THE FLYING BURRITO BROS

Fight fire with Fire

Legend tells us that the Phoenix is a mythical bird with a colorful plumage and a tail of gold and scarlet. It has a 500 to 1,000 year life-cycle, near the end of which it builds itself a nest of myrrh twigs that then ignites; both nest and bird burn fiercely and are reduced to ashes, from which a new, young phoenix or phoenix egg arises, reborn anew to live again.

Country.
Rock.
Legacy.
Legend.

All of these words apply to talk about one of the most influential bands of the 60’s.
The Flying Burrito Bros are what Unenlagia is to Paleontology, and using an “almost” bird from ancient times is completely accurate. Why? Because before we learn to fly, we got to learn to walk, and these animals taught us that.
Same happened with The FBB back in the 60’s; their music is the link between two great genres, Country & Rock, and by linking them together they accomplished more than they actually realized.

You see, Country and Rock were, and can still be, two very closed forms of music, inside the Country family there were only a few who dared to step into Rock, and when they did Ma’, Pa’ and the Country Music Industry weren’t happy about it; and when a Rocker went Country (it has happened) he or she got stoned for it.

Then in the 60’s, these guys come and give everybody a huge middle finger with their first record The Gilded Palace of Sin (1969), I mean c’mon, isn’t that a Rock and Roll album name or what? And what we had there was “good old farmers meet LSD” and it worked out GREAT.

Giving the atmosphere of those years, it was to be expected that as if came natural to them to mix different points of view, it was natural that their statement was going to be someone else’s too. Let’s thank the Lord for that, Amen!

Their formation varied and I must name Mister Ingram Cecil Connor III, or Gram Parsons to us all, a modern man like few in our time, and like the modern man he was, he took life by its horns and gave us all beautiful music to live to.

Not many people know about The FBB, or to say it better, they are not named as much as they should, we’re talking about the band that Bob Dylan and The Rolling Stones looked up to, the band that shared members with The Byrds and The International Submarine Band.

Maybe like with ancient stories, they need to be passed on from person to person, like a marvelous secret that needs to be taken care of.
What’s true is that after you experience listening to them one gets the impression that we understand it all, finally.

I got the story from a dear friend, now I’m passing it to you.
Keep it alive, like the phoenix and Gram, always burning, always living, and forever young.