The Pop Corporation

Niche genres are a silly thing music fans and record collectors love to indulge. Even if you can settle on the specifics of these genres, you then get to the meat and potatoes of pointlessly ranking things. We’re not going to rank them here, even though we were tempted to in a lousy bid to court the mildest of controversy.

Instead, we’re simply going to look at Cosmic Country. Think of this as a guide or a something for the curious beginner to look at. Of course, what constitutes Cosmic Country is so vague that you’ll always get disagreements on what is cosmic, what’s outlaw, and what’s insert another micro genre here.

We’ll do our best to set the definition first. Effectively, Cosmic Country (or Cosmic Americana if you prefer) is a sub-genre that kicked off in the ’60s and continued into the ’70s and has clung to the legacy of Gram Parsons and basically, it’s a psychedelic version of country and American roots music. There’s modern stuff too, stuff from the ’90s that gets lumped in with Alt Country, and it’s all confusing BUT rest assured, there’s going to be some stuff here that you should check out and really, that’s what pieces like this are really for.

Subjectivity is king and you’ll know it when you know it. Parsons said of it that it was a mission to reclaim an experimental streak rejected by the musical conservatists in Nashville, so that’s what you’ll be listening to here.

FJ MCMAHON ‘SPIRIT OF THE GOLDEN JUICE’

Let’s start with some record collector nonsense to kick things off. Straddling the line between folk, singer-songwriter and country, FJ McMahon’s bruised balladeering is straight from the gothic end of country music, and may miss some of the yeehaw! elements that you’d normally associate with all things of the Opry, but the troubadour is right there up front, dealing in the fallout of Vietnam and the death of the hippie ideal.

When McMahon sings “Early in the morning, standing by my window, watching the rain become silhouette pictures as you go; the grey mist burned off by the dawn – now to think of what’s become of our time alone together” is straight-up battered cowboy blues. Magical madrigals, rootsy spiritualism and more. An essential listen.

THE BYRDS ‘SWEETHEART OF THE RODEO’

While Gram Parsons had an album out with The International Submarine band (featuring ‘Luxury Liner’ which is one of the Year Dots of Cosmic Americana), it’s churlish to suggest that Cosmic Country really started anywhere before he crash-landed into The Byrds and completely changed their sound from folk-rock to this new, forward-thinking version of country music.

Now, Parsons was not alone in his vision with the rest of The Byrds deserving a whole load of credit for this. A huge group like this wouldn’t just let this cocky upstart transform them overnight and on a whim, but the marriage of the group with Parsons made for a future classic that was met with suspicion from the off. The country old guards thought they were being mocked by these hippies, and the longhairs struggled to convey just how much they loved the source material on ‘Sweetheart’. Original compositions sit next to some marvellous old-timey numbers like ‘The Christian Life’ and ‘Life in Prison’, along with The Byrds requisite Dylan covers. If you’re interested in psychedelic country, this is a great place to start. Parsons’ ‘One Hundred Years From Now’ is the perfect crystallisation of taking a myriad of influences and channelling them through the country lens.

Originally, Parsons voice didn’t appear on the record thanks to legal issues, but reissues have since shown us what the proper version of the LP could have sounded like and, with the assembled Byrds, it was a more complete album and beautiful for having the different tones and attitudes, rather than McGuinn having to take up a lot of the slack. Still, an absolutely wonderful album and the first true Cosmic American album by a big band. It’s a tremendous effort and still massively influential to this day.

New Riders Of The Purple Sage ‘Self Titled’

New Riders of the Purple Sage mixed country and rock and came straight out of the psychedelic scene, emerging from the acid overlords the Grateful Dead – and literally too – with several members shared. The pedal steel on this LP echoes country music past, but infused with the counterculture’s absolute reliance on LSD, the songs spiral and swirl around your head to give a very different flavour to American music.

On this debut album, Jerry Garcia appears but the New Riders had an ever evolving line-up which should make them stand apart from The Dead in their own right. However, the relationship between the two groups makes the comic element to this take on country absolutely undeniable. Pair this with ‘American Beauty’ and you’ve got two absolute classics of the genre.

