Flying Burrito Brothers
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The Flying Burrito Brothers were an early country rock band, best known for their massively influential debut album, 1969's The Gilded Palace of Sin. Although the group is most often thought of in connection with country-rock legend Gram Parsons, in fact it went through a mind-numbing variety of personnel changes through a series of break-ups and resurrections (sometimes due to Parsons' tendency to switch from band to band and project to project with no notice).
Ironically, the band best known as the "Flying Burrito Brothers" actually 'borrowed' their name from the original "Flying Burrito Brothers", composed of bassist Ian Dunlop and drummer Mickey Gauvin, bandmates of Parsons from the Boston-born International Submarine Band, plus any of a loose coalition of musicians, including Parsons himself from time to time. In a deliberate choice of focusing on just creating and playing music over the distractions of over-involvement in the music business, in 1968 they returned from Los Angeles to New York city. From this base they continued to tour the Northeast playing their eclectic traditional/rockabilly/blues/R&B-oriented version of rock, using the name "The Flying Burrito Brothers East" after Parsons' group became famous.
Meanwhile, on the West Coast, Parsons and Chris Hillman thought the name would be perfectly suited for the country-oriented rock band they had been dreaming of since early 1968, when they had hijacked Roger McGuinn's chart-topping rock band The Byrds to produce the first country-oriented rock album, Sweetheart of the Rodeo. They immersed themselves in their vision in their house in the San Fernando Valley, "Burrito Manor", even replacing their wardrobe with a set of custom country-Western suits from tailor to the C&W stars Nudie's Rodeo Tailors (Parsons's decorated with embroidered marijuana leaves), and began a period of intensely fruitful creativity.
Their first album The Gilded Palace of Sin (1968) did not sell terribly well, being a radical departure from anything most of the record-buying public (either rock or country) had ever seen, but the group had a cult following which included several famous musicians, such as Bob Dylan and The Rolling Stones. Parsons soon became friends with Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones and left the group after 1970's Burrito Deluxe, which also saw the departure of Ethridge and addition of Bernie Leadon and Michael Clarke (of The Byrds). Rick Roberts replaced Parsons and released a self-titled album with the group in 1971. Kleinow then left to become a session musician and Leadon joined The Eagles. Al Perkins and Roger Bush replaced them, and Kenny Wertz and Byron Berline joined as well, releasing The Last of the Red Hot Burritos (1972), a live album. The band fell apart. Hillman and Perkins joined Manassas, while Berline, Bush and Wertz formed Country Gazette. Roberts reassembled a new group for a 1973 European tour, and then began a solo career before forming Firefall with Michael Clarke.
As Gram Parson's influence and fame grew, so did interest in the Flying Burrito Brothers, leading to the release of Honky Tonks (1974), a double album, and the recreation of the band by Kleinow and Ethridge in 1975. Floyd Gilbeau, Joel Scott Hill and Gene Parsons also joined, and the band released Flying Again that year. Ethridge was then replaced by Skip Battin for Airborne (1976), followed by an album of unreleased early material, Sleepless Nights. For the next few decades, the group released albums and toured and had a country hit with "White Line Fever" (1980, a cover by Merle Haggard) and then became the Burrito Brothers. Through numerous incarnations, the band released albums and toured throughout the 1980s and 90s.