Consumer Guide Album

The Flying Burrito Brothers: Farther Along: The Best of the Flying Burrito Brothers [A&M, 1988]
"I don't think I ever really appreciated Gram until these last few years," allows Chris Hillman, whose 1970 arrival catalyzed the Burritos' decline into one-dimensional "country-rock," a term Hillman disdains, probably because "folk-rock" is more his speed. "This collection represents the best and worst of the `Parsons-era Burritos,'" he clucks, and since Parsons's worst was brainier and more soulful than the folk/country-rock norm, that's why even the outtakes--four songs and one version never available on any U.S. album, including a Bee Gees cover I bet Chris vetoed--have more bite than most anything they recorded after their genius moved farther along. I miss "My Uncle" and even "Hippie Boy" from Gilded Palace of Sin, and "Other Guys," their least Hillmanesque effort thereafter. But any reissue that respects even the cut order of a timeless LP that it reproduces almost in full deserves its digital remix. Which doesn't overdo the drums, by the way. A