The Flying Burrito Brothers - Hot Burritos: The True Story of The Flying Burrito Brothers

by John Einarson & Chris Hillman

Widely regarded as the original country-rock band, The Flying Burrito Brothers were determined to pull rock music back from the psychedelic abyss and return it to its pure and simple roots. To say that they succeeded would be an understatement. In a brief four-year span, the original troupe became one of the most influential rock groups of all time, reaching everyone from the Eagles and Jackson Browne to Uncle Tupelo and Alan Jackson. Hot Burritos is the colorful, hard-hitting, insightful, and deeply personal account of this maverick band, as told by founder Chris Hillman and other group members and associates. It shatters common myths about the group, taking readers for the first time inside the Parsons-Hillman partnership, their notoriously extravagant 1969 train trip tour, the doomed Altamont Festival, the Rolling Stones' inner circle, the discovery of Emmylou Harris, Parsons' overindulgence and ultimate dismissal, and the legacy the group, and the enigmatic Parsons, left behind.

Forty years ago, former Byrds Chris Hillman and Gram Parsons released The Gilded Palace Of Sin, the debut album by their new band, The Flying Burrito Brothers. Desperados in sequined Nudie suits fired by a dream to pull rock music back from the psychedelic abyss and return it to its pure and simple country roots, The Flying Burrito Brothers were avatars of a whole new genre that still thrives. Although a connoisseurs choice from the off, that debut and the band's subsequent releases didn't sell too well, but The Flying Burrito Brothers have since transcended cult status to earn universal respect and admiration. Widely regarded as the original country-rock band, you can hear their influence in mainstream mid-70s country-rock (The Eagles, Jackson Browne and Linda Ronstadt) the current crop of Nashville country-pop (Alan Jackson and Brad Paisley), and the whole alt.country/Americana underground. Previously guarded about the group's history, Hillman offers an intimate portrait of his doomed bandmate Gram Parsons, and a colourfully detailed, deeply insightful, hard-hitting and personal account of one of contemporary music's most respected and innovative bands.