Remember This I thought it was a shame that it never really took off. So here's an attempt to revive the idea.

A quick attempt at a top 25 country rock albums:

1. Gram Parsons - GP/Greivous Angel
2. Flying Burrito Brothers - Gilded Palace of Sin/Burrito Deluxe
3. Byrds - Sweetheart of the Rodeo
4. Neil Young - Harvest
5. Bob Dylan - Nashville Skyline
6. The Everley Brothers - Roots
7. The Dependables - Klatu Berrada Niktu
8. Dillard & Clark - The Fantastic Expedition of Dillard & Clark/Through the Morning Through the Night
9. The Band - S/T
10. The Band - Music from the Big Pink
11. Jesse Ed Davis - Jesse Davis/Ululu
12. Twin Engine - S/T
13. Horses - S/T
14. Gene Clark - Roadmaster
15. Hearts & Flowers - The Complete Hearts & Flowers
16. John Phillips - Wolfking of Los Angeles
17. Leon Russell - Hank Wilson's Back
18. Dale Hawkins - LA, Memphis & Tyler, Texas
19. Elton John - Tumbleweed Connection
20. Bobby Charles - S/T
21. John Prine - Sweet Revenge
22. Lee Hazlewood - Cowboy in Sweden
23. Neil Young - After the Goldrush
24. Crazy Horse- S/T
25. International Submarine Band - Safe at Home

I cheated and included twofers when available. I wasn't listening to this stuff when it was orginally released so these twofers where how i've been exposed. Some other qualifications:

I considered including Townes Van Zandt but I don't really consider him country rock. He seems more folk or straight country to me. If I had decided to include him, it would have been hard not to include a bunch and that would have made the list less interesting.

I also somewhat arbitrarily decided Tony Joe White, Link Wray, Lowell George, Little Feat, Bob Frank, Moby Grape, Rodney Crowell and David Ackles probably aren't country rock or some of them might have made the list. I couldn't decide if Donnie Fritts, Dan Penn and Eddie Hinton were really country rock so I left them off too.

There should maybe be a Doug Sahm and a Steve Young on here but I've only heard their compilations which I didn't think was fair to include.

And no I didn't forget Steve Earle. I like him just not enough to put him in the top 25. I'd be interested in any competing lists or comments.

i'm no expert on the genre, but aren't the first three just country?

Gram, the Burritos, and the Byrds? I'd say def. country rock.

It's funny, because everything about my musical tastes points to me liking this genre, but when I look at the artists/albums listed, I realize I just don't, really.

Man. Pretty tough genre to tackle. A lot of grey area IMO. I haven't heard but about half of those albums but there isn't much from the last 30 years on there. Are you differentiating between Country Rock and Alt-Country? Southern Rock?

Just curious. For me, The Basement Tapes would be on there because it fuse rock with lots of country elements but I also wouldn't necessarily call a "country rock" record.

Where would CCR fall or something like the Cowboy Junkies "Trinity Sessions"?

I'd have "Workingman's Dead" on mine as well but again, kind of a grey area.

As for newer efforts I'd probably put on some Whiskeytown, Neko Case, Bonnie "Prince" Billy, Son Volt, or maybe some Richard Buckner.

Also, the self titled Byrds album would be on there for me.

I've never heard that Everly Brothers. Is it the shit or what?

never heard any of these, but I like the genre quite a bit

I've got two of Don's solo albums, both are aces.

This is reminding me that I still don't have any Lee Hazlewood.

Very true



I do differentiate between country rock and alt country but even if I didn't I'm not sure what from the last 30 years would make the cut. Maybe a son volt/farrar/uncle tupelo? I'm not sure what I'd bump though...the list wasn't in any order.

And yeah, I didn't consider Southern Rock at all. I'm not sure what southern rock is outside of Skynyrd, Allman Brothers and a bunch of bands that only TEH MACHINE likes. None of those really seem that similar to what I think of as country rock.



Yeah I struggled with that one too. I don't really think its country rock. Yet, I somehow considered those Band albums country rock. Pretty arbitrary, I know. I think I may have been a bit quick to disclude things because I didn't want the list to be just gram, byrds, TVZ, band, dylan and little else new to anyone.

Yeah its a great one. I bought a twofer of their two albums recorded right after Roots which would also qualify. I don't know them well enough to include and Roots is the best of the three anyway.

cool. i only have #3, but i have heard #2, 4, and 5. the rest is new to me. but i'd like to dig into it.

Poco.

Hard to fathom these days, but Poco's 1969 debut Pickin' Up The Pieces was considered a seminal country rock album. I never cared for it much, personally - and it sure hasn't dated well - but it could be on an essentials list.

Other potentials that aren't on BG's list:

Hank Williams Jr. Hank Williams Jr. and Friends - yeah, he's a dumbass redneck dickwad shilling shitty beer, but this album from the mid 70s is his only claim to credibility. Outlaw country, with a hard rock sheen - Hank Jr.'s never even tried to equal this. No surprise, the album's been deleted since forever.

