 Waverly Drive. Just down the road apiece from 3301 Waverly Drive. where in just a few years, death to pigs would be scrawled on the wall in the blood of the

home's owners, Lino and Rosemary La Bianca. That's when everybody would start to get an idea of who this Charlie cat really was. Phil stayed in Charlie's caris for a bit after he first got out, moving into where Charlie was staying in Topanga after things went south with his roommates. By that time, Charlie had put together a short string of girls and was running them out into Hollywood during the day to scam up bread, food, and drugs from Square Johns who wanted in on that dirty hippie sex vibe. Phil loved it. Later, when Phil, along with the rest of America, watched Charlie Manson's so-called family parade across television

screens on trial for the Tate La Bianca murders, Phil would remark, I had sex with every one of those murderesses. But back to our story, Phil Coffman didn't have murder on the mind or even sex. He had the rolling stones to occupy his brain and specifically the conundrum of how to show these rock stars a good time around town while keeping them away from the kinds of trouble that sometimes came with the type of good times rock stars craved. Lucky for Phil, Keith Richards had made up his mind for a lot of them. They were going to see Chuck Berry, who was playing that night at the Whiskey a go-go. Chuck played, his band sucked, three kids in a makeshift pickup band too terrified to keep up with the changes. And they were cheap and it showed. Keith and Mick wanted to meet Chuck and convince him to come on the road with them

and open up their shows. Chuck blew them off. They bounced. Keith directed the entourage out to the corral. A divy little cowboy joined in Topanga to see a friend of his perform the country in Western songs he and Mick had become obsessed with as of late. Keith's friend's name was Graham Parsons.

Phil Kaufman would, of course, meet Graham that night for the first time. And neither of their lives would ever be the same. There's two golden rules that any man should live by. Rule one, never mess with a country girl. You play stupid games, you get stupid prizes. And rule two, never mess with her friends either. We always say that trust your girlfriends. I'm Anna Sinfield, and in this new season of the girlfriends,

Oh my God, this is the same man. A group of women discover they've all dated the same prolific con artist. I felt like I got hit by a truck. I thought, how could this happen to me? The cops didn't seem to care. So they take matters into their own hands. I said, oh, hell no. I vowed I will be his last target.

He's going to get what he deserves. Listen to the girlfriends. Trust me, babe. On the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This season on Dear Chelsea, with me, Chelsea Handler, we have some fantastic guests like Amelia Clark. When, like, young people come up to me

and they want to be an actor or whatever, My first thing is always, can you think of anything else that you can do? Rather be disappointed in. Do that. Dennis Leary. I wake up and I'm hitting him in the head with a water bomb. And Bruce Jenner is on the aisle in a karate stance. Like he's about to attack me.

Like making karate noises. And his entire, the Kardashian family over there, everybody's going, and the air marshal is trying to grab my arms and screaming. And I immediately know that. I've better sleepwalk. David O'Yellowo. I love this podcast, whether it's therapy or relationships or religion or sex or addiction or you just go straight for the guts.

Guy Branham. So anyway, Nicole Kidman broke up with Keith Durbin. Being half of a country couple was always a hat she was going to wear, not like a life she was going to lead. Oh, interesting. I like that. Did you practice that on your way over? Gaten Matarazzo from Stranger Things.

Tena M'Jou, Camilla Marone, Carrie Kenny Silver, and more. Listen to these episodes of Dear Chelsea on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Just like great shoes, great books take you places. Through unforgettable love stories and into conversations with characters you'll never forget.

