70s Country Rock: The Genre Nobody Wanted to Name

70s country rock has a strange origin story for a genre this influential.

The man usually credited with inventing it hated the name.

The band that built its blueprint barely sold any records.

One of its own guitarists quietly walked away and built a different, much bigger band instead.

And its most famous originator never lived to see any of it pay off.

This is the real chain of events, not the tidy version.

The Flying Burrito Brothers, including Bernie Leadon and Chris Hillman, at an Amsterdam press conference in 1970

The Flying Burrito Brothers, Amsterdam, November 1970. Image credit: Photo by Rob Croes / Anefo, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons.

Where 70s Country Rock Actually Started

The real roots go back a year earlier than most people assume.

In 1968, Gram Parsons briefly joined The Byrds alongside bassist Chris Hillman.

Together they steered that band toward its own country turn on the album Sweetheart of the Rodeo.

That album became the rehearsal for what came next.

The genre's real blueprint arrived in 1969, just before the decade it would define.

Parsons and Hillman left The Byrds and formed the Flying Burrito Brothers.

Their debut album was The Gilded Palace of Sin.

Gram Parsons and Chris Hillman built it around a deliberate fusion.

Country twang, soul phrasing, gospel harmony, and rock instrumentation, all in the same songs.

Parsons had his own name for that fusion.

He called it Cosmic American Music.

He specifically disliked the label country rock, even as critics and fans kept using it.

The album itself sold poorly on release.

Its influence turned out to matter far more than its sales figures ever did.

Nearly every major act that followed in 70s country rock owes something to that one record.

The Guitarist Who Turned It Into a Blockbuster

Guitarist Bernie Leadon joined the Flying Burrito Brothers not long after that debut.

He played on their sound for a couple of years, absorbing its full mix of country and rock textures.

In 1971, frustrated with the band's limited commercial success, Leadon left.

He went on to co-found a new band instead.

That band was the Eagles.

Leadon carried the Burritos' country-rock instrumentation directly into the new group.

The Eagles smoothed out its rougher, more experimental edges.

Their self-titled 1972 debut album turned that softened version into mainstream success.

"Take It Easy" became the breakout single from that very first record.

One band's commercial ceiling became another band's launching point, built by the same guitarist.

Leadon wasn't the only founding Eagle with country-rock roots.

Bassist Randy Meisner had co-founded Poco in 1968, straight out of Buffalo Springfield's breakup.

He left Poco before its first album came out, then joined the Eagles as a founding member in 1971.

Two of the band's four original members came directly out of the genre's earliest lineup of acts.

See how the Eagles' sound shifted again later in the decade in 70s Soft Rock: The Sound Built to Calm the Decade Down.

The Strangest Funeral in Rock History

Gram Parsons never got to see country rock become a mainstream force.

He died on September 19, 1973, at the Joshua Tree Inn in California.

The cause was a morphine and alcohol overdose.

He was 26 years old.

What happened next became one of rock's strangest true stories.

Parsons and his road manager, Phil Kaufman, had made an informal pact.

Whoever died first would have their body cremated at Joshua Tree, ashes scattered over a rock formation called Cap Rock.

Kaufman took that pact seriously.

He stole Parsons' coffin from Los Angeles International Airport before it could be flown home for a traditional funeral.

He drove it out to Cap Rock with a friend and attempted the cremation there instead.

Police were drawn by the resulting fire.

Kaufman was arrested days later and fined $750 for stealing the coffin.

No law at the time technically covered stealing a body, only the container it was in.

The Artists Who Carried It Through the Decade

Beyond the Flying Burrito Brothers and the Eagles, a real roster of acts kept the sound going.

Poco
Linda Ronstadt
Firefall
Pure Prairie League
Nitty Gritty Dirt Band
Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen
The Ozark Mountain Daredevils

A second, more country-charted branch pulled the same fusion in a different direction.

Hank Williams Jr.
Alabama
Jimmy Buffett
Billy "Crash" Craddock

Together, these acts kept country rock's instrumentation alive on both rock and country radio for the rest of the decade.

Steel guitar, close vocal harmony, and a rock rhythm section stayed constant even as individual bands drifted toward pop or straight country.

Curious which one of these acts fits your own taste?

Try the Random Artist Picker and see who comes up.

Or spin something at random from the era entirely.

Try the Random 70s Song Generator.

Frequently Asked Questions

Where did 70s country rock actually start?

70s country rock traces back to the Flying Burrito Brothers' 1969 debut, The Gilded Palace of Sin.

Gram Parsons and Chris Hillman built the album around what Parsons called Cosmic American Music, blending country, soul, gospel, and rock into one sound.

Parsons himself disliked the term country rock, even as his own record became the genre's blueprint.

How are the Flying Burrito Brothers connected to the Eagles?

Guitarist Bernie Leadon played in the Flying Burrito Brothers before leaving to co-found the Eagles in 1971.

He carried the Burritos' country-rock instrumentation with him, but the Eagles smoothed out its rougher, more experimental edges.

Their platinum-selling 1972 debut album turned that softened sound into a mainstream commercial success.

How did Gram Parsons actually die?

Gram Parsons died on September 19, 1973, at the Joshua Tree Inn from a morphine and alcohol overdose.

His road manager, Phil Kaufman, later stole his coffin and attempted to cremate his body at Joshua Tree's Cap Rock, honoring a pact the two had made.

Kaufman was arrested days later and fined $750 for the theft.

Who are the essential 70s country rock artists?

The Flying Burrito Brothers, the Eagles, and Poco anchored the genre's core sound throughout the decade.

Linda Ronstadt, Firefall, Pure Prairie League, and the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band carried it through radio playlists.

Southern-leaning acts like Hank Williams Jr., Alabama, and Jimmy Buffett pulled the same fusion in a more country-charted direction.

Is 70s country rock the same as outlaw country?

They're related but distinct movements.

Country rock grew out of rock musicians pulling country instrumentation into their sound, centered on Los Angeles acts like the Flying Burrito Brothers and the Eagles.

Outlaw country ran the opposite direction, Nashville insiders like Waylon Jennings and Willie Nelson rejecting the polished Nashville sound for something rawer.