Sweetheart Of The Rodeo＜限定盤＞

Rolling Stone (12/11/03, p.124) - Ranked #117 in Rolling Stone's "500 Greatest Albums Of All Time" - "[D]ressing Bob Dylan and Merle Haggard songs in steel guitar and rock & roll drive, setting the stage for country rock." Rolling Stone (6/12/97, p.114) - "...Remixed and reshuffled, with Gram Parsons' vocals front and center, this sparkling reissue gives revisionist history a good name..." Rolling Stone (9/14/68, p.20) - "...The material they've chosen to record, or rather, the way they perform the material, is simple, relaxed and folky. It's not pretentious, it's pretty. The musicianship is excellent..." Rolling Stone (6/12/97, p.114) - "...Remixed and reshuffled, with Gram Parsons' vocals front and center, this sparkling reissue gives revisionist history a good name..." Rolling Stone (9/14/68, p.20) - "...The material they've chosen to record, or rather, the way they perform the material, is simple, relaxed and folky. It's not pretentious, it's pretty. The musicianship is excellent..." Entertainment Weekly (4/4/97, pp.81-82) - "...sounds sharper [than the original pressing]...and outtakes featuring Gram Parsons add a rustic postscript. Anyone taken with the '90s alt-country of Wilco should visit this more authentic RODEO..." - Rating: A Entertainment Weekly (4/4/97, pp.81-82) - "...sounds sharper [than the original pressing]...and outtakes featuring Gram Parsons add a rustic postscript. Anyone taken with the '90s alt-country of Wilco should visit this more authentic RODEO..." - Rating: A Q (9/00, p.134) - Included in Q's "Best Alt.Country Albums Of All Time". Q (4/97, p.140) - 3 Stars (out of 5) - "...their most influential album, a landmark at a crucial junction on pop's long, dusty road..." Q (1/04, p.130) - 5 stars out of 5 - "[S]pawning several generations of rockers who were a lil' bit country." Q (9/00, p.134) - Included in Q's "Best Alt.Country Albums Of All Time". Q (4/97, p.140) - 3 Stars (out of 5) - "...their most influential album, a landmark at a crucial junction on pop's long, dusty road..." Down Beat (8/97, p.61) - 1/2 stars (out of 5) - "...the best of the pack....a full immersion into bluegrass, country and gospel..." Down Beat (8/97, p.61) - 1/2 stars (out of 5) - "...the best of the pack....a full immersion into bluegrass, country and gospel..." Dirty Linen (12/03, p.59) - "...Without a doubt the album most influential for generations of musicians interested in fusing country and rock..." Dirty Linen (12/03, p.59) - "...Without a doubt the album most influential for generations of musicians interested in fusing country and rock..." Musician (6/97, p.86) - "...there was a time before the Eagles, when the Byrds made the steel guitar acceptable to hippies...The 20-bit remastering seems to add overtones to everything without adding anything to the price, and the five extra cuts...offer an illuminating glimpse into how they worked..." Musician (6/97, p.86) - "...there was a time before the Eagles, when the Byrds made the steel guitar acceptable to hippies...The 20-bit remastering seems to add overtones to everything without adding anything to the price, and the five extra cuts...offer an illuminating glimpse into how they worked..." Blender (Magazine) (p.82) - 5 stars out of 5 -- "[I]t now sounds like a prophecy of the way Nashville and L.A. embraced each other in the '70s."

The Byrds' Sweetheart of the Rodeo was not the first important country-rock album (Gram Parsons managed that feat with the International Submarine Band's debut Safe at Home), and the Byrds were hardly strangers to country music, dipping their toes in the twangy stuff as early as their second album. But no major band had gone so deep into the sound and feeling of classic country (without parody or condescension) as the Byrds did on Sweetheart; at a time when most rock fans viewed country as a musical "L'il Abner" routine, the Byrds dared to declare that C&W could be hip, cool, and heartfelt. Though Gram Parsons had joined the band as a pianist and lead guitarist, his deep love of C&W soon took hold, and Roger McGuinn and Chris Hillman followed his lead; significantly, the only two original songs on the album were both written by Parsons (the achingly beautiful "Hickory Wind" and "One Hundred Years from Now"), while on the rest of the set classic tunes by Merle Haggard, the Louvin Brothers, and Woody Guthrie were sandwiched between a pair of twanged-up Bob Dylan compositions. While many cite this as more of a Gram Parsons album than a Byrds set, given the strong country influence of McGuinn's and Hillman's later work, it's obvious Parsons didn't impose a style upon this band so much as he tapped into a sound that was already there, waiting to be released. If the Byrds didn't do country-rock first, they did it brilliantly, and few albums in the style are as beautiful and emotionally affecting as this. ~ Mark Deming