International Submarine Band 1965/1969 Country Rock Band

International Submarine Band

Fra  i prii gruppi di country rock formato a Boston nel 1965 da Gram Parsons (n. 1946 - m. 1973 USA) e Ian Dunlop con John Nuese e Micey Gauvin. Il gruppo si trasferisce subito a New York pubblicando due singoli nel 1966: The Russians Are Coming (Ascot) e Sum Up Broke (Columbia), entrambi "piratati" negli anni '70. Si trasferiscono poi a Los Angeles, dove entrano in contatto con numerosi gruppi psichedelici; lì Dunlop lascia per unirsi a Barry Tashian e Billy Briggs dei Remains. Parsons e Nuese, con Ethridge e Corneal registrano  SAFE AT HOME (LHI 1968 USA), per la LHI di Lee Hazelwood. Lo stile country rock del gruppo cade nel momento sbagliato, troppi anni prima che la moda e l'industria discografica ne facciano un genere di successo. Dopo lo scioglimento, Parsons suonerà nei Byrds di SWEETHEART OF THE RODEO; poi con Ethridge e Corneal, formerà i famosi Flying Burrito Brothers, che realieranno le sue ambizioni musiali facendone un personaggio mitico dopo la misteriosa morte, nel 1973.

The International Submarine Band (ISB) was formed by country rock pioneer Gram Parsons while a theology student at Harvard University and John Nuese, a guitar player for local rock group, The Trolls. Nuese is largely credited with having persuaded Parsons to pursue the country-rock sound he would later be remembered for when the two first started the ISB. Parsons' work with the band predates his better known ventures with The Byrds, the Flying Burrito Brothers, and the Fallen Angels with Emmylou Harris.

The Like: 1965

In 1965, Parsons enrolled at Harvard University to study theology. Never a serious student, Parsons immediately set about establishing himself as a presence on the local folk music scene. Parsons' first band, which he named The Like, featured only Parsons and students from the Berklee College of Music. Given that Parsons was interested in pursuing a career as a folksinger at this time, his bandmates' jazz training proved incompatible with Parsons's musical aspirations. The group disbanded late in 1965, when Parsons met John Nuese, a guitarist with another local group called the Trolls, who convinced the singer to pursue an explicit country rock sound.


ISB version 1: 1965-1966

According to Nuese: "I was the only one with experience playing and listening to a lot of country music. Gram, who had been exposed to country music during his formative years, was doing commercial folk music. It was my influence that turned him onto country music." Sufficiently impressed with what he heard, and more interested in "chasing tail and dropping LSD" than completing his degree, Parsons dropped out of Harvard before his first semester was over. Immediately, Parsons and Nuese formed "The International Submarine Band", named after an old Our Gang comedy routine in which kids auditioned for a radio program as "The International Silver String Submarine Band." Featuring Parsons on guitar and vocals, Ian Dunlop on bass and Mickey Gauvin on drums, the ISB failed to make a lasting impression on either the Top 40 Pop or Country charts with any of their recordings, though they are largely considered to be one of the most influential pioneer country rock groups.^{[citation needed]}
In early 1966, the ISB moved to New York City, where they lived in a house purchased through Parsons' large trust-fund. While in New York, the ISB recorded two singles for Goldstar Records, and an album which went unreleased and was eventually lost. The group's first release, a single in April 1966 called "The Russians Are Coming, The Russians Are Coming", was a largely forgettable cover of Johnny Mandel's tune of the same name, composed for the eponymous Norman Jewison film. On the B-side was the group's cover of Buck Owens' "Truck Driving Man". Later that same year, Goldstar released another single, featuring "Sum Up Broke" — a collaborative effort between Parsons (lyrics) and Nuese (music) — on the A-side, and Parsons' "One Day Week" on the flip side.
Undaunted by his failure to achieve overnight commercial success with the ISB, Parsons began to consider moving the group to Los Angeles, spurred on by child actor Brandon deWilde's promise that he could get the group appearances in films. In November, Parsons headed out to Los Angeles' Laurel Canyon district on a scouting trip; while there, he stole Nancy Ross away from David Crosby, and began a torrid love affair with the aspiring film star. After Ross promised to find Parsons and the ISB official representation in Los Angeles, Parsons convinced the group to move there later in the year. As was his custom, Parsons used his trust-fund money to purchase a house for his band, while he stayed in a rented apartment with Ross. Introduced by DeWilde to Peter Fonda, Parsons convinced Fonda to advocate a cameo for the ISB on Roger Corman's psychedelic film, The Trip, in which Fonda was starring at the time. The ISB recorded "Lazy Days" for the film, but the song was eventually rejected; it was replaced with music by The Electric Flag, though the ISB still appeared on screen.
Frustrated by his inability to find commercial success with the ISB, Parsons soon took to playing honky-tonks in the Los Angeles area with his friend, Bob Buchanan (co-author of "Hickory Wind"), and eventually decided to focus exclusively on country music. Almost immediately after Parsons informed them of his new country focus, Ian Dunlop and Mickey Gauvin left the ISB, forming a group called The Flying Burrito Brothers (not to be confused with the later country rock band of the same name, featuring Parsons and Chris Hillman among others). The split was amicable: Parsons played the group's first gig.


