The folks who had reservations and/or strong criticisms of this DVD, especially of Susan Marshall's performances, should just defrost their hearts. Everyone involved in the DVD played and sang their hearts out. Some of the performances were extraordinary for sure: Al Perkins' steel on every song, James Burton's Tele playing, Raul Malos' singing and the manic but totally appropriate lead playing of Dwight Yoakam's guitar player to name a few. All the "big stars" rose to the occaision. The concert rocked from the first note to the last. What more do ya want if you love Gram Parsons?

This DVD has A billing that reads like A whos who of the Alt Country scene.My only disappointment is that neither EmmyLou Harris or Chris Hillman were involved with this project.
Lucinda Williams doing A Song For You is one of those tear your heart out moments.
Dwight Yoakam appearing in A Nudie Suit was A real show stopper. What really was impressive was when Dwight broke A Guitar string while doing A rip it up version of Sin City he had enough stage smarts to do A band introduction while A Roadie brought out A fresh Guitar.
It was very heartening to see young artists like Kathleen Edwards, Jim James & Norah Jones embracing Gram Parsons music.
It was nice to see Keith Richards but lets face the fact that the parade has passed him bye A long time ago.
One of the lowlights was Susan Marshall. She had no business being on that stage.
Overall I found this DVD to be quite good. Remember that this project was set up to assist musicians with major problems. After all Gram Parsons had more talent then sense.
Also on this DVD are steel guitar player Al Perkins and Guitar wizard James Burton. Both of these pickers actually played with Gram.

Yes, I'll echo the disappointment of the perplexing absences of Chris Hillman and even more glaringly, Emmylou. You'd think those would be the first two names on anyone's Gram Parsons tribute list. In fact their absences, especially Harris', are so conspicuous that one is left with a strange sense of incompleteness when its over. No explanation at all.

Notwithstanding that, this is a great DVD. Steve Earle absolutely rips the place up during his two songs, and a great unexpected treat is the John Doe-Kathleen Edwards duet of Sweeping out the Ashes.

And everybody should lighten up about Keith Richards. He did fine on Hickory Wind and the duet with Norah Jones was a lot of fun. She looks kind of afraid at times.. "Oh God he's not gonna touch me is he..." It was hilarious, and the music was not bad at all. And I loved the Wild Horses/Las Vegas finale.

Some complain that the varying stylings here make for an inconsistent show. I disagree. Gram Parsons' disrespect for those phony musical boundaries are what made him great and so memorable and influential all these years later. These performances reflect that nicely.

Chris and Emmylou, you were indeed missed. But I loved it anyway.

According to Polly Parsons, who barely knew her father, she wanted to continue his music out there, to celebrate it. So she gathered musicians who were close friends and fans and those newer artists who were inspired by Parsons' works. She also wanted to find out who her father was and her way to connect to him and his life's work.

Why no Emmy Lou, Chris Hillman??
We may never know the story behind why Parsons' duet partner Emmy Lou Harris and songwriting partner Chris Hillman were not involved in this tribute. Usually when nothing is mentioned about such notables missing, something went askew during negotiations.

Audio Commentary: Not helpful or insightful, excessive chat.

Mixture of folks:
This is a great concert! Just plain and simple...a great concert! I was introduced to a few people I hadn't known, particularly, John Doe. Alas, John Doe is alive and known! I enjoyed his contributions as well as other unknowns to me, Jay Farrar and Jim James. Known mostly for his songwriting, Jim Lauderdale was excellent doing "Big Mouth Blues." And a superb rendition of Do Right Woman, Do Right Man by Susan Marshall.

There are other powerful performances, that include Dwight Yoakam doing "Wheels" and "Sin City." Other wonderful contributions were by Steve Earle "Luxury Liner" and "My Uncle" and Mavericks' Raul Malo "Devil in Disguise".

I am not a fan of Lucinda Williams, but the "Sleepless Nights" and "A Song For You" were excellent, as well as the sweet voice of Norah Jones doing "She." .

