![]() ![]() That was nothing compared to the chilliness Parsons and McGuinn received when they went on Emery’s clear-channel WSM-AM radio show to premiere their single, a song Bob Dylan had given them from his so-called basement tapes, “You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere.” Or so they thought they would. But there was reportedly some rancor with Opry managers after Parsons surprised them by nixing what was supposed to be their second and final number, a cover of Merle Haggard’s “Sing Me Back Home,” in favor of his own “Hickory Wind” - shades of Elvis Costello changing tunes on “Saturday Night Live” midstream a decade later. ![]() Signs seemed to be positive when CBS Records convinced the Opry to book the Byrds for its live national broadcast. But would Nashville see it the way they did? It was the fulfillment of a dream particularly for Parsons, who’d grown up steeped in country. ![]() With “Sweetheart of the Rodeo,” the Byrds were convinced they’d succeeded in recording a country album - something that was close to unheard of for a counterculture group in ’68, and which certainly represented a risky turn from “Turn, Turn, Turn” and the other jangly folk-rock smashes the band was coming off of in ’68. Former Byrds McGuinn and Chris Hillman made a point of telling it every night in 2018 when they reunited for a tour celebrating the 50th anniversary of the group’s landmark “Sweetheart of the Rodeo” album, which was what occasioned their uneasy encounters with the Nashville establishment a half-century earlier. The story of how the Byrds tried and failed to win over both the Grand Ole Opry and the influential Emery in 1968 has been oft-told. ![]()
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