![]() Hyde” album (and as a B-side) in early 1969. Parsons left the Byrds between the time the song was recorded in October 1968 and released on the “Dr. I said, “Remember that DJ in Nashville who wouldn’t play our record?… You know what? Let’s write a song about him.'” We were trying to think of something to write about a song about. Mile after mile, you’ll be glad you did.’ We looked at each other and said, ‘This guy’s not a real trucker.’ He reminded us of the kind of people that dress up like cowboys and hang out in drug stores… So a couple of months later, Gram Parsons and I were in London, sitting in a hotel room across from each other and we had a guitar and we were passing it back and forth. So go on down to your Clark dealers today and get a Clark C put in your rig. “He went into a commercial and he said, ‘No matter what kind of a rig you drive, Clark C will fit it. We took it to Ralph Emery, the DJ, and said, ‘Would you play our new record?’ And he put it on a little preview turntable and listened to about 10 seconds’ worth, and he said, ‘I’m not gonna play on my show.’ We said, why not? He said, ‘What’s it about?’ I said, ‘Ralph, it’s a Bob Dylan song!’” There was a pause for laughter and for the audience to consider the prospect of McGuinn trying to make sense of Dylan’s typically cryptic lyrics for Emery. ![]() But the events certainly made a lasting impression on all parties.Īs McGuinn recalled it at one of the 2018 anniversary shows: “We took the single to the radio station WSM in Nashville, a 50,000-watt radio station broadcast all over the country from Canada to Cuba, and we thought, wow, if we play it on there, maybe somebody will buy it - and we liked that idea. No recordings or transcripts have surfaced of either the Opry or WSM appearances, so there’s little way of knowing whether it’s true that Emery actually told them on-air, and not just off-, just how bad he thought their music was. That was nothing compared to the chilliness Parsons and McGuinn received when they went on Emery’s clear-channel WSM-AM radio show to premiere their single, a song Bob Dylan had given them from his so-called basement tapes, “You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere.” Or so they thought they would. But there was reportedly some rancor with Opry managers after Parsons surprised them by nixing what was supposed to be their second and final number, a cover of Merle Haggard’s “Sing Me Back Home,” in favor of his own “Hickory Wind” - shades of Elvis Costello changing tunes on “Saturday Night Live” midstream a decade later. Signs seemed to be positive when CBS Records convinced the Opry to book the Byrds for its live national broadcast. But would Nashville see it the way they did? It was the fulfillment of a dream particularly for Parsons, who’d grown up steeped in country. With “Sweetheart of the Rodeo,” the Byrds were convinced they’d succeeded in recording a country album - something that was close to unheard of for a counterculture group in ’68, and which certainly represented a risky turn from “Turn, Turn, Turn” and the other jangly folk-rock smashes the band was coming off of in ’68. ![]() ![]() Former Byrds McGuinn and Chris Hillman made a point of telling it every night in 2018 when they reunited for a tour celebrating the 50th anniversary of the group’s landmark “Sweetheart of the Rodeo” album, which was what occasioned their uneasy encounters with the Nashville establishment a half-century earlier. The story of how the Byrds tried and failed to win over both the Grand Ole Opry and the influential Emery in 1968 has been oft-told. ![]()
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