ISB version 2: 1967-1968

Only days before the ISB officially split, Suzi Jane Hokom, a would-be record producer from the area, observed a rehearsal. Impressed, Hokom convinced her boyfriend, Lee Hazlewood, owner of LHI Records, to sign the post-breakup Parsons and Nuese to an exclusive contract as the ISB. Immediately, Parsons and Nuese began their search for musicians to complete the band. Jon Corneal, a drummer from an earlier Parsons band, answered the call, though he was making a good living playing as a session musician in Nashville. Three session musicians were hired to augment the threesome: Joe Osborn on bass, Earl Ball on piano and Jay Dee Maness on pedal steel.
The newly re-formed International Submarine Band recorded their first single in July 1967, under the watchful gaze of producer Hokom: two Parsons compositions, "Luxury Liner" and "Blue Eyes". Four months later, in November 1967, the same group, plus newcomer Chris Ethridge on bass, entered the studio to record what would become the band's only full-length release, Safe at Home. Two more Parsons originals made the album: "Do You Know How It Feels To Be Lonesome" and "Strong Boy".


Parsons becomes a Byrd: the ISB's demise, 1968

Though Safe at Home was finished by December 1967, the ISB's debut LP went unreleased for several months. Parsons left the group in February 1968, to join The Byrds to record their Sweetheart of the Rodeo album. Lee Hazlewood was unhappy with Parsons' decision and retained ownership of the name "International Submarine Band". Hazlewood attempted to prevent Parsons' vocal tracks from appearing on the Sweetheart of the Rodeo album. While these legal issues were addressed by the time of the album's release, Parsons vocals were removed from several songs and replaced by vocals by Roger McGuinn; ultimately Parsons' lead vocals graced three songs on the album: "You're Still on My Mind", "Life in Prison" and "Hickory Wind". The ISB's only full-length release, Safe at Home was not released by LHI until the spring of 1968, by which time the group had officially ceased to exist. Nonetheless, Safe at Home is now regarded as a groundbreaking album of the country rock genre.^{[citation needed]} In 1979 the album was repackaged, redesigned and re-released under the title "Gram Parsons" by Shiloh Records of San Clemente, CA.


Discography

Albums

• Safe At Home - 1968 - LHI Records
• The Devil And The Deep Blue Sea - sine anno - Ze Anonym Plattenspieler
• Back At Home - 2000 - TKO Magnum Music

Compilation album

• Back At Home - 2011 - Yellow Label

Singles

• Sum Up Broke - 1966 - Columbia Records
• The Russians Are Coming! The Russians Are Coming! - 1966 - Ascot Records
• Luxury Liner - 1968 - LHI Records
• I Must Be Somebody Else You've Known - 1968 - LHI Records

EP

• Blue Eyes / Luxury Liner / Miller's Cave / I Must Be Somebody Else You've Known - 2008 - Sundazed Music

Safe at Home (1968) è l'unico album pubblicato dalla International Submarine Band, gruppo capeggiato dal ventunenne Gram Parsons. Contiene quattro brani originali di Parsons più sei cover di brani classici della musica country e del rock and roll. Questo disco ha contribuito alla nascita del genere country-rock sviluppatosi a cavallo tra gli anni sessanta e settanta.  

Safe at Home is a 1968 album by country rock group The International Submarine Band, led by the then-unknown 21-year-old Gram Parsons. The group's only album release, Safe at Home featured four of Parsons' original compositions rounded out by six covers of classic country and rock and roll songs made famous by the likes of Johnny Cash, Elvis Presley, Merle Haggard, and Hank Snow^. Described as "hippie and hillbilly in equal measure", the album helped to forge the burgeoning country rock movement of the late 1960s and early 1970s.