Brinsley Schwarz Despite It All - Forget all the other Brinsley albums, this was the one that they got right. All that time in the trenches of pub rock gave them the grounding to pull off some blatant Band worship, coupled with Nick Lowe's very English sensibility.





Elephant In The Room award goes to... the Eagles.

surprised I own more than 5 of those...

That reminds me that I easily could have included Ernie Graham's self-titled album on which he was backed by Brinsley Schwarz.

some other honorable mentions:

Michael Nesmith - I surprised myself by not including him. I initially passed because I couldn't decide which of his albums to include and then found myself with 25 and realized I didn't like any of his albums quite enough to bump something off the list.

The Rockets - basically danny whitten and the other guys from Crazy Horse before they became Crazy Horse.

Gene Clark - Echoes. I could have probably just flipped a coin between this and Roadmaster. I went with Roadmaster mostly because it has the more country feel of the two.

Eggs over Easy - another country style pub rock band who I like more than Brinsley Schwarz

McGuiness Flint - another pub rock group heavily influenced by the Band started by Tom McGuinness of the Manfred Mann Group. I wouldn't be surprised if they would make my list a year from now but I'm still getting to know them.

Amazing Rhythm Aces - Another one I'm still digesting. I was scared off of them for awhile by Eagles comparisons. I can hear a little while they get that comparison but I like them a lot more. Their albums don't have that cheesy, 70's cocaine production in addition to them not having been horribly overplayed. They did the original version of Third Rate Romance which was later covered by the Fabulous Poodles.

I'd be interested in what Tentoze, Dumpjack and Harry would have included that I might have forgotten.

Yeah, I hated that "3rd Rate Romance" song, but back in the 80s a female friend gave me a quest to find the Amazing Rhythm Aces album "Too Stuffed To Jump", which had long been deleted.* She promised me it was a huge amount better than that single they were known for. I still haven't found the album.


* on a side note, around the same time I started looking for Billy Swan's self-titled 3rd album. He's known only for the single "I Can Help", but apparently that third reckid is one of the lost 70s gems. Still looking for it too.

Great list Beeg. Some of my favorite albums ever. The only one I'm not familiar with is the Dependables. I need to be on the lookout.

great list.

my clarification issue revolves around the whole 70s texas scene. the outlaw pt. 2 or whatever. with ely, townes, earle, guy clark, steve young all that shit.

I think you'd like them. They were:

Ralph Scala of the Blues Magoos/Twin Engine on Organ/Piano/Vocals
Joey Stec of the Millenium/Twin Engine on Guitar
John Nuise of the International Submarine Band on Guitar
Ron Gilbert of the Blues Magoos on Bass & Backup vocals
Randy Naylor of the Poor/Twin Engine on Piano
Claudia Lennear (a former Ikette) on backup vocals

with the band rounded out on drums, steel guitar and horns by session players.

They have the same feel as Twin Engine and the Band but with a healthier dose of southern soul mixed in.

Yeah its hard to pin down exactly what country rock is. Most of those would be more country to me with the exception of earle who I just don't like as much as the ones I included. If I'd considered all those country rock, I'd have had to include some Guy Clark and TVZ but probably not the others. Its a fairly lazy and arbitrary distinction on my part but it would have been hard to consider TVZ country rock and Guy Clark not country rock. And if I considered Guy Clark country rock then I'd have had to think about whether Kris Kristofferson and Rodney Crowell and others like them fit the broader definition. The list could have ended up looking a lot more country and a lot less rock then which wasn't really my intention.

Definitely Eggs Over Easy for me. Tony Joe White Homemade Ice Cream would probably an addition on to my list, along with Don Everly's Sunset Towers. And no Harvest on my list.

But hell yeah, for someone not familiar with the genre this list would be the place to start. Good work, bg.

I was actually thinking the other day that I wanted to start looking for some music from him. I was vaguely aware that he did other stuff besides ISB, but I didn't really know what.

I've never heard sunset towers. I considered TJW swamp rock rather than country rock, partly to avoid the hard decision of how many and which TJW albums to include. Homemade Ice Cream wouldn't have been my pick though. And I know we disagree on this, but Harvest is my favorite NY album.

I don't know as much about the fringes of this genre as billy or rads for sure, but i agree with all the ones on the list that I've heard... all the heavy hitters.

I've been meaning to check out some Nesmith records but i'm not sure where to start.

I'm pretty sure that Willis Alan Ramsey's s/t from 1972 would make my list, but it's pretty far in the gray area, but i think it's really solid. I don't think it's country influenced by rock as opposed to rock informed by country. Alot of these albums on the list that I know, it's definitely rock and rollers playing some country shee.

Another one that is maybe less gray is Dwight Yoakam's Guitars, Cadillacs, etc. , etcl...

But I don't know, i just really like both of those albums, and don't have enough in my collection to make a list of 25. Maybe 15. And only if i started including in some of that gray area.