I think any good romance, it gives me this feeling of like butterflies. I'm Danielle Robé, and this is bookmarked. by Reese's Book Club from Hello Sunshine and IHeart Podcast, where we dive into the stories that shape us on the page and off. Each week I'm joined by authors, celebs, book talk stars, and more for conversations that will make you laugh, cry, and add way too many books to your TBR pile. Listen to bookmarked by Reese's Book Club on the IHeart Radio app,

Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Brought to you by Cotton, The Fabric of Our Lives. The piano swung, mid-tempo, totally infectious in that honky-tong kind of way. The Flying Burrito Brothers were in their element. Small crowd blitzed on wild turkey and acid and whatever else was going around the canyon and found its way into the bar that night, the corral. And Graham Parsons was feeling himself on stage. He was in that sweet spot between buzzed and obliterated.

When the heroin Jones hadn't quite kicked in, the alcohol hadn't completely taken over. and the pills weren't yet working the way the good doctor had intended. And Graham was inspired. His famous friend, Keith Richards, was in the crowd. Keith loved Graham, and Graham loved Keith, and Mick Jagger hated them both for it. But he was too cool to show it. So he played along.

Sure, Graham, you can hang out and sing your country songs and shoot your heroin, but you'll never be a rolling stone. Graham Parsons knew about being lonesome, and Mick Jagger could give a fuck. Keith thought Graham was some sort of cosmic poet who'd mainlined the best that his native South had to offer. Hank Williams, Merle Haggard, Ernest Tubb, and somehow had a bead on cracking the code. The code that they were all trying to crack, the one that took traditional American music, country, blues, soul, and R&B, and refashioned it into something modern and previously unheard,

a new kind of rock and roll. Graham was on to something, Keith thought, and whatever it was, Mick knew that he and Keith were also chasing it down and were hot on its heels as well, but as of yet, still hadn't quite captured it. Not on beggars anyway. Maybe on the next go-round, or the next. In the meantime, whatever it was, maybe Graham Parsons would inadvertently help the stones find it, lead them around the right creative corner or just as likely, Mick thought. Maybe Graham Parsons would just lead Keith Richards straight down a heroin hellhole. Graham was a prodigious drug addict and a bad drunk. Unlike Mick and Keith, couldn't handle his drugs. It was downright embarrassing. He was a slob, and despite his soft-spokenness,

when wasted, a lout. He came on to women hard, slobbered, drooled, passed out, and had to be taken care of. He was a liability, and at the time, the Rolling Stones didn't need any more liabilities. But the music Graham Parsons played and sang came from an authentic place. Having grown up in way across Georgia, Graham was steeped in the exact type of traditional American music that had utterly captivated the Rolling Stones and rock and roll second generation of artists, the Beatles, Eric Clapton, Led Zeppelin, and more. There was something about that music and where it came from, where Graham came from, that was endlessly compelling.

That music was class music, lower class music, and its originators, the old blues and country singers knew real pain and misery, and the music they created was forged through that hardship. Graham came up in that same area of the country, the South, Georgia. And though he was white and raised in a wealthy family, he knew of deep, deep hardship, losing kind. When he was 12 years old, his father took his own life. On December 23rd, 1958, ruined Christmas forever for Graham when he raised a 38 revolver to his temple and pulled the trigger. And on the day of Graham's high school graduation, his mother died of cirrhosis of the liver, having drank herself to death. 18 years old with two dead parents, the grief from his father's

suicide was unprocessed. The trauma from his mother's death calcified Graham's grief into a state of ever-present pain. Ultimately, throughout the rest of his short life, he would use music and drugs to run the grief down. Sometimes the results were undeniably great as they were with the output from his first group, the International Submarine Band, that he put together during his brief time attending Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and later when lending his country singing and songwriting talents to the very well-established American folk rock group, The Birds, on their album's Sweetheart of the Rodeo. An album that did as much for 70s mainstream rock and roll as any other critically acclaimed

or commercially received album before or since its release, Bob Dylan's Nashville Skyline included to say nothing of what the album did for another generation of alternate rockers three decades later. But whatever creative strides Graham Parsons made, they were consistently marred by the inconsistency and output that his drug use created. Unlike Mick and Keith, who, despite whatever drugs or drink they were on, never lost sight of the goal, to make great, earth-shattering, culture-defining rock and roll, Graham would let the booze, the heroin, the pills, the acid, eat them up