Overview

Recording of Safe at Home began in July 1967 for Lee Hazlewood's LHI Records, with the group's official lineup consisting solely of Parsons and lead guitarist John Nuese. Rounding out the duo were session drummer Jon Corneal, bassist Joe Osborn, pedal steel guitarist Jay Dee Maness and pianist Earl "Les" Ball, with Hazlewood's girlfriend Suzi Jane Hokom producing. Corneal, a childhood friend of Parsons, soon joined the band as a full member. Recorded during these initial sessions were the Parsons originals "Blue Eyes" and "Luxury Liner", soon issued on a 45 single. The group gigged with the additions of guitarist Bob Buchanan and bassist Chris Ethridge over the next few months. Ethridge and Parsons would play together often in the coming years, with both the Flying Burrito Brothers and the Fallen Angels.
Four months later, with the group's line-up consisting of Parsons, Nuese, Corneal and Buchanan (augmented by Ball, Maness and Ethridge) the group again entered the studio and recorded two new originals, "Strong Boy" and "Do You Know How It Feels To Be Lonesome" along with seven covers, six of which ended up on the original album. By early December, the album was finished and given a target release date of late January or early February 1968, in order to avoid the Christmas rush.
Prior to its release, Parsons left the band after accepting an offer to join The Byrds, and Safe at Home lay dormant for months. According to Corneal, Parsons became so caught up in his new role in The Byrds that he barely acknowledged Safe at Home as its release approached. "I don't think he wanted to look back, but just keep going in the direction he wanted to go", said Corneal. Rock journalist John Einarson surmised decades later that Parsons abandoned his band and his friends without a second thought once the opportunity to join The Byrds was presented to him.
After months of legal wrangling, with the group unable to find a suitable replacement for Parsons, the album was finally released. Though Hazelwood saw no point in devoting a promotional budget to a band which essentially no longer existed and were unavailable to promote the album, Safe at Home nonetheless received rave reviews from the likes of Glen Campbell, Merle Haggard, and Don Everly. "The album got buried", according to producer Hokom, who noted that Hazelwood was a musician first and foremost and not a businessman, and he may have erred in failing to market the release.
As part of the legal settlement resulting from Parsons' abrupt departure from The International Submarine Band, The Byrds' 1968 album Sweetheart of the Rodeo had much of Parsons' lead vocals removed and re-recorded by Roger McGuinn. This would be one of Parsons' chief gripes about his tenure in the group, and by the time Sweetheart of the Rodeo was released in August, 1968, Parsons had already moved on to form The Flying Burrito Brothers.
While compiling material for a 2001 Parsons anthology, the lost track "Knee Deep in the Blues" (originally a single by Marty Robbins in 1957) from the Safe at Home sessions was re-discovered and issued on that anthology, as well as on the 2004 compact disc re-release of Safe at Home (the original mid-1980s CD pressing having been on the tiny Shiloh Records).

Reception and legacy

Reviews of Safe at Home have been mixed but generally positive. Upon its 1968 release, renowned music journalist Robert Christgau seemed pleasantly surprised by the notion of "four smiling longhairs" playing skillful country music, referring to the album as "a good record and a brilliant conception." Parsons' future Byrds and Flying Burrito Brothers' bandmate Chris Hillman referred to the album as "sort of fluff now. It's light weight. Gram had not quite developed into the soulful guy he was going to be." Hit Parader magazine gave the album high marks for daring to tackle country music, an area that most contemporary American groups wouldn't touch in the liberal heyday of the late 1960s.
Writer Pete Johnson of the Los Angeles Times described the album as authentic, noting a "vitality not always found in traditional country performers". Rock journalist John Einarson wrote in his 2008 book Hot Burritos: The True Story of The Flying Burrito Brothers that the album is "hardly the cutting-edge country-rock classic it is often claimed to be, nor is it groundbreaking", though he also noted a sincerity to the band's approach which preserves the spirit of the country & western genre.
"Blue Eyes", the album's opening track, was covered in 1993 by American alternative country pioneers Uncle Tupelo. It saw release on the Conmemorativo: A Tribute to Gram Parsons compilation album. Parsons himself re-recorded "Do You Know How It Feels to Be Lonesome" (with the title shortened to "Do You Know How It Feels") with The Flying Burrito Brothers on the 1969 album The Gilded Palace of Sin.

Track listing

1. "Blue Eyes" (Gram Parsons) – 2:50
2. "I Must Be Somebody Else You've Known" (Merle Haggard) – 2:18
3. "A Satisfied Mind" (Joe Hayes, Jack Rhodes) – 2:31
4. "Medley: Folsom Prison Blues/That's All Right, Mama" (Johnny Cash, Arthur Crudup) – 4:25
5. "Miller's Cave" (Jack Clement) – 2:49
6. "I Still Miss Someone" (Johnny Cash, Roy Cash Jr.) – 2:47
7. "Luxury Liner" (Gram Parsons) – 2:55
8. "Strong Boy" (Gram Parsons) – 2:04
9. "Do You Know How It Feels to Be Lonesome" (Gram Parsons, Barry Goldberg) – 3:36
10. "Knee Deep in the Blues" [*] (Melvin Endsley) – 1:55

• * bonus track on 2004 Sundazed CD & LP re-release

Personnel

• Gram Parsons – lead vocal, rhythm guitar
• Bob Buchanan – rhythm guitar, harmony vocal
• Jon Corneal – drums, harmony vocal
• John Nuese – lead guitar
• Earl "Les" Ball – piano
• Chris Ethridge – bass guitar
• Suzi Jane Hokom – producer, harmony vocal on "Do You Know How It Feels to Be Lonesome"
• Jay Dee Maness – pedal steel guitar
• Joe Osborn – bass guitar on "Blue Eyes" and "Luxury Liner"

The International Submarine Band - Safe At Home (1968) (includes ...

▶ 32:23

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-dkxeTxvHCI

17 feb 2016 - Caricato da Grievous Angel

1. Blue Eyes (0:00) 2. I Must Be Somebody Else You've Known (2:43) 3. A Satisfied Mind (5:08) 4. Medley ...