Sweetheart of The Rodeo - Legacy

Legacy

Released at a time when The Byrds' surprising immersion in the world of country music coincided with their declining commercial appeal, Sweetheart of the Rodeo was certainly an uncommercial proposition at the time of its release. However, the album has proved to be a landmark, serving not only as a blueprint for Parsons' and Hillman's The Flying Burrito Brothers, but also for the entire nascent 1970s Los Angeles country-rock movement. The album was also influential on the outlaw country and new traditionalist movements, as well as the so-called alternative country genre of the 1990s and 2000s. Among fans of The Byrds, however, opinion is often sharply divided regarding the merits of the album, with some seeing it as a natural continuation of the group's innovations, and others mourning the loss of the band's trademark Rickenbacker guitar jangle and psychedelic experimentation. Nonetheless, Sweetheart of the Rodeo is widely considered to be The Byrds' last truly influential album.

Although it was not the first country-rock album, Sweetheart of the Rodeo was the first album widely labeled as country-rock to be released by an internationally successful rock act, pre-dating the release of Bob Dylan's Nashville Skyline by over six months. The first bona fide country-rock album is often cited as being Safe at Home by Parsons' previous group, The International Submarine Band. However, the genre's antecedents can be traced back to the Rockabilly music of the 1950s, The Beatles' covers of Carl Perkins and Buck Owens' material on Beatles For Sale and Help!, as well as the stripped down arrangements of Dylan's John Wesley Harding album and The Byrds' own forays into country music on their pre-Sweetheart albums. The Band's debut album, Music from Big Pink, released in July 1968, was also influential on the genre but it was Sweetheart of the Rodeo that saw an established rock band playing pure country music for the first time.

In 2003, the album was ranked #117 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time, and Stylus Magazine named it their 175th favorite album of all time in the same year.

Sweetheart of the Rodeo went on to inspire the name of the 1980s country duo, Sweethearts of the Rodeo, who paid tribute to The Byrds' album with the sleeve of their 1990 album, Buffalo Zone.