`Sin City: The Very Best Of The Flying Burrito Brothers' Includes the Legendary Country Rockers' First Two Albums With Gram Parsons.

Entertainment Editors & Music/Retail Writers

LOS ANGELES--(ENTERTAINMENT WIRE)--June 14, 2002

The Flying Burrito Brothers were way ahead of their time. Their rootsy, countrifying influence has been felt from the Eagles to Garth Brooks, Dwight Yoakam to Uncle Tupelo, Steve Earle to Whiskeytown. If there was something called garage country rock, The Flying Burrito Brothers would be its patron saint.

"Sin City: The Very Best Of The Flying Burrito Brothers" (A&M/UME), released July 16, 2002, collects the legendary group's most popular tracks from its all-too-brief glory days. Herein are 25 tracks that tell the story of the first years of The Burritos, when the cosmic force that was Gram Parsons led the charge. Included is every track from their first pair of albums, 1969's "The Gilded Palace Of Sin" and 1970's "Burrito Deluxe," plus the b-side "Train Song," and two songs that first appeared on later compilations, "Six Days On The Road" and "Close Up The Honky-Tonks."

By the time singer-songwriter-guitarists Parsons and Chris Hillman met, the Byrds with Hillman had already carved a niche in the folk-rock scene. Parsons pushed the Byrds into a more country direction for "Sweetheart Of The Rodeo" and made plans for another band with an earlier compatriot, bassist Chris Ethridge. Parsons' idea was traditional country music with a rock attitude, not country combined with rock a la Buffalo Springfield, Poco or the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band. When Hillman then departed the Byrds, the three teamed with steel guitarist "Sneaky" Pete Kleinow.

Signed to A&M, their debut, "The Gilded Palace Of Sin," was an epiphany, with "Christine's Tune (aka Devil In Disguise)," "Hot Burrito #2," "Do Right Woman" (originally cut by Aretha Franklin), "Dark End Of The Street," "Sin City" and "Wheels." For 1970's "Burrito Deluxe," personnel changes included adding former Byrds drummer Michael Clarke and multi-instrumentalist (future Eagle) Bernie Leadon. The album featured the honky-tonking "Lazy Days," "Cody, Cody" and the Mick Jagger/Keith Richards piece de resistance "Wild Horses," Parsons' finest hour vocally and passionately (with Leon Russell adding piano).

Then Parsons left for a solo career. On September 18, 1973, just two months before his 27th birthday, he died. The Burritos, with various line-ups, continued on, with more than two dozen albums released since, but it was the inspiration heard in their first two albums that has had the most lasting influence on music today.