"And they got up to sing a few old country songs..."

RIP "Sneaky" Pete Kleinow.

The Flying Burrito Brothers' Gilded Palace Of Sin and Burrito Deluxe may not quite be my two favourite albums of all-time, but they'd certainly both make it into the, ooh, I dunno - top seven, top eight?
You certainly can't buy a better "two-fer", both classic country-rock LPs (in a good way, honest, not an Eaglesque atrocity - actually, make that the Gram-approved "cosmic American music"...)
Ah, actually, maybe you can - Gram Parsons' own GP and Grievous Angel, put together without the Burritos but with his astonishing new protege, Emmylou Harris, probably the finest accompanying vocalist around and heartbreaking on such ballads as "Love Hurts" and "We'll Sweep Out The Ashes In The Morning". Last year's reissue, with alternative, discarded session tracks, throws up a fair few gems - including a long-lost, third Gram take on his personal anthem, "Hickory Wind", perfectly balanced between the chugalug of the Byrds original and the Gram/Emmylou, officially-released, slightly-too-slow fake-"live" re-recording...

But anyway, anyway... there was one "one-fer" that not only got me to those, but perhaps directly and indirectly introduced me to more intriguing, enjoyable highways and byways of music than any other.

And a place I suppose I should thank, in starting me off on this life-changing musical journey.
Yes, Dudley.

I'm sure the Merry Hill Shopping Centre in Wolverhampton's less glamorous little brother borough has been the host of oh-so-many minor and major epiphanies, it's untrue...

But while we're waiting for those, here's an actual one: it was in Our Price there that one day I finally took the plunge and, after years of teenage guilt and longing and lusting after that dirty secret that is country music, I tugged a copy of the Byrds' Sweetheart Of The Rodeo to my chest, darted for the check-out and hurled the £8.99 across the counter without making any guilty eye contact at all with the cashier.

Actually, I'd weighed this up well. I'd heard the briefest echoes of pedal-steel guitars while enduring lifts home from school from my John-Dunn-adoring, Radio-2-tuning mother. And even once borrowed a Patsy Cline album from the local library, stowing it secretly under my school jumper through that vulnerable five-minute walk home...

But then again, I did have the Byrds' (latest) Greatest Hits album on tape, b/w another library-copy - Star by Belly. And that jingle-jangle... well, it was sort-of like the Pete Seeger songs my Dad would play in church every so hip-pily often, but not at all.

So I finally bought Sweetheart, and nudged it alongside the Sixties albums I'd been hoarding since the age of, er, seven (mostly the holy trinity of Beatles, Kinks and, er, Donovan). But if ever an album could (ahem) change my life, then Sweetheart... was it.

Because within, ooh, a week I'd bought that GP/Grievous Angel double-set and, greedily, the equally-convenient Gilded Palace Of Sin/Burrito Deluxe Burrito Brothers, er, deluxe set.

And then started to both read and listen up... and find, gradually, both the confidence and knowledge to branch into modern-day Americana, classic Sixties country soul, pure old-fashioned country, pure old-fashioned rockabilly, heart-tugging ballads, nigh-on-impenetrable 18th century American folk songs, rock'n'gospel...

And no, these weren't mostly Gram-led, he was brilliantly-limited, but the lesser-hailed McGuinn blazed a fair few trails even as he shed inspirational and members and cushioned lovely Byrds singles between early-Seventies album filler...

But just as The Kinks Are The Village Green Society lives long as a great, great counter-culture 1968 album, so does Sweetheart....

A recent reissue appended a radio ad, which either made light of or ignored the peak chart position of about 63... but the relevance remains. And adds to the experimentation already heard on Younger Than Yesterday (and Hillman's first country-shuffling tracks), or Mr Tambourine Man (and the harsher-edged jangles on the bonus track alternate versions) or the pastoral laments of "John Riley" or "Purple Heather" up against LSD-astronaut-noodlings...

And I haven't even mentioned Gene Clark's solo beauties either - here's perhaps the finest pop song... (the dancing's not so bad either)

So, country music/country&western/alt-country/Americana/'No Depression'/bluegrass/rockabilly/country-soul/cosmic-American-music - whatever you might want to call it, there's plenty there to be getting on with, redeeming, and relishing. Sure, a good deal of shlock, too...

But thank you, Byrds and Burritos, for giving me - ooh, off the top of the head - Johnny Cash, Uncle Tupelo, Hank Williams, Emmylou, Loretta, Tammy, Bobbie and Dolly, The Jayhawks, Neko Case, Lucinda Williams, George Jones, Laura Cantrell, Merle Haggard, Wilco, Kasey Chambers, Jimmie Rodgers, Iris DeMent, Vern Gosdin, Steve and Stacey Earle, Jim White, Ryan Adams... Ooh, even a bit of Shania every now and then (even if she does have a weakness for a few too many exclamation marks.)


Oh, and of course, the divine Lurleen - the girl who was "going to be a country music superstar, like - er, that jerk in the cowboy hat - and that dead lady!"