HEARTS AND FLOWERS ‘NOW IS THE TIME FOR HEARTS AND FLOWERS’

One of the earlier proponents of melding psychedelic pop with country were Hearts and Flowers. The group effectively launched the career of future Eagle Bernie Leadon, and while The Beatles were in the thrall of Sergeant Pepper, this group grew from jam sessions and frontman Larry Murray said: “We had a unique sound, a very strange sound, particularly because we found what we did best was old, traditional, country hillbilly music – that became the core of what we did.” You can heard Buck Owens, Haggard, the Louvin Brothers as well as contemporary psychedelic music on their album, making it one of the early adopters in Cosmic Country terms.

Jimmy Carter & The Dallas County Green ‘Summer Brings The Sunshine’

One of the true hidden gems of Cosmic Country is the album ‘Summer Brings The Sunshine’ by Jimmy Carter (not that one) and The Dallas County Green. An unassuming LP cover that looks all the world like a boring postcard from somewhere, inside in the grooves, you’ll find a beautiful, rich album which stands head and shoulders above a lot of the more well-known competition.

What makes this album so beguiling is that, against some of the more big budget releases of the ’70s, Carter made a record that is both intergalactic and out-there, but also completely rural. There’s a rustic, DIY quality to this album that make it occasionally sound like found material, but the effort and care but into each of the songs will have your head spinning. The cooing pedal steel, the commune-esque backing vocals, and modern shuffly rhythm section – it’s as perfect as any record gets.

KACEY MUSGRAVES ‘GOLDEN HOUR’ /’DEEPER WELL’

Despite being famous enough to mix with the big leagues, Kacey Musgraves’ fascination with spirituality and psychedelic drug use has seen her flying under the radar with record collectors. The country radio hits have been programmer friendly, sure, but on her LPs, there’s a lot of cosmic action to be found.

On ‘Golden Hour’, there’s numerous moments where the gentle psychedelia lowers itself like a veil over songs, such as the title track and the hugely popular ‘Slow Burn’. On the recent ‘Deeper Well’ album, she continued the pop version of Cosmic Americana, exemplified in the furiously brilliant ‘Cardinal’. Musgraves was always on the right side of history and can also be found making psychedelic cowboy disco and synthwave country pop, but when she’s at her true best, she’s a mixture of Gram, Emmylou, Bobbie Gentry, Dolly and her own psychedelic twist on taxi-friendly radio country. She’s a keeper alright!

Michael Nesmith and The First National Band

Mike Nesmith’s contributions to modernising country music are often unfairly overlooked. While Gram gets most of the plaudits, Nesmith was pushing country while still in The Monkees with the fabulous ‘Listen To The Band’, ‘You Just May Be The One’ and ‘What Am I Doing Hangin’ ‘Round?’

By the time he spread his wings away from the group, he assembled The First National Band who put out some tremendous modern country LPs, very much in the Cosmic bent. Less experimental perhaps, but there’s a certain counterculture element to some of the songs that means Nez is very much in the conversation. On the 2016 ‘Good Times’ LP, Nesmith and Dolenz sang as The Monkees again, and on ‘Me & Magdalena’ Nesmith showed is Cosmic chops once more on a surprising late entry for one of the Monkees great songs.

GRAM PARSONS SOLO LPS

There’s no point splitting Gram’s two solo albums, because they’re both hugely influential and brilliant. You invariably already know all about them, so there’s little point pontificating about them and besides, we’d be repeating what we said about the ‘Sweetheart Of The Rodeo’ and what we’re about to say about ‘The Guilded Palace of Sin’.

However, it is worth noting that on the two solo records, Parsons was focused enough and behaving somewhat long enough to stay off the drink and harder stuff to show his real potential. He’s in great voice, the songs are magic, and he switches from the good ol’ boy singing sad ballads to rousing honky tonkin’, all cut with his vision of Cosmic Americana that he’d talked about so keenly.

Dillard & Clark

Byrd Gene Clark teamed up with banjo player Doug Dillard to make some of the great Cosmic American LPs of their generation. They were very much two-and-done, but what an impact the LPs made! Released in ’68 and ’69, Clark and Dillard were streets ahead of many of who followed, inventively creating a cross section between psychedelic rock music and country.

