History
After a ramshackle tour in the spring and summer of 1973, Gram Parsons again convened with his singing partner Emmylou Harris, various members of Elvis Presley's "Hot Band", including James Burton and Glen Hardin and the occasional guest (such as Bernie Leadon and Linda Ronstadt) to record his second solo album for Reprise Records. Lacking much-needed new material, Parsons quickly wrote two songs during the sessions ("Return of the Grievous Angel", with lyrics by Boston-based poet and Parsons fan Thomas Brown; "In My Hour Of Darkness", arranged by Harris) and looked to songs rejected for previous albums and to standard country songs to flesh out the scant material he came up with. In regards to the original material, "Brass Buttons" dated from Parsons' brief stint as a Harvard-based folksinger in the mid-1960s; "Hickory Wind" had already been recorded with The Byrds; "$1000 Wedding", about Parsons' aborted plan to wed the mother of his daughter in ostentatious style, had been recorded in a plodding arrangement with the Flying Burrito Brothers circa 1970; "Ooh Las Vegas" had been rejected from GP.
In spite of the dearth of new material, the album took what its predecessor had presented and expanded the format of "Cosmic American Music". With the album in the can, Parsons set off for Joshua Tree, California, where he would fatally overdose on September 19, 1973, dying the next day in nearby Yucca Valley.
Read more about this topic: Grievous Angel
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