The “Grievous Angel” will be getting a salute from a lot of grateful angels when an all-star tribute concert honoring the late Gram Parsons takes place at the Troubadour on Nov. 11, three nights before the country-rock pioneer is inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.
One of Parsons’ key collaborators during his lifetime, Emmylou Harris, leads the bill, along with Elvis Costello, who helped make a new generation aware of his work by recording his songs in the early 1980s (and who has often harmonized with Harris himself). Others on the star-filled lineup include the Black Crowes, Margo Price, Grace Potter, Jesse Welles, the Head and the Heart, Madison Cunningham, Jim Lauderdale, Harper Simon and Grahame Lush. Longtime L.A. favorites the Beachwood Sparks will serve as the house band… or as “cosmic accompaniment,” as the show’s poster art has it.
The concert — officially billed as “A Song for Gram: Celebrating Gram Parsons’ Induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame” — is being co-produced by Gram’s daughter, Polly Parsons, Vector Management and Rolling Stone editor-in-chief Shirley Halperin, in conjunction with the Gram Parsons Estate and the Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame.
Tickets go on sale Thursday at 10 a.m. PT via AXS. The show will benefit the Friendly House Foundation and Backline, Los Angeles-area organizations supporting addiction and mental health concerns.
Demand will undoubtedly quickly outstrip supply for the show, which Polly Parsons tells Variety will be a “you had to be there” affair. Although some past tributes to her father have taken place in larger venues, Polly says that “it was really important for all of us that we do it somewhere legendary that resonated in the storyline of Gram, and Gram played the Troubadour quite a bit. My hope is that we will be doing more shows in the future. If we get that kind of support, that’s the direction we’ll go, larger venues — maybe an anniversary show at the Santa Barbara Bowl again in a couple years.”
Polly is alluding to the last significant Gram Parsons tribute she spearheaded, which was 22 years ago — a two-night affair at the Universal Amphitheatre and Santa Barbara Bowl dubbed “Return to Sin City” that featured artists including Keith Richards, Lucinda Williams, Steve Earle and Norah Jones. That run of 2004 tribute shows was immortalized on DVD.
“The concert that we were able to do 20 years ago was really a special moment, and I think that we’re coming into another really important moment with Dad’s induction and his 80th birthday, so I thought it would be really nice to get some good folks together and just kind of mark that moment,” Polly says. Her father’s 80th birthday is Nov. 5, less than a week prior to the Troubadour show.
“For me personally,” she says, “it’s beautiful to have the opportunity to celebrate my father’s music with Emmylou Harris in attendance. She wasn’t able to make the first one [in 2004]. This is such an incredible time to honor the music that they created together and to be able to share that in person. And Elvis Costello has been a champion of Gram Parsons, as Chris Robinson and the Black Crowes have been for so many years, and I’m excited for them to have this opportunity to do this in a different setting. I’m also really excited at how many young musicians were so incredibly excited to jump on board with this project. It’s definitely a torch that gets passed from generation to generation, and the fan base is just as passionate as they’ve ever been. Gram is kind of a North Star for this genre of music, and it means a lot, not only that it survived decades of changing times, but remains beloved by people that enjoy authentic music and Americana.”
Polly Parsons has two big jobs to which she devotes her life: first, “I focus my efforts on working with men and women in recovery, walking them through the process of getting to the other side of addiction.” And then, naturally, “nurturing my father’s music and legacy for his grandchild and for the people that love what his vision was and what he stood for.”
The Rock Hall induction already marks a significant and long-sought milestone. “He has a really solid team around him now that I’ve been able to put together in the last three years, and they’re all visionaries and all extremely passionate, and we just really look forward to what’s coming. There’s some good stuff on the way. I’ve been able to put together a really meaningful publishing move that I think will revitalize his music and his catalog, along with the campaign that we put together for getting him finally inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. People have tried, but it wasn’t until this last couple years of focus that I realized that if we were ever gonna get him nominated, this was the time to really lean into that. His musical family really supported me in that mission, and the team of people that are around me now, we were able to make that happen. So it’s just a lot of passion and hard work and dedication, and running a healthy, vibrant, legacy musical estate for Gram Parsons is really much more about what you say no to than it is what you say yes to.”