Pull up a chair. I’ve a story to tell. The story of a CD called The Ballad of Sally Rose and about the woman, Emmylou Harris, who put this musical story to print.

Even if you’re a big Emmylou fan, it’s likely you’ve never heard this gem. It enjoyed a small press run stateside back in 1985 and is available now only as an import. That means you may have to look hard to find this one and may have to pay more than typical for a CD.

Just remember that you’re buying a musical story here and not a collection of radio hits or misses. Some call this a “concept” album. I can’t imagine what that might mean. Concept is an idea, and I would wager any album starts with an idea. Perhaps, they mean that the idea is bigger, better, more central to the character of the work of art. In any case, this is a story from beginning to end—no less and often much more than a typical tale set only to paper.

“The Ballad of Sally Rose” is the story, as you may have guessed, of Sally Rose.

All good books must have a story of creation, and Sally Rose’s goes like this:

“They set up house, and things soon begin to cool down. When a baby girl is born whom neither one wants, he leaves for new horizons, she goes back to her monthly allowance and Sally Rose is abandoned to the land of her fathers.”

Sally Rose is raised up by the Sioux nation with the radio as her most reliable companion. When “the Singer” passes through, the music and the chance to be onstage lures her away from the world that was both hers and not. She thinks the music is her savior and drifts away from the Singer only to discover that the music is much sweeter when shared. She begins the journey back home, but before she can throw her arms around the man who rescued her soul, he dies in a car wreck. She carries on his musical tradition and becomes successful beyond measure in this shallow, meaningless world. In the end, Sally Rose packs it up, buys a radio station, and plays His songs 24 hours of every day on “WSOS . . . A voice in the wilderness, And we’re here to stay, K-S-O-S.”

The tale has a familiar ring and that eerie sense of realism, because it closely reflects the relationship of Emmylou and Gram Parsons.

Emmylou was born in Alabama to a military family. After spending her kid years in North Carolina and her teen years in Virginia, she took her folk songs on the road. Unfortunately, she was a little late to be a flower child. But, her talent was so palpable that it was clear that she’d be a star. She needed, only, to find a musical genre—a place to hang her voice and heart.

Gram heard that a new kid in town might be just the ticket to launch his solo career. He’d been toying with country/rock crossover melodies with the Flying Burrito Brothers. This was “his band” after leaving the Byrds. But, Gram didn’t have that headliner voice. He needed a partner in this interesting crime dubbed Cosmic American Music—a cross of country and rock—a little of both but neither.

It’s probably fair to say that it was love at first listen. Emmylou was a chick who could play it purely by ear and belt out country like she’d been raised in a shanty on the side of a hill. Gram quickly signed her to the dotted line and took to the road with the “Fallen Angel” tour. Things were looking promising. The divorce was on track. To borrow from and alter a song by Will Young: “And if you can't be with the one you love honey . . .” divorce the one you’re with.” Gretchen Parsons was on the way out.

Whether Emmylou and Gram ever hooked up in the Biblical sense, certainly something was going on behind the scenes (if not the covers). No disrespect to “the Sweetheart of the Rodeo,” but she does fall in love with and marry her leading men. In all likelihood, Gram would have been another notch on her rhinestone belt.

But, Gram bought a one-way ticket to the other side.

Take a lot of alcohol, add some pills and pot, and mix those all up in the Joshua Tree National Park, and you have a cold, dead body. An ice cube suppository pulled Gram back from the brink once, but when he nodded out a second time, that was all she wrote. The Yucca plants, named by the Mormons who saw them as the welcoming arms of Joshua on a journey to the Promised Land, stood silently by as all the key players in this rather bizarre drama scattered like roaches when the lights come on.

This might have been just another casualty in the War on war. A lot of the good ones burned out or blew sky high in the name of making love and beaded necklaces for sale on the streets. But, Gram never lived a quiet life, and he didn’t make a soundless exit.

The blood ran bad between Gram and his stepdad. Gram had reason to believe that his rent-a-father helped put his mom in the grave. While mom was detoxing at the facility, the wicked stepdad smuggled in liquor. This appeared to be the straw that turned the camel belly up. Mom died. Gram began to have seizures brought on by, perhaps, this stress of knowing the little family secret and also that little drug habit of his own.

