Consumer Guide Album

Gram Parsons: Grievous Angel [Reprise, 1974]
On GP, Emmylou Harris was a backup musician; here she cuts Parsons's soulfully dilettantish quaver with dry, dulcet mountain spirituality. On GP, Parsons was undeviating in his dolor; here he opens up the honky tonks, if only to announce that he can't dance. The best Gram Parsons album--and hence the best country-rock album--since Gilded Palace of Sin, with all that irony and mystery translated from metaphor into narrative. A