and completely derail whatever progress his music had made for him in his career. But still, undisciplined loud that he sometimes was, he was mostly a sweetheart, and to everyone not named Mick Jagger, fun to be around. Phil Kaufman took to him instantly. Later that night, after the Flying Burrito Brothers gig at the corral, Graham, his band, Phil, Keith, Mick, and the rest of their entourage made it back to the home the stones were renting in the Hollywood Hills. It was late. Keith had disappeared, and so had Mick,

and the party was dying down. Graham was out back with the writer Stan Lee Booth, who was traveling with the Stones. He too was from Waycross, Georgia, where Graham had grown up, such was the cosmic thrust of rock and roll. Two Waycross boys, relatively the same age, who'd grown up breathing the same air, but who'd never met. Thrust together amidst ascending British stars some 3,000 miles from home, under Hollywood's vampire moon, sharing a joint and looking out over the glittery sunset strip. Phil stood near, quietly sipping a schlitz and listening to the two Southern boys talk. Look at it, man, Graham said.

They call it America. They call it civilization. They call it television. They believe in it and salute it and sing songs to it and eat and sleep and die still believing in it. And I don't know. Graham paused and pulled again from the joint before continuing. And then, man, sometimes the Mets come along and win the World Series. Phil Kaufman would learn this was just like Graham.

poetic in one moment, approaching greatness and then, devolving into nonsense. Graham Parsons needed help, and Phil Kaufman was just the guy to give it to him. We'll be right back after this word, word, word. There's two golden rules that any man should live by. Rule one, never mess with a country girl. You play stupid games, you get stupid prizes. And rule two, never mess with her friends either. We always say that trust your girlfriends.

I'm Anna Sinfield, and in this new season of the girlfriends, Oh my God, this is the same man. A group of women discover they've all dated the same prolific con artist. I felt like I got hit by a truck. I thought, how could this happen to me? The cops didn't seem to care. So they take matters into their own hands. I said, oh, hell no.

I vowed. I will be his last target. He's going to get what he deserves. Listen to the girlfriends. Trust me, babe. On the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. This season on Dear Chelsea, with me, Chelsea Handler, we have some fantastic guests like Amelia Clark.

When, like, young people come up to me and they want to be an actor or whatever. My first thing is always, can you think of anything else that you can do? Rather be disappointed in. Do that. Dennis Leary. I wake up and I'm. hitting him in the head with a water bomb. And Bruce Jenner is on the aisle in a karate stance,

like he's about to attack me, like, making karate noises. And his entire, the Kardashians family over there, everybody's going, and the air marshal is trying to grab my arms and screaming. I immediately know that I've been asleep walking. David O'Yellowo. I love this podcast, whether it's therapy or relationships, or religion, or sex, or addiction, or you just go straight for the gut.

Guy Branham. So anyway, Nicole Kidman broke up with Keith Thurban. Being half of a country couple was always a hat she was going to wear, not like a life she was going to lead. Oh, interesting. I like that. Did you practice that on your way over? Gaten Matarazzo from Stranger Things. Santa Monsu. Camilla Morone, Carrie Kenny Silver, and more. Listen to these episodes of Dear Chelsea on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your. Podcasts. Remember when you'd walk into your local video rental place and there were always those two employees behind the counter arguing about movies? Well, that's us. I'm Millie to Cherico.

And I'm Casey O'Brien. And now we're arguing about movies on our podcast, Dear Movies I Love You from the Exactly Right Network. Can I say something about the Criterion Clause? Go ahead, dude. They're letting too many people in there. Okay, that's another film grape I got two. Sadly, that rental place doesn't exist anymore. It's probably a store that sells running shoes.