Keith Richards/Norah Jones on "Love Hurts"...Ouch it hurts!!
What can anyone say about Keith Richards, other than a lot! A friend of Parsons, he chose to duet with Norah Jones on "Love Hurts", painful rendition. All contributed in "Wild Horses" and "Ooh Las Vegas."

"In My Hour of Darkness"
A powerful voiced lady from House of Blues Gospel Choir did "In My Hour of Darkness" Wow, it was a little hard to get through that one because at times, it was gravelly screaming.

Another tribute out there
There is another tribute from Live Sessions from New York...something like that, done in 1999 with EmmyLou, Chris, Mavericks, Steve Earle...That one is amazing if you can find it!

To learn the story of Gram Parsons, see Gram Parsons - Fallen Angel.. Rizzo

Buy the real stuff -- Gram's music, along with the music of the Byrds, Burritos, and related artists like Gene Clark. The music on this isn't so much bad as it is stiff, remote, reverent, fakey country, and just plain dull. No doubt Gram would have loved the attention but he would have listened to something else.

Return to Sin City - A Tribute to Gram Parsons is a pretty good capturing of a couple of shows dedicated to the influential singer songwriter.
Parsons is dead a long time yet his songs, his attitude, his vocals and his music continue to resonate with people and win fans.
The performances here appear heartfelt, They look like real tributes and not just a play for publicity.
Keith Richards' performance alone is worth the cost of the video.
Richards, however, was about the only person on the bill who actually knew Parsons.
The audience is left to wonder why Chris Hillman and Emmy Lou Harris didn't make the partty.
Everyone knows musician schedules are tough to manage but a tribute to Parsons without those two is like throwing an anniversary party and not inviting one of the spouses.

This concert has several highlights and those performances are really good. Perhaps because Gram's music was primarily rock and the interest was in how he fused this with country that I was expecting more country performances. The outstanding respect that these performers show for Gram's music is evident. I especially enjoyed the paring of "Keef" with Norah Jones.

The production quality is really poor: Bad lighting, worse camera direction. Countless hot guitar solos can be heard, yet few are ever seen. And it's frequently hard to tell if the crowd is even into the show. Still, it's worth to bucks and time to watch. Lucinda Williams is on, especially in her rendition of A Song for You. The two pairs of John Doe and Kathleen Edwards and Keith Richards and Norah Jones are fun to watch. Jim Lauderdale shines as a contributor to many of the performances. Everyone is else is typically solid.

This "tribute" is not only disappointing, but rather repulsive. The most unremitting torch of Gram Parson's music and legend was and remains Emmylou Harris, who was not only absent, but unmentioned throughout the video, even in the introduction. This instead was the Polly Parsons show, Gram's biological daughter, who declares that all she can think about during the encore is that she was not wearing any panties while dancing on stage...a true mark of respect and intent. If you are interested in a true tribute, purchase the CD, Return of the Grievous Angel.

I remember sitting in the Universal Ampitheater and wishing the night would go on indefinitely. Now it does. The night was magical and it has been successfully captured on this DVD. Sure there were things I wished were added, a few performances I wish had not been cut, a couple I could have easily done without. But overall it is a solid effort. The performances were outstanding. I can overlook the minor production faults because the musical content is wonderful. The Tribute started out as a daughters quest to find a way to honor her father, and it ended up as being a stellar tribute to someone with a musical vision who left us well before he should have. I would have loved to see some faux paux's, maybe some backstage clips, and a bit more focused narrative, but as a representation of the event itself, this is pretty dang good, much better than most.

The trouble with tributes is that you always come to them with the original version in mind and the tribute never lives up to the original. Two problems - Keith Richard who should NOT have been let loose on "Love Hurts" and the lack of Emmylou Harris. Otherwise it's a good solid concert but nobody plays Gram Parsons like Gram Parsons. Don't come to this with your expectations raised too high!

