GIB GUILBEAU (Part 4)

Hill, Parsons and Ethridge have been living in Mendocino County north of San Francisco and had been playing, as Hill put it, "For the old folks, for picnics , for beneftis. For a while we went by the name of the "Comptche Firehouse Benefit Blues Band". We were doing benefits for everything." Parsons. "We were at loose ends and wanted to do something substantial. And we decided that we were the only ones who could do it, who would have the right to put the Burritos back together again."

The back-together-again band started rehearsing around the beginning of the year, played some U.S. dates and then went to Europe, where they have always been very popular, particularly in Holland and England.

"We did one gig at the Palomino in Los Angeles", says Ethridge, "and we thought there'd be about 50 people, we'd been out of circulation for so long. Turned out there were 2500 people lined up around the block to hear us." This motivated the band to get together and go on the road.

"So here we are now" said Ethridge, "cutting our first album for Columbia. And I'm so proud. This band is the finest of all the Burrito bands that have been together and has the most positive attitude. We cut a hit on our third day, a song called "Building Fires". This is the most positive, best feeling song we've ever cut.",

Parsons agrees on the prospects of this new band with the old name. "The old name can do us nothing but good. The people who are Burritos freaks are going to see what they want to see, plus some. We can play the old stuff and give it the same sound, plus we can turn them on to a lot of other things. Because we have two of the three guys who were responsible for the original sound of the Burritos."

The first band had only one lead instrument. this one has three. Dan Penn and Spooner Oldham are working with them again and they were responsible for "Dark end of the street" and "Do right woman" on the first Burritos LP, which many people consider the best of their albums. Norbert Putnam and Glenn Spreen from Nashville are producing.

The name of the Burrito Brothers is, as Ethridge puts it, "synonymous with the origins of country rock," and like another such band there at the beginning, the Byrds, they have a history that twists incestuously in and out of the Los Angeles country band and studio scene.

The first Burritos band was founded by Chris Hillman and Gram Parsons (no relation to Gene Parsons), both of whom broke away from the Byrds. That band included Ethridge and Kleinow, plus John Corneal. Hillman has since gone on to greater fame with Steve Stills' "Manassas" and now with the "Souther-Hillman-Furay Band".

Over the course of four years the band went through various personnel changes and included at times Bernie Leadon, now with the Eagles; Rick Roberts, who is now playing with Steve Stills; and Al Perkins and Byron Berline, who travelled with a lattter-day assemblage of the band to Europe.

The new band is an organic outgrowth of the desires and energies of five men who have known each other closely for a long time and who have worked together often in the past. We have not yet seen the last of the red hot Burritos.

Chris Ethridge was born in Meridian, Mississippi in 1947 and played in rock and country bands in the South. When he was 17 he went to California, where he played with Joel Scott Hill, The International Submarine Band with Gram Parsons, and the first Burritos band. Family life decided him to leave the Burritos, so for five years he did sessions, playing with some of the biggest names in recording: Judy Collins, Johnny Winter, Ry Cooder, Leon Russell, Randy Newman, Linda Ronstadt, The Byrds and Jackson Browne. Several years ago he did, with Hill and Johnny Barbata, an excellent but little-known album called "L.A. Getaway" and afterward moved up to Mendocino County.

Pete Kleinow, who was born in South Bend, Indiana, started playing steel a little over 20 years ago "from listening to country music on the radio." The lap steel was the first instrument Pete tried, because he started playing before pedals were in use. After moving to California, Pete got his frist professional gig working with the "Smokey Rogers Western Swing Band" in San Diego. Then he moved to L.A., played bars for three of four years and worked with the Byrds on some concerts. He also worked with the Palomino house band which is where he met Chris and Gram Parsons. More recently he has worked with Linda Ronstadt, has done sessions with Stevie Wonder and Minnie Riperton; produced the Spencer Davis LP "Mousetrap" for United Artists, and has been on the road with Pat Boone.

Gene Parsons is a multitalented musician who plays banjo, steel, harmonica, guitar, bass, and piano, but whose main job is drumming, which he did for four years with the Byrds. HIs first pro gig was at age 18 with a band named ",The Castaways" that included Gib Guilbeau and played the Nevada circuit. The Castaways faltered and Gene was out of a gig for a year and a half. Then Gib called him to say he had a job in a bar and could record for Bakersfield International Records. He didn't know that Gib wanted him to play drums, which he had never done before. They worked that bar for three years, then formed "Nashville West" with Clarence White until Clarence joined the Byrds. Parsons then spent 45 month touring the world and recording as a Byrd. Eventually came the move to Mendocino and the benefits with Ethridge and Hill, gigs with Gib Guilbeau and the "Docker Hill Boys" before reuniting with Sneaky Pete in the new Burritos.

Gib Guilbeau's musical history coincides with Gene Parsons' through the Castaways and Nashville West bands. After Parsons and Clarence White went with the Byrds, Gib went with Linda Ronstadt, sessions and touring for three years. He also worked behind Rita Coolidge and Crazy Horse and with Arlo Guthrie for three years. Gib was born in the Cajun country of Opelousas, Louisiana, where he began playing the fiddle as a kid. He wound up in California because of the service. Going to Nashville to work at songwriting had always been Gib's ambitions, he never made it to Nashville, but made it at songwriting. The single off the newest Kris Kristofferson-Rita Coolidge LP was "Sweet Susanna" a Guilbeau song, and Gib's song ",Big Bayou" is the single from Ron Wood's new LP, "Now Look".