Or an ice cream shop with an extra pee and an E at the end. So consider us your slacker movie clerks in podcast form. I would like to establish a timeline of the moment you figured out who Channing Tatum was. Every Tuesday, we dig into the movies we can't stop obsessing over it, from hidden gems to big screen favorites. New episodes drop every week on the exactly right network. Listen to Dear Movies I Love You on the Iheart radio app. Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Graham Parsons would continue on as Keith Richards' own personal junkie pilot fish

over the course of the next few years. By Keith's side during pivotal moments in the trajectory of the Rolling Stones. At Altamont and later on, the French Riviera, Keith's place during the recording of the Stone's masterpiece, Exile on Main Street, all the time angling to benefit somehow from the glare of Rolling Stone's stardom. Perhaps as an artist on the newly formed record label by the Rolling Stones, or cooler still, perhaps even joining the Rolling Stones. Despite Graham Parsons' immense talent as a songwriter,

when it came down to it, dude was a straight-up starfucker. He'd been kicked out of the Flying Burrito Brothers over his drug use, and the fact that to his bandmates, he seemed more interested in the Stones than he was in his own band. But being without a job didn't faze Graham. He had a $30,000 a year trust fund, which in $2,020 worked out to roughly be about $200,000 a year. Graham could afford to get wasted, puts around on stage, and puke into the mic, or alternately chase the Rolling Stones around America or the south of France.

His bandmates couldn't. So Graham was out on his own, and despite whatever promises to Graham Parsons at Keith Richards' may or may not have made, Keith was a hard man to pin down. Graham tried catching the creative wave burbling up from the basement of Keyes-Snell-Cott Mansion during the Stone's exile sessions, but the Stones shut them out. Perhaps because Graham was a mess, shooting Corsican heroin, drinking heavily and generally, unable to keep up with the supernova creative energy and shambolic focus of Keith and the rest of the stones. Graham played it cool. He'd grabbed time with Keith when he could,

and when he couldn't, he'd keep working on his own songs. in those rare lucid moments at Villan Elcott. When not totally high on smack or fall down drunk, Graham would keep his demons down by working on songs for his next musical project, a solo album. Graham wanted to do things his way and do them unencumbered by the creative restrictions of bandmates. He had a vision, a vision of America through the lens of his own cosmic experiences and aspirations,

cosmic American music, and he would bring it to life through a unique and unprecedented. sent a melding of the American country sold and gospel music he'd grown up in the South listening to, all expressed through the prism of pain he'd been enduring since his father's suicide and his mother's death. He kept writing, but even songwriting had its hang-ups. No matter how he cut it, Graham kept running head first into his unprocessed grief. It reared its beastly head, constantly making songwriting especially painful. So when Graham couldn't write, he'd shoot heroin, and when he couldn't shoot heroin, he'd write. Life was one long race to outrun the beast raging inside, daring

him to look around the corner of his consciousness to confront the pain. For Graham Parsons, Graham buoyed back and forth between complete inebriation and half-assed attempts at songwriting, all while marveling at the work ethic of Keith Richards and his bandmates who, no matter what drugs or drink, were swimming through their systems, no matter what the situation or the environment, always seemed to rise to the creative challenge. Their approach to their craft, making the greatest rock and roll music the world had ever heard, being the greatest rock and roll band the world had ever seen,

and doing it all without a playbook, was inspiring to Graham, and also totally fucking intimidating. But Graham gathered his own inspiration, like a handful of loose change, to make one last purchase. Graham was motivated to get his shit together, to make great music.

