20 Country Albums Every Rock Fan Should Listen To

Every so often, an artist comes along that kind of changes the game in the music industry. Even though they might not fit in a neat box in terms of sound, the actual music they make is so essential that you'd swear it's been there since the beginning of time. While Gram Parsons might not have planned to become a legend, his first solo outing was one of the greatest first impressions one could have hoped for.

Already an alum of the Flying Burrito Brothers and the Byrds, Parsons wanted to soar even higher than that when left to his own devices, putting together one unintended masterpiece after another. Across every song on here, you can tell that this is a guy who is in the trenches with country music, having studied all of the records of Johnny Cash and Hank Williams to find the meaning behind why country songs make your heart ache.

Just when you thought that Parsons could have reinvented the rock scene, he was found dead a few months before this album was released after overdosing on morphine. With a back catalog respected by everyone from Emmylou Harris to Keith Richards, Gram Parsons is in the mold of the Jeff Buckley character...a spiritual artistic presence that flamed out before we were ready for him to leave.