Gram Parsons – vocals, guitar [click here to see more vinyl/SACD featuring Gram Parsons]
Emmylou Harris – vocals [click here to see more vinyl/SACD featuring Emmylou Harris]
James Burton – guitar
Linda Ronstadt – vocals (final track)
2 LPs, tip-on gatefold jacket (Stoughton Printing)
Original analog Master tape : YES
Heavy Press : 180g
Record color : black
Speed : 45 RPM
Size : 12’’
Stereo
Studio
Record Press : Quality Record Pressings (QRP)
Label : Analogue Productions (Acoustic Sounds 40 Series)
Original Label : Reprise Records
Recorded summer 1973 at Wally Heider Studio 4 (Hollywood) and Capitol (Hollywood)
Engineered by Hugh Davies
Produced by Gram Parsons
Mastered by Matthew Lutthans at The Mastering Lab
Art Direction by Ed Thrasher
Photography by Ginny Winn
Design by Dave Bhang
Originally released in 1974
Reissued in 2026
Tracks:
Side A:
1. Return Of The Grievous Angel
2. Hearts On Fire
3. I Can't Dance
Side B:
1. Brass Buttons
2. $1000 Wedding
Side C:
1. Medley Live From Northern Quebec (Cash On The Barrelhead / Hickory Wind)
2. Love Hurts
Side D:
1. Las Vegas
2. In My Hour Of Darkness
Awards:
Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time – Ranked number 425
Colin Larkin's All Time Top 1000 Albums – Ranked number 324
Review :
« Gram Parsons fondness for drugs and high living are said to have been catching up with him while he was recording Grievous Angel, and sadly he wouldn't live long enough to see it reach record stores, dying from a drug overdose in the fall of 1973. This album is a less ambitious and unified set than his solo debut, but that's to say that G.P. was a great album while Grievous Angel was instead a very, very good one. Much of the same band that played on his solo debut were brought back for this set, and they perform with the same effortless grace and authority (especially guitarist James Burton and fiddler Byron Berline). If Parsons was slowing down a bit as a songwriter, he still had plenty of gems on hand from more productive days, such as "Brass Buttons" and "Hickory Wind (which wasn't really recorded live in Northern Quebec; that's just Gram and the band ripping it up live in the studio, with a handful of friends whooping it up to create honky-tonk atmosphere). He also proved to be a shrewd judge of other folks material as always; Tom T. Hall's "I Can't Dance" is a strong barroom rocker, and everyone seems to be having a great time on The Louvin Brothers's "Cash on the Barrelhead." As a vocal duo, Parsons and Emmylou Harris only improved on this set, turning in a version of "Love Hurts" so quietly impassioned and delicately beautiful that it's enough to make you forget Roy Orbison ever recorded it. And while he didn't plan on it, Parsons could hardly have picked a better closing gesture than "In My Hour of Darkness." Grievous Angel may not have been the finest work of his career, but one would be hard pressed to name an artist who made an album this strong only a few weeks before their death -- or at any time of their life, for that matter. » AllMusic Review by Mark Deming
Ratings :
AllMusic : 5 / 5 ; Discogs : 4.63 / 5