But first, he needed to kick heroin. And to do that, he needed to get out of France and stay away from Los Angeles. So it was decided. Joshua Tree National Park is about 140-mile drive from L.A. It's located in a small desert town filled with entertainment industry burnout seekers, angel-dusted LSD heads, and UFO chasers. Graham Parsons was, in one way or another, all of these things. After his experience at Nelcott, Graham found his way to L.A. and burned his way through the Hollywood rock scene

before landing out at Joshua Tree to clean up his act and start leaning into the writing process for songs that he hoped would become his first solo album. Graham loved Joshua Tree, and why wouldn't he? It's a place unlike any other on the planet. Its desert is a psychedelic acid dream come true

with its trippy eucatree, sun-blistered terrain, and glittering star-freckled nighttime sky. In the town of Joshua Tree was, and still is, a low-key hippie outlaws paradise. There's a lawless vibe about it. There aren't a lot of people, and most of those that live there seem to be trying to avoid some sort of hassle. At night, Graham would head out to Joshua Tree National Park and frolic through the desert, high on acid in hopes of spotting UFOs and or God. Both were pursuits he believed in. During the day in Joshua Tree,

Graham would sleep off the LSD and try to write songs from the cozy confines of his room at the Joshua Tree Inn. Not exactly clean living, but at least he wasn't doing heroin. However, getting fucked up and tripping balls eventually won out, and Graham's writing took a back seat. So be it. Being high kept the pain away. He'd get around to writing into making his solo record in due time. Meanwhile, the Stone's exile on Main Street was a smash. Graham was happy for his old friend Keith, but a part of him was pissed off that he wasn't along for the ride. He couldn't help but think that all that country music he'd shared with Keith had helped inform the sound of exile. Now, the record was double platinum and what the Graham had to show for it other than an

increasingly intense heroin addiction. But what had Graham even more upset was a new band that was quickly becoming unavoidable on the FM dial, The Eagles. The Eagles featured Graham's ex-bandmate from the Burrito Brothers Bernie Layden, and the band represented everything Graham hated about modern rock and roll to say nothing of his annoyance at their infusing country into their brand of rock and effectively working his side of the street. The Eagles traded on all the country and none of the soul influences that Graham had been messing with since he started making music back at Harvard with the international submarine band, then through his work with the birds and ultimately to his near-perfect first album with the Flying Burrito Brothers. Graham had dedicated his life to fusing country and soul

into a new form of rock and roll. And here was this new band of, frankly, by his estimation, assholes who, judging from the high-gloss production of their singles, cared little for the actual spirit of this music and only for the success that its most watered-down, trite realization could bring. Peaceful, easy feeling? More like plastic-dry fuck went Graham's assessment. Graham Parsons hated the Eagles.

Graham knew he could do better. It was time, time to get out of the desert, time to put a studio band together, time to get some songs going, and make this damn album, and time to deal with his damn demons. To do that, Graham needed to get in touch with his road manager and friend, Phil Kaufman. After connecting through the stones, Phil had joined on with Graham as a sort of part-time road manager and minder, but the two quickly established a legit friendship. Phil saw it as his duty to take care of the fragile singer-songwriter. He made sure Graham didn't take too much.

smack, didn't sleep with the wrong women, and made it to the gig or the studio on time. When Phil got the call, he high-tailed it out to Joshua Tree, grabbed Graham, brought him back to L.A., and nestled him into an apartment at the Chateau Marmont. At first, Graham was motivated, inspired and ready to get down to work. The two made travel arrangements for Graham's new muse, Emmylou Harris, the beautiful singer with the enchanting voice whom Graham had met on the road. Then they got Barry Tashion, the former singer of the remains, to fly in from Nashville and immediately began working on a repertoire for Graham. Barry brought with him a suitcase of songs, Streets of Baltimore by Harlan Howard and Tomphe Glazer. I Can't Dance by Tom T. Hall and cry

one more time by Peter Wolfe and Seth Justman of the Jay Giles Band, a white-hot R&B band from Bacentatacian's home turf of Boston, Massachusetts. With these songs, along with the handful of originals he'd been working up, Graham could see his album taking shape. But working on original, material brought painful emotions to the surface, and Graham quickly fell into the familiar habit of burying the pain with alcohol and heroin. Graham was incoherent for long stretches of time, more of a rambling buffoon than a tender troubadour. Kaufman and Tashian knew that making this record wasn't going to be easy. They needed to act quick while Graham had some semblance of motivation and before he was completely consumed by his addiction. So naturally, they headed to Sin City to find a band.

