Various Artists: Return of the Grievous Angel: A Tribute to Gram Parsons

How's this for a surprise Return Of The Grievous Angel is a tribute album that not only holds together as a whole, but does justice to its subject. Of course, it helps when the subject is someone like Gram Parsons, who, though he recorded only six proper albums—both alone and with the Byrds, the International Submarine Band, and the Flying Burrito Brothers—created a body of work that exerts an influence arguably more powerful today than at his death in 1973 at 26. Rock has its share of martyrs, but few who more or less created a genre unto itself; country-rock, alt-country, or whatever you want to call it would undoubtedly have been invented without him, but it wouldn't have been the same. At its best, Parsons' music transcended even those nebulous terms—he preferred the even more nebulous, if more descriptive, "cosmic American music"—so it's fitting that this album would attract not only direct descendents like Wilco, Whiskeytown, and The Mavericks, but also such less classifiable talents as Beck and Elvis Costello. The artists assembled help make Return Of The Grievous Angel more worthwhile than the average tribute album (Almo Sounds did more than put together a cloaked label sampler), as does the presence of Parsons' latter-day partner Emmylou Harris, both as an executive producer and a contributor on several tracks. Of course, a screeching monkey singing "$1,000 Wedding" and "Return Of The Grievous Angel" would probably still sound transcendent. That they're sung in superb performances by, respectively, the underrated Evan Dando (dueting with Juliana Hatfield) and Lucinda Williams (dueting with David Crosby) makes them superb. Also worth noting on an album without any weak tracks are Gillian Welch's take on Parsons' signature number, "Hickory Wind," and Cowboy Junkies' eerie version of "Ooh Las Vegas." Anyone without Parsons' original versions should start there, but those wanting more—and it's hard not to want more—will find Return Of The Grievous Angel a fitting appendix to a brilliant career.