\n<\/p>\n
\n\tIn honor of Gram Parsons<\/a>\u2019 well-deserved posthumous induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame<\/a>, we thought it might be fun to ask ourselves a musical question. It wasn\u2019t meant to be rhetorical, but now we\u2019re not so sure. \u201cHot Burrito #1\u201d<\/a> or \u201cHot Burrito #2\u201d<\/a>?<\/p>\n \n\tLet us explain. Back in 1969, the Flying Burrito Brothers, consisting of singers-guitarists Gram Parsons and Chris Hillman, bassist Chris Ethridge, and pedal steel guitar wizard Sneaky Pete Kleinow, recorded their first album, The Gilded Palace of Sin<\/em>. The Burritos were fresh from their roles on the Byrds<\/a>\u2019 trendsetting country-rock LP Sweetheart of the Rodeo<\/em>, and Hillman and Parsons were living with Byrds drummer Michael Clarke in a San Fernando Valley, California, bachelor pad they called Burrito Manor.<\/p>\n \n\tThe country-rock scene in Southern California had been brewing for a few years before The Gilded Palace of Sin <\/em>changed the game. Parsons and Hillman were the pioneers and architects, and they wrote half the songs on the band\u2019s influential debut. Their so-called \u201cCosmic American Music\u201d gathered many influences, including the connection between Nashville country and Memphis soul. Beyond the classic Parsons-Hillman numbers, the album included a pair of country-soul covers written by Memphis icons Chips Moman and Dan Penn.<\/p>\n \n\tAnd then there were the two songs Parsons wrote with his Mississippi-born bandmate, Ethridge. Ethridge recalled hanging at Burrito Manor and showing Parsons a couple of old melodies from his youth, writing \u201cHot Burrito #1\u201d and \u201cHot Burrito #2\u201d together that day and recording them that very night. The song titles came quick and easy, and Ethridge played piano on both tracks.<\/p>\n \n\tWhat\u2019s the diff, the uninitiated might ask? \u201c#1\u201d is a ballad, the sort of yearning heartbreak for which Parsons was revered \u2014 unexpectedly (for the time) vulnerable and aching; \u201c#2\u201d is a rocking country-soul number that wouldn\u2019t feel out of place at a Southern church sermon, particularly during its climactic call-out \u201cJesus Christ!\u201d The former is an instant tearjerker, the latter, a grower in its funky, distorted sincerity.<\/p>\n