And the trip to Las Vegas was strictly business. Tashian and Graham had a job to do. Convince Elvis Presley's band to back Graham in the studio for his new record. It was a brilliant idea, while the rest of the rock and roll world was busy chasing country music up the charts, putting their hair and ponytails and fitting themselves for snap button shirts and bolow ties, all the while paying scant attention to the soul and spirit at the heart of country music, Graham decided to hire deeply talented musicians who got this music on a millennial.

molecular level. And the fact that they were seen at the time as being tragically unhip, backing Elvis as a show band in Vegas, running through a career retrospective of square cheese for beehived housewives and black-framed pencil necks in for the early bird special on junkets from the Midwest, made the move by Graham all the more ingenious. While self-satisfied country rock and rollers like the Eagles fiddled with learning Chad Atkins and Floyd Kramer risk on guitar and piano, Graham would have James Burton and Glenn D. Harden playing guitar and piano in his studio band. Two players who could both come out on your porch or step into your parlor and show you how it all went down. Hiring Elvis's band paid off, big time.

In addition to having stone cold killers in the studio, Graham, with so much respect for these musicians, kept himself sober through the work. And the result was stunning. The sessions with Elvis's band produced a masterpiece, The record, GP, as it would come to be called, was Graham Parsons' vision of cosmic American music come to life. A perfect meld of country, soul, and gospel. Southern Gothic tradition and irony and inner pain

channeled through be-bent telecaster strings, R&B chord progressions, and honky-tongued piano riffs. Graham's heavy, soft-spoken, understated singing voice stank of heroin. He sang loose and slackjod, but his admiration for country singer, Conway Twitty lent a measure of directness to the vocals, and the mix of those ingredients manifested an emotional harpoon of vulnerability that cuts straight through to the hearts of listeners. GP is a staggering work of artistry. When the record was completed, Graham was emotionally spent.

So he headed out to Joshua Tree to chase UFOs again. But there would be little rest for Graham Parsons and his damaged soul in 1973. Grief would soon roar back into his life. On July 15th, Graham's friend and frequent musical collaborator, the great guitarist and one-time bird, Clarence White, was struck by a drunk driver while loading gear into his car after a gig. He died instantly. When Graham heard the news, he was besieged by grief. Clarence White's funeral was a staid Catholic affair, completely devoid of the soul and compassion Graham knew of his friend. At the recess, he was a recede. after the service, Graham drowned his grief and alcohol at a local bar filled with friends.

Among them was his now ubiquitous sidekick, Phil Kaufman. It was there that Graham and Phil made a pact with one another, that no matter who kicked first, the other would make sure that under no circumstance would the dearly departed among them be sent off in the soulless fashion, foisted upon their soulful friend, Clarence White. Fuck that straight-laced funeral jive, Graham said. Take me out to the desert in Joshua Tree. Burn my body up and set my soul free. A handshake in two shots of well tequila with cold schlitz chasers sealed him. Gene Hackman was pissed. Learning your lines was hard enough. Getting into your character emotionally was another thing entirely. The fucking distractions on a movie set were monumental to begin with, but now, with cops busting up a scene to arrest

the biker who owned the house they'd arranged to shoot this scene and the entire day was would be shot to shit. Gene would never be able to get back into character now. Hackman and director Arthur Penn watched with a mix of incredulity and annoyance as the owner of the house, Phil Kaufman, was let out under the lowering boom and through the film crew in handcuffs. The whispers started immediately. Kaufman burned the body, the one of the newspapers have been talking about for the past couple days, the body of the desert, that junkie country singer. The newspapers had it right. Kaufman did burn the body, and he didn't care who knew about it,