First off, I am NOT a fan of Tribute shows. I find that for the most part they fall flat. This show did not do that, the performances with only one or two exceptions were stellar. Lucinda Williams, Dwight Yoakam, Susan Marshall, and Norah Jones were outstanding. In the end, I had hoped for more of the music that I had experienced by being there live, but this DVD was an excellent attempt at capturing the magic of the day. I would have loved some behind the scenes additional tracks added to the project. I understand the connection to Keith Richards only after listening to the narrative,( I don't understand the whole Keith Richards Pirates of the Caribbean look , though) without doing that though I would have wondered why he got so much juice. I find myself replaying the haunting numbers by Lucinda, the energy that Yoakam brought to the stage (and which infected the audience), the bittersweet in Norah Jones's voice. All in all I enjoyed it for what it was, a Tribute to an artist who should still be with us today. It reminds me of the magic of being there that day, and the magic that seems to have surrounded Parsons in the short time he had.

I loved this show. Of course you can't make everyone happy...
Lucinda Williams gave a heart felt rendition of "A Song for You"
They honored Gram thats enough. Only 27 and a legend (Peace)

This is one I'd been looking forward to since reading reviews of the concert in July of 2004. The result is somewhat disappointing, though largely because of what is not included. Reviews at the time raved of Norah Jones' performances of "Streets Of Baltimore" and "Cry One More Time" with hot guitar work from James Burton, but these songs aren't here. The audio is at times of bootleg quality, particularly on the Jim Lauderdale take on "Big Mouth Blues". There are worthy performances from Jones, John Doe, Lucinda Williams, Dwight Yoakam, Steve Earle, Keith Richards and others. Unfortunately there are the obligitory muddled jams at the end of the program in which "Wild Horses" and "Ooh Las Vegas" are delivered in excrutiatingly sloppy fashion that even James Burton cannot save.
The original concert may have been a worthy tribute to Gram Parsons, but this dvd presentation will likely disappoint.

with a little work this could have been better. The sound is off, the lighting is poor. There is a reason a cd wasnt released to this junk. Rent it. Don't buy it. I am returning my copy to Amazon. This is the first product I have ever returned and I have been a regular customer since 1999.

Ever listen to a live show when they forget to turn on the singer's mic and he sounds like he's singing off stage? Bingo! They didn't bother to master the audio!?!

Nobody else mentioned this fault but I found this to be so glaringly obvious that this DVD needs to be remastered and reissued or Gram's ghost to coming back to get the engineers.

I gave it 3 stars because most of the performances are really good and, of course, it is Gram's music. Rent it. Don't buy it.

So first I'll say that I'm a huge Gram Parsons fan. I grabbed this one quickly not really caring that some of the best Parsons interpreters of the past are missing. I thought, what the the heck, Dwight is here. Norah is always good and I had heard her do "She" before (Austin City Limits, I think) and Steve Earle is always solid.

Unfortunately, I was quite disappointed! I'll take the good first, though. It is certainly a good looking concert without all the usual annonying audience cutaways that plague concert films. Credit must go to director Mark Lucas and editor Ernie Fritz. (This creates a slight problem though, in that the audience almost seems dead in places with very little crowd reaction in the sound mix - not that I wanted to see the crowd, but hearing a little excitement would have been nice).

The solid performances were Farrar, Earle and Raul Malo. Norah Jones was great on "She" but the "Love Hurts" duo with Keith Richards was cringe inducing at times, although she was fine. Dwight Yoakam was rock solid on "Wheels" which he had covered on one of his albums, but I think "Sin City" was just a mess. The biggest pleasant suprise was Lucinda Williams who performed two solid songs (Sleepless Nights and a Song For You). I'm a middling fan of hers, but she was great.

There wasn't anything horrible in the way of peformances, just some questionable choices, mixing songs with performers which were not exactly well served. John Doe was particuarly out of place, and while I can understand the historical significance of Keith Richards, he's never been known for his great stage work. Susan Marshall was adequate, I suppose, but not my cup of tea. The "everybody gets on stage and jams" songs were necessary, but as usual, not very good (have you ever seen a good one?) Whether it's at the Grammys or the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, they're always great musicians that obviously have not spent much time playing together! It's like a soup with fish and pork in it - they just don't go together very well!

