I spent last night watching Grand Theft Parsons again as it was on late on RTE. If you’re not familiar with the film, it is based on the true events that followed the death of country-rock icon Gram Parsons in 1973.
Prior to his death Parsons made a pact with his road manager and best friend Phil Kaufman (played by Strabane Lidl shopper Johnny Knoxville). They both agreed that if one of them was to die, the other was to take the body to Joshua Tree and cremate it and then spread the ashes over Cap Rock. After Parson’s death at the age of 26, that’s just what Kaufman did. He managed to burn most of Parson’s remains. What was left when police got there was then buried in New Orleans in keeping with the initial wishes of Parson’s step-father.
Parsons remains a mysterious figure in rock mythology. Yet away from the exteriors addressed in Grand Theft Parsons, he was also a great musical talent cut down in his prime by the self-inflicted excessive living that has claimed so many. The film does not focus on the talent of the man; a BBC documentary called Fallen Angel does that brilliantly, and it's worth keeping an eye out for as it tends to be repeated now and then on BBC4.
In the meantime, here’s Gram with The Flying Burrito Brothers with a track about the pleasures and perils of life in the west coast – ‘Sin City’.
Parsons remains a mysterious figure in rock mythology. Yet away from the exteriors addressed in Grand Theft Parsons, he was also a great musical talent cut down in his prime by the self-inflicted excessive living that has claimed so many. The film does not focus on the talent of the man; a BBC documentary called Fallen Angel does that brilliantly, and it's worth keeping an eye out for as it tends to be repeated now and then on BBC4.
In the meantime, here’s Gram with The Flying Burrito Brothers with a track about the pleasures and perils of life in the west coast – ‘Sin City’.
No comments:
Post a Comment