There are some people come and go with out so much as a blip on the public conscious; but their impact is felt way beyond their reach. One such character is Gram Parsons (born Cecil Ingram Connor III). Musician who influenced the “cross pollination” of two very different music genres: country and rock. He rolled in as the lead singer and guitarist of The Byrd’s in the late sixties just as the youth were learning to tune in and drop out. And, of course, motorcycles allowed the freedom of escape; Triumph being at the fore! Mick Jagger and Keith Richards saw his genius and used his melding of country rock to progress their music from their emergent sixties sound to a more mature tune of the seventies.
“Look at him here, he’s wearing a cape! And a Triumph motorcycle T-shirt, smoking pot through a mug, and wearing my mother’s promise ring.” Polly Parsons (daughter)
Photography by Andee Nathanson
Gram went a little too far in ’73 however overdosing on morphine and alcohol in a room at the Joshua Tree Motel CA at the young age of 26.
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