After a controversial slot at Nashville’s Grand Ole Opry in March ’68, Skeeter Davis found The Byrds in the parking lot. “Don’t worry about those people in there,” she reassured. “They just don’t get it yet”. Thirty-five years on, we get a stetson-full of it. For those unfamiliar with the onetime hipsters’ descent into Rednecksville, this was a career move that sold beans but realigned US musical topography forever. Post-Sweetheart, everyone began a-stomping ’round the ranch. Heavily Gram Parsons-slanted, we get the original album, the six outtakes from 1990’s Byrds box and over a dozen previously unissued takes, many with Gram on lead.
Parsons’ pre-Byrds International Submarine Band muscle in with three cuts from Safe At Home, plus single versions of “Sum Up Broke”, “One Day Week” and “Truck Drivin’ Man”. For all Byrdmaniax, a completist’s golden fleece.