and he'd do it again if he had to to make sure that his friend, Graham Parsons, was honored in death the way that he had pledged to do for him in life. After Clarence White's funeral, Graham Parsons was focused. When GP failed to set the world on fire, Graham was disappointed but undeterred. He was hell-bent on making another great record. But first, Graham needed some rest. He headed back to Joshua Tree for some R&R, and he was happy. He had a strong feeling that when this new, yet-to-be-written album was released,

the results would be different. The world would finally get hip to Graham Parsons in his Cosmic American music. Hell, at least the local bar out of Joshua Tree had one of his songs on the jukebox. He made it a point to hang out as much as possible at his new local and to hit the stage whenever the mood struck him. One night, while sitting in with the local band and working their way through Merle Haggard's Oki from Muskogee, Graham took note of how the pedal steel player couldn't keep up. up with the rest. When they finished the set, Graham found out why. The steel player's arms were

loaded with track marks from shooting junk and were so badly bruised he could barely move them, never mind to play steel. The sight of the track marks wet Graham's whistle. He'd been drinking most of the day and night and taking pills, but now he had heroin on his brain. That familiar junkie Jones kicked in. Subconsciously, he knew that no amount of booze, pills, or promise of the future would stave off the pain for too long. Heroin, though. Heroin took it all away. So Graham and a couple friends he was traveling with split. They knew they could fix back at the hotel. Back at the Joshua Tree Inn, a local heroin dealer was arranged for Graham. When the dealer arrived, she had her two-year-old with her. Graham didn't mind, but he did mind that the dealer didn't

come as advertised. She didn't actually have any heroin. Instead, she had vials of stolen government grade morphine selfie. At this point, Graham didn't care. He could feel the saliva dripping down the inner walls of his cheeks. He could feel the giddy pitter-patter of his heart picking up speed and anticipation of getting high. He needed to feel the rush of opiates blast up his veins and wipe away the coming hurt. Morphine was close enough and it would have to do. Graham would just have to take twice as much. So he did. And immediately, things went south. Graham's overdose came quick. His breathing slowed, and then it grew rast. His two friends managed to get him up and into the tub with his clothes off. They jammed ice cubes into his asshole, a home remedy almost as

old as ice itself, which shocked his system and revived him. Graham was mumbling and semi-conscious, but within no time, the morphine once again took control of his faculties. No frozen animals would be able to help him this time. And then, Graham felt next to nothing. Just warm bliss. His body went slack. His mind went black. No pain. No more grief. Then, Graham Parsons overdosed and died in room eight of the Joshua Tree Inn on September 19, 1973. When Phil Kaufman heard the news, he was back in L.A. and he was pissed. Pissed that Graham had been so careless. Pissed at Graham's traveling friends hadn't known how to keep him alive and pissed that he wasn't there to take care of his friend himself. He wouldn't let that happen again. The friend in Joshua Tree who'd called

Kaufman to give him the news mentioned that authorities were taking his body away. So Phil moved fast. He made it to the Joshua Tree Inn from L.A. in three hours. Kaufman immediately cleaned out Graham's room, wiping away any trace of an illicit drug party. He then rounded up Graham's two friends and got them out of Joshua Tree back to L.A. where they would be beyond the reach of the local police. and therefore unable to be questioned. Kaufman knew how to clean up a rock and roll mess, but the job wasn't done. Once back in L.A., Kaufman called the Joshua Tree Morg

to inquire about his friend's body. Graham's surviving family, upon hearing of Graham's death and the press, had made arrangements for it to be flown back home to the south. The body was chilling in an airport hangar at L.A.X. Waiting to be retrieved by Graham's stepfather, for what would no doubt be a stale, religious, conservative southern, funeral service. In other words, the exact opposite of what Graham would want. Kaufman, Ever the Fixer, had a friend who owned a hearse. He borrowed it, grabbed some other