Of the duo’s first LP, critic Matthew Greenwald said that the album was “perhaps [Clark’s] most brilliant recording… graceful, spellbinding, and tasteful all at the same time. Absolutely essential.” The second album – not as warmly received – features one of the finest Beatle covers ever recorded.

Beau Brummels ‘Bradley’s Barn’

Leaving behind the garage and psychedelic beat of previous records, The Beau Brummels went on a very American journey with the utterly fabulous ‘Bradley’s Barn’. Taking inspiration from the roots of the US songbook, Sal Valentino and Ron Elliott relocated to Tennessee, joined by a number of Nashville session men, including Jerry Reed. Paired with the previous album ‘Triangle’, ‘Bradley’s Barn’ turned up the country sound and with the remnants of the West Coast scene still in their bones, made for a masterpiece of Cosmic Country rock.

Of course, Dylan had already made ‘John Wesley Harding’ and The Beatles covered Buck Owens by this point, but this LP is a signpost for one of the new directions country music would find itself charging down. The barn in question was owned by Owen Bradley, who developed the new Nashville Sound for Patsy Cline, Brenda Lee, and Loretta Lynn, appealing to urban listeners as well as rural ones. While Bradley didn’t produce this LP, it’s his place that helped along another facet of country. Released the same year as Gram’s International Submarine LP, ‘Bradley’s Barn’ initially flopped, but over the years, it would hold a special place in the heart of record collectors and rebellious country fans.

THE FLYING BURRITO BROTHERS ‘THE GILDED PALACE OF SIN’

Even on the sleeve alone, The Flying Burrito Brothers are still fantastically influential in the world of country, with every Alt Country musician who followed knowing they’d made it when they could afford a personalised Nudie Suit to wear on stage. Of course, after Gram left The Byrds and took Hillman with him and assembled a crack team of likeminded country fans, they were always going to shine a bit too brightly to burn for very long, and with two LPs, the Gram-period Burritos were all but done.

‘The Gilded Palace of Sin’ is still the band’s best work, with a cosmic swagger and some beautiful ballads and rockers nestling up with the likes of the perfect Hot Burrito pair. For any fan of country music of any stripe, there’s a lot to love with this hugely influential LP, which basically made Gram Parsons the stuff of legend before he went solo with his own band.

GENE CLARK ‘NO OTHER’

While Gram Parsons is the spiritual leader and founder of the notion of Cosmic American music, the man responsible for its highest watermark for our money is former Byrd, Gene Clark with the epic, spiritual ‘No Other’ LP. A sprawling, hugely ambitious album, it was warmly received on its release in 1974, but music fans at the time didn’t agree, almost permanently wounding Clark in the process. Of course, in the passing years, it was re-evaluated and is now regarded a cult masterpiece.

Music critic David Bennun said of the LP: “Parsons dreamt of creating a kind of Cosmic American Music, which would seamlessly incorporate the country songs he so adored with the sounds and styles that abounded from sea to shining sea. But Gene Clark actually went and did it. From start to finish, ‘No Other’ consists of godlike pop songs assembled with the lyricism and poignancy of the very best country music, the evergreen freshness of late-Sixties/early-Seventies soul, the untrammelled reach of the masters of beyond-MOR (Spector, Webb, Bacharach/David), the power and exuberance of gospel.”

Clark is a largely forgotten name when it comes to those who spearheaded country rock, and his LP with the Gosdin Brothers is another body of work that deserves its flowers. In fact, there’s a wealth of material from Clark that leaves any right-minded listener mildly angered that he didn’t get his dues when many lesser artists did.

The title track of ‘No Other’ is a majestic piece of American cosmic rock, that throughout, somehow points to the future while touching base with the main pillars of roots music in country, rock ‘n’ roll, gospel and psychedelia. His faltering solo career was always at odds with the fact that other artists would have hits with his songs, but don’t be in any doubt of the transcendent majesty of this album which, of all the Cosmic American LPs, is the most cosmic.

It’s a magical body of work that leaves people in two camps – they’re either rabidly fanatic about ‘No Other’ or they’re about to be.