In any case, stepdad had in mind to haul the body of Gram back to New Orleans. Some legal thing suggested that he’d have a better claim on the Gram monies if the body came to rest where it had never been nor ever planned to be.

Buddies. Gotta love ‘em. The young troupe that knew Gram better than he probably knew himself were quite aware that Gram would be most unhappy with this half-baked New Orleans trip idea. In fact, Gram had vocally suggested that he’d prefer to go up in smoke in the beautiful desert of the Joshua trees. This was, of course, enough to put “the plan” into action.

Phil Kaufman and Michael Martin (a roadie of sorts in this story and also the owner of the old camping hearse) decided to make good on one of those drunken ranting pacts to see that dignity reined in death as well as life.

(Kaufman was Gram’s road manager and later went on to manage the blue highways for Emmylou. When he got rocked by cancer in the mid-90s, it was Emmylou who stepped up with a concert to cover a longtime buddies medical bills.)

Phil called around and found out when Gram’s body would take flight from LAX. Then, he rattled in with the hearse that had windows out, no tags, but had the general “look” of something for the hauling of the dead.

The officer on the scene presented a bit of a problem. But, when you act like you know what you’re doing, most will follow blindly along. In this case, the policeman helped load the stone cold Gram in the black party wagon. I mean, really, it didn’t look quite right, but what’s a guy to do? Heave ho. In you go.

Phil carted Gram off to Joshua tree and set him (casket and all) on fire. Now, while you may be thinking this is a big crime, in fact, it’s not. You will not find in our laws any saying: “Thou shalt not steal your buddy dead as dirt, haul him off to the park, and roast wieners.” Nope. Not there. Phil did pay a $750 fine. It’s a misdemeanor to do this sort of thing if you’re thinking of following suit. It falls under some kind of theft clause but not one of the major ones that mean jail time.

Emmylou gave (and continues to give) her blessings on the great bonfire in Joshua Tree. This was not a friend meant to rest easily in the ground. Gram was perhaps the soul mate that has seemed to elude Emmylou (then and now). Gram remains forever young and forever living on the edge and in the hot wind of the desert. He is a man easy to love—one who is perfect in the thinking back and the “what ifs?” If you keep breathing, you make mistakes. If you die, you can go down in history as bigger and better than life.

Enter Paul Kennerly.

We have a British lad here who (for some reason quite beyond me) had a fascination with American history. In 1978, he captured the Civil War in song with “White Mansions” and then checked back in with “Jesse James” in 1980. These two are now packaged as a two-CD deal and readily buyable. Though the history collections never charted as far as the songs, the packages have continued to sell and then resell to those turned on to going back in time in song rather than on paper. If our kids could hear these masterpieces, they would never look at the past as a cold and dull place where the people existed but probably did not have any personality. We don’t do education very well. Classics like these could make it all so very real. Instead, we assign chapter 2, answer the mundane questions, take the test. Forget it. It’s all history.

Emmylou was tapped, along with a number of the best talents in the country music realm, to humor this rather odd but certainly talented across-the-pond storyteller. In fact, it seems that Emmylou was quite smitten. And, the feeling was mutual. They made sweet love and made it official with some “I do’s.”

It probably helped that Paul helped Emmylou put “Sally Rose” to CD. This was in the early stages of the romantic relationship. Nothing says “I love you” like holding someone’s hand while they recover from a lost love, and this guy certainly went beyond the call of duty to collaborate on a veiled tribute to his predecessor—Gram Parsons.

In the case of “Sally Rose,” Paul had to work with stories told in one voice—Emmylou’s. While she played bit roles in the earlier story albums, she was “the album” here. It’s hard to take story songs and tell the whole thing without having any other sounds to play with. At first listen, the songs kind of blend and feel like one long note. It’s only one a second play and then a third that the depth of the work comes into focus.

The title track picks up with the “where she came from” part of the story. It’s a common tale of a woman taken in by a fast talking guy who turns out to be bad boyfriend material and worse daddy stuff. Some women weather this tragedy better than others. In this case, Sally becomes property of the reservation by right of birth and by the default of a mother who could have used a few condoms or a diaphragm.

Remember now, that though this is Emmylou’s biography in some ways, it’s also fictional. Emmylou was not native, did not grow up on a reservation, and her parents were very much “there” when she was coming up. That’s why it’s sometimes easier to play fiction based on truth. You can take the duller parts and bump them up. “Sally Rose” becomes Emmylou but an Emmylou with a slighter more charged history. In fact, she could put out a killer CD based strictly on the Gram years, but that might be a bit much to expect from any woman. Feel my pain. Don’t walk all over my heart.

