THE BIRTH OF AMERICANA

In the fall of 1965, Gram Parsons arrived at Harvard with family money, Southern ghosts and very little interest in becoming a Harvard man. While Cambridge was still vibrating from folk music, psychedelics and Dylan going electric, Parsons assembled the International Submarine Band and began smashing country music into rock & roll years before anybody agreed on what to call it.

Boston was only one stop in his restless trajectory, but the connections made here point everywhere: from Harvard Square to Los Angeles, the Byrds and eventually the Rolling Stones, where his friendship with Keith Richards would become part of rock mythology. Gram did not stay in Boston long. That is the point. Boston Babylon follows the acid cowboy through town—and follows the trail he left behind.