Steve Hochman on July 25th, 2018

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On a special night worthy of an influential album, Byrds co-founders Roger McGuinn and Chris Hillman — abetted by Marty Stuart and his band — celebrated the gold anniversary of “Sweetheart of the Rodeo.” They reprise the show tonight.

“One hundred years from this day, will the people still feel this way, still say the things that they’re saying right now?”

So goes “One Hundred Years From Now,” the Gram Parsons song that is arguably the masterpiece of the Byrds’ 1968 “Sweetheart of the Rodeo” album. 

Well, we’re only halfway there, so we don’t really know. And few of us are likely to be around to find out. But as Byrds co-founder Chris Hillman sang the song in a concert at the Theatre at Ace Hotel on Tuesday, kicking off a short tour marking the gold anniversary of the album, people are saying a lot more now about it than they did back then. Upon its release, “Sweetheart” hardly made a mark, spelling the end of the Byrds’ run as a dominant pop radio force. Today it is legend, one of (if not the) epicenter of the slow-rolling tremor that became known as country-rock.

And how fortunate the crowd at the Ace was on this night. The two most prominently saying things were Hillman and his fellow Byrds mainstay Roger McGuinn. They told colorful tales of the genesis and making of that album — the L.A. folk-rock group’s Nashville-made deep dive into roots and branches of country music — as they played the whole thing, joined by Marty Stuart and his Fabulous Superlatives, the superlative choice for the band to team with the pair in this tribute to their now-landmark.

Among the tales told was one of taking their recording of Bob Dylan’s then-unknown “You Ain’t Going Nowhere,” which would be the lead track on “Sweetheart,” to Nashville powerhouse DJ Ralph Emory and asking if he’d play it on the air. After listening to the first 10 seconds or so, Emory rejected the song out of hand. “But it’s Bob Dylan,” McGuinn recalled pleading, to no effect. McGuinn, who became a devout Christian later, noted that when he originally sang the Louvin Brothers’ “The Christian Life” on the album, “I didn’t really know what it meant then.” 

Hillman told of first meeting Parsons in a bank and then bringing him in to initial sessions as he and McGuinn, at that point the only remaining Byrds founders, were sketching out their thoughts on making a country-centric album. McGuinn at first mistakenly thought that Parsons was a piano player (“I was really into McCoy Tyner at that time,” he said), before discovering that the youngster was a visionary country-rock prodigy. “Little did I know that he’d turn into George Jones in a sparkly suit,” McGuinn said. And Hillman told of the group getting to play on the famed WSM radio broadcast Grand Ole Opry, Parsons talking his way into singing his original, wistful “Hickory Wind” (arguably the album’s other true masterpiece) because his grandmother was a regular listener to the show and he wanted her to hear something he’d written.

The album remains at once a primer on, and love letter to, country music — as well as a treasure map of possibilities that has provided source material for ensuing generations.

The most profound stories, though, were in the music itself, which had a much to do with the strengths of the performers as the material. McGuinn remains in prime form with his distinctive voice and signature Rickenbacker 12-string licks. Hillman sang like an angel, his voice clear and heartfelt and more affecting and miraculously sounding more youthful than in his actual youth. 

Stuart and band were inspired choices for the gig — Stuart in the course of the night tasked with taking on roles originally taken by Parsons (who died in 1973, just 26, of a morphine overdose in Joshua Tree), Byrds originals Gene Clark and David Crosby (who were gone from the band by the “Sweetheart” sessions, but were represented in other songs played Tuesday), guitar ace Clarence White (who did “Sweetheart” sessions and then joined the band full-time) and still being, well, Marty Stuart. 

Stuart proved dexterous at White’s own Fender Telecaster “B-bender,” White’s inventive modification with a lever attached to the strap that allows for a string to be bent evoking a pedal steel — a very tricky instrument to master. (White also died in ’73, in Palmdale, struck by a car while loading gear into his car after a gig.) No less key to this were the Superlatives — guitarist Kenny Vaughn, drummer Harry Stinson and, shifting between bass, guitar and the crucial pedal steel, Chris Scruggs — bringing various shades of power and grace as called for, nimble at every turn.

And not to be undervalued was the abundantly evident joy at being there together, celebrating this album and remembering the excitement of making it in the first place. All of them were clearly having a great time, Hillman and McGuinn most of all.

As a whole heard this night (though the song order jumbled a bit), the album remains at once a primer on, and love letter to, country music — as well as a treasure map of possibilities that has provided source material for ensuing generations. With its two Dylan songs, the two songs by Parsons (an energetic catalyst in the making of the album, even if by the time of release his vocals had largely been removed), the vibrant dichotomy of “The Christian Life” and Merle Haggard’s “Life in Prison,” Woody Guthrie’s outlaw paean “Pretty Boy Floyd” and a handful of songs of longing both spiritual and romantic (William Bell’s “You Don’t Miss Your Water”), the album has endured in a legacy running from the Flying Burrito Brothers (Parson and Hillman’s next project), the Eagles (directly inspired by “Sweetheart” and the Burritos) and Emmylou Harris (Parsons’ regular duet partner) through the UncleTupelo/Wilco/Son Volt axis to, well, Jason Isbell, Miranda Lambert, Chris Stapleton and an overstuffed wagon of others who today define the rawer, rootsier side of contemporary country. 

The revelation is that really, “Sweetheart” is really far more country than rock, and more country that much of that which followed, even things that today are labeled as such. And it still stands tall in the company of its contemporaries — Dylan’s “Nashville Skyline” among them — as it did then.

The show also provided context, an opening 45-minute set featuring a lot of other Byrds hits and non-hit faves, including Dylan’s “My Back Pages” and “Mr. Tambourine Man” (the Byrds’ first hit from 1965), Hillman’s “Time Between,”  McGuinn’s “Mr. Spaceman” (“a country song about space,” he said) among the highlights, and an extended encore set that, after a boisterous “So You Want to Be a Rock and Roll Star,” featured a three-song tribute to Tom Petty, perhaps the Byrds’ most enthusiastic acolyte and advocate in later years. 

With a beaming Mike Campbell of Petty’s Heartbreakers coming on as guest guitarist, McGuinn led the ensemble in “American Girl,” which he had recorded on his 1977 album “Thunderbyrd,” before Petty’s start had really started to rise. With Campbell exiting, Hillman followed with Petty’s “Wildflowers,” the tender elegy that he featured on his wonderful “Bidin’ My Time” album last year, produced by Petty and released amid the sadness of Petty’s passing last fall. And then Stuart, admitting to being intimidated by Campbell being in the house, even if no longer on stage, took the front spot for “Runnin’ Down a Dream,” transferring Campbell’s sparking guitar solos to mandolin (!) to great effect. 

And then they closed with Pete Seeger’s Ecclesiastes setting, “Turn, Turn, Turn.” Judging from this night and the enduring wonder it held, it would seem likely that in another 50 years, as that century mark of which Parsons mused is reached, for this music it will still be the season.

||| Live: The players reprise their show tonight at the Theatre at Ace Hotel. Tickets are still available.

||| Stream: The album via Spotify