The next few songs talk of love—kind of a sad and longing love but love. Remember that this was put out in 1985 and based on events in the late 70s and early 80s. We have come a long way baby, since then. Emmylou was on the cutting edge with her “Woman Walk the Line” (playing off “Only Daddy That’ll Walk the Line-Waylon Jennings). Her man (the Singer here—but most surely a reflection of the Gram years) is off an gone and having a go at all the girl groupies. Sally Rose hits a bar of her own. Only, she does not go looking for a romp. “Tonight I want to do some drinkin’ I came to listen to the band.” She makes it clear that she does not “want to hold your hand.” She is just grabbing a stool to take the edge off the loneliness. Guys can do it. It’s a sin when girls do—or it was. Ask any older female. We were not usually screaming “It’s good to be me” when it meant playing by a very restrictive set of rules based on gender.

“Bad News” talks of the death. It’s kind of a “round.” The overlap is compelling and sexy. “Long Tall Sally Rose” (a take on “Woman in a Long Black Dress”) is about dealing with it. You can walk the shores alone forever, or you can go out and make a name for yourself. But, you still remember the “White Line.” This one talks about the wreck. Keep it between the navigation goalposts (to borrow loosely from Jimmy Buffet). You have to think back and deal with it. Sally Rose is recalling the car wreck. Emmylou is certainly remembering the drugs and specifically the cocaine—the substances that wrecked as surely as any high test car ever could have. You know what she means about a “white line.” Come on. Surely, you caught that.

You can only play the game so long and especially when you know you’re playing on the borrowed time of a dead love. “The Sweetheart of the Rodeo” takes the “Diamond in [her] Crown” and trades that in for that radio station I mentioned at the start. Yes, KSOS is a tribute to Gram and to the bluegrassers who have never been center stage in the same way as mainstream. The Marta White sounding jingle surrounds picking on “Ring of Fire,” Wildwood Flower,” and “Six Days on the Road.” You’ve gotta love a girl who can give a nod to those who helped build the musical playground where she now reins.

“Sweet Chariot” is not the gospel song of your childhood though it has that same feel. “Take the mourning from my eyes.” Yes. That is the spelling on mourning. This is complex CD with a number of “think-about-it” references that can be missed and probably are by many. Certainly, the reference to “Joshua tree” in this final song is not tossed in lightly. I’m sure Emmylou will remember the event of Joshua Tree to her dying day. She’ll always have to wonder if this was the guy meant to be—if the ones before and those after were simply not lined up cosmically. If we are born to be with a certain person and if that person passes, then perhaps we are destined to wander.

This CD is an early effort on digital. The sound is a bit thin, but Emmylou’s voice is so full and soulful that the slight echo simply gives this an “another world” twang. I can imagine this coming through the wires as a tale told long ago and dated in some of the references but so “now” when it comes to matters of the heart.

The first time I played this one through, I did get kind of lost in the “same voice” thing. No. Don’t expect a “Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain” here (that’s Willie’s first number one hit—and a surprise I might add). A standout, might in fact, have detracted from the overall big picture painted here. It might also have meant that you could buy this stateside. Sometimes our neighbors have more sense than we do. If they can keep a southern country ballad going for 20 years, then what’s the deal on this side of the pond?

The second time I listened, I read along with the songs. The overall piece began to come into focus. By the third listen, I was hooked. I’ll fight you over this copy that was bought used and probably not loved nearly as much as it will be here. I’ve always worshipped Emmylou, and I would probably turn you on with a greatest hits cover, but if you stick around, then you’ll be listening to this one and learning to love it too. Anything less is not acceptable.

“Love is found when the heart is lost” is the last line here. That’s the way this whole project plays. Kick back and enjoy. You’ll be hooked.

*********************


If you are interested in Paul Kennerly’s earlier story albums, then see my reviews:

“White Mansions” is at:

http://www.epinions.com/content_55087238788

At the time I wrote that, you could buy WM as a standalone. As far as I know, you can only get a package deal now. Here’s my piece on the package. I focus more on Jessie James in the second, since I link back to White Mansions for more details.

http://www.epinions.com/content_107031793284



Recommended: Yes