friends, a motley crew of leather-clad, greasy-haired, rock-and-roll biker types who Kaufman knew could serve as impromptu illicit pallbearers and then headed out to LAX. On the way, they pounded bottles of Mickey's wide-mouth grenades and shared pines of bean, Quervo, and Jack. Kaufman wheeled the hearse to the off-ramp toward L-A-X and straight toward the ship. hanging. He and his band of rock and roll pallbearers bounded out of the car and headed into the office area. The square behind the desk was either scared, stupid, or both because he bought the long line of crap Kaufman fed him. There were off-duty funeral homeworkers there to move the body by private plane. Unbelievably, Kaufman was given clearance to grab the coffin, so he did, and he and

his cohorts began wheeling it out of the hangar to their waiting hearse. Just then, a cop and a black and white on patrol, pulled up to see what in the hell was going on with what must have looked to him like a drunken gang of biker body snatchers. Coffman was quick with the bullshit. Officer, you're just in time. We're a man short and not sure how we're going to get the coffin into the back of our hearse. Can you give us a hand? Remarkably and without question, the officer did just that.

Grand Parsons' body was snatched. Next stop, Joshua Tree. But first, they needed gas. So once out of L.A. and well on their way to the desert, they stopped off at a gas station and filled five gallons. Not for the car, mind you. Kaufman and his men drank the entire ride out, and they were wasted by the time they made it out to Joshua Tree National Park, the area of the desert that Graham loves so much, the part of the world that allowed him to run free of his pain, to chase UFOs, and to leave all the grief behind.

At around 1 a.m., the hearse made it out to the part of the desert known as Caprock and stopped. The stars were electric. It was a beautiful night, and Kaufman unfolded his drunken, greasy, gene-clad legs to the desert floor who walked around back. With his crew, he pulled Graham's wooden casket from the back of the hearse and dropped it unceremoniously onto the desert floor. Kaufman popped open the lid, and there was Graham, naked, dead, and bloated, surgical tape covering the autopsy wounds. Kaufman wasted no time. He grabbed the... the gallons of gasoline and poured them all over Graham's body.

He lit a match, dropped it in. Graham's body ignited into a fireball. His soul exploded into eternity in an overstated blast. It was so unlike him, exploding. Graham Parsons was subtle. He was marked by deep emotional pain and engaged in a quiet but constant race to outrun his grief. Regardless of the manner in which Graham Parsons' body left this world, there was no mistaking it.

He was now free. Phil Kaufman's friend, Graham Parsons, was at last liberated, separated from his pain. And Phil's other friend, Charlie Manson, was behind bars. While his former bosses, the Rolling Stones, had become the quote-unquote world's greatest rock and roll band. And Phil Kaufman was sitting in his car, now an old man, a mangled shell of himself from back in those hazy days of lawless rock and roll. Graham was on his mind lately because Graham was on the minds of lots of people lately. Graham Parsons and the myth that Kaufman helped create was going through a resurgence of popularity among a new generation of snap-buttoned ponytailed country rock and rollers. Sure, they added the prefix alt to country, but still, if it walks like an eagle and sings like an eagle, it's probably a second-rate version of an eagle, and that means it's a third-rate version of Graham Parsons.

The blatant mimicry bordering on disgrace. I'm Jake Brennan, and this is Disgraceland. Disgraceland was created by yours truly and is produced in partnership with Double Elvis. Credits for this episode can be found on the show notes page at disgracelandpod.com. If you're listening as a Disgraceland All Access member, thank you for supporting the show. We really appreciate it. And if not, you can become a member right now by going to disgracelandpod.com

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DisgracelandPod, and on YouTube at YouTube.com slash at DisgracelandPod. Rock a roll. When a group of women discover they've all dated the same. Same prolific con artist. They take matters into their own hands. I vowed. I will be his last target. He is not going to get away with this.

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Carrie Kenny Silver and more. Listen to these episodes of Dear Chelsea on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Movies can make you feel, make you dream. Sometimes they even make you appreciate architecture. Is there anybody who's been hotter in a doorway

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