I tried to listen to the commentary track (by Gram's daughter and one of the producers), but it was so gabby, self-serving, unfocused and in need of editing that I couldn't do it for very long. (At least talk about the peformer that's on stage, or you're Dad, as opposed to meeting Sheryl Crow, which I'm sure was fascianting to her, but had very little to do with her father or the performer that is currently on stage). They claim to have had a "wish list" of performers, but I think it is almost unforgivable to not include Emmylous Harris. For history sake, for the sake of her harmonies, for her many covers of Gram's songs, she MUST be included. Whatever the reason for her absence, it's not valid to me. I think if you have a Gram Parsons tribute concert, you invite her and schedule the concert so she can be there. If you need to, you wait for her!!!

In the end, I would tell the die hard Parsons fan to at least rent it. It's not horrible, it's not a waste of time, but I don't think it's worth owning. Instead, if you don't already own it, I recommend "The Return of The Grevious Angel" on CD. This is the one tribute to own, with amazing peformances by Beck, Cowboy Junkies, The Pretenders and, of course, Emmylou Harris. While not a live album, it captures the spirit of Gram Parsons like nothing else.

Gram Parsons is one of those rare artists whom nobody seems to dislike (ever met anybody who openly and honestly admits to not liking Bob Marley?). His music -- both originals and interpretations -- had the ability to carve a direct path to universal human emotions; he made it all right, even cool, for rockers to have country influences; and it was high time he received a tribute like this.

And a great tribute it was. I only had two concerns: a) Where is Emmylou Harris, very much alive and in fine voice, whose participation should have been a no-brainer? b) What is Keith Richards doing here? Parsons and Richards were friends, I suppose, but Richards was just not a good fit into this roster -- listening to him singing the immortal "Love Hurts" is pure, painful desecration. Where Parsons and Harris' version became definitive (over even The Everly Brothers' and Roy Orbison's), all innocence and ache, Richards' is a headache inducer.

But aside from this one miscasting, the roster is superb: Lucinda Williams, new Parsons convert Norah Jones, Steve Earle, Dwight Yoakam, and the darling of my current playlist, Kathleen Edwards, who does Harris' angelic backing vocals beautifully on a duet with the charmingly gruff John Doe on "We'll Sweep Out the Ashes in the Morning". Edwards really is an underrated singer, though she could have leaned into the microphone a little more! Earle is equally good at getting across the rock energy as well as country soul of Parsons' music; Williams' lonely, imperfect voice is just perfect for "Sleepless Nights"; and Jones, while not exactly an obvious choice, lends her usual warmth and delicate charm to "She". There's another brilliant gem, Susan Marshall and the House of Blues Gospel Choir's take on "In My Hour of Darkness", a terrific treatment which mines the spiritual side of the song.

This concert DVD is further enhanced by the fact that it is well shot, well cut, with the camera and the performers being harmonious, so that the full effect of the performances comes across intact. A great concert DVD, the best in a slew of concerts discs I've viewed in the past while.

What a lineup! If you like any of the artists on the DVD you'll love this. Here is the song list and performers:

Six Days On The Road - Sin City All Stars
Big Mouth Blues - Jim Lauderdale
Drug Store Truck Driving Man - Jay Farrar
Devil In Disguise - Jay Farrar
Hot Burrito #1 - Raul Malo
Still Feelin' Blue - Jim James
Hot Burrito #2 -John Doe
We'll Sweep Out The Ashes In The Morning - John Doe & Kathleen Edwards
Do Right Woman, Do Right Man - Susan Marshall
Luxury Liner - Steve Earle
My Uncle - Steve Earle
Sleepless Nights - Lucinda Williams
A Song For You - Lucinda Williams
Wheels - Dwight Yoakam
Sin City - Dwight Yoakam
She - Norah Jones
Love Hurts - Keith Richards & Norah Jones
Hickory Wind - Keith Richards
In My Hour of Darkness - House of Blues Gospel Choir
Wild Horses - All
Ooh Las Vegas - All