International Submarine Band, The – Safe At Home – New LP

This all analog promenade through the seminal 1968 album by Gram Parsons’ International Submarine Band is widely regarded as the record that launched the country-rock movement and was the first album to spotlight Parsons’ charismatic vocals and visionary songwriting. Cut all analog from the original mono masters!

in 1965, aspiring folk singer Gram Parsons was busy cutting classes at Harvard in order to explore the fertile Cambridge/Boston music scene. There, he met guitarist John Nuese, who urged Parsons to pursue a country rock sound. Enlisting Ian Dunlop on bass and Mickey Gauvin on bass, they began exploring that direction in earnest. Appropriating their name from a classic "Our Gang" skit, the International Submarine Band left Boston for New York, eager to find a supportive label for their new sound. After recording two poorly selling singles, the group left New York for Los Angeles, hoping to find success there.

Following several false starts and missed opportunities in L.A., Dunlop and Gavin left the group, going on to found the Flying Burrito Brothers. At this point, producer Suzi Jane Hokom, who had seen the band before the breakup, convinced Lee Hazlewood to sign Parsons and Nuese to a contract for Hazlewood's LHI Records. Newly signed, the duo searched for musicians to form a new ISB lineup. Recruiting guitarist Bob Buchanan, drummer Jon Corneal, bassists Joe Osborne and Chris Etheridge, pianist Earl Ball and steel guitarist Jay Dee Maness, the group began recording Safe at Home under Hokom's direction in July 1967.

The album's final track listing included a mix of country and rock standards along with four strong Parsons-penned songs. One of those songs, "Luxury Liner," would later become an album-title-track hit for future Parsons protege Emmylou Harris. Sessions for Safe at Home were completed in December 1967, with a possible release date of February 1968. However, Parsons abruptly left the group prior to the album's release in order to join The Byrds, who were busy recording their own country rock album, Sweetheart of the Rodeo. Parsons' departure upset Hazlewood and caused the release of Safe at Home to be delayed. Eventually released after the group had ceased to exist, the album was initially overshadowed by Parson's work with the Byrds, the Flying Burrito Brothers and his solo records.

In the wake of Parsons' recognition as a country rock pioneer, Safe at Home grew in stature considerably. Discovered by fans lucky enough to find an original copy, the album was rightfully acknowledged as a classic. 

Cut all analog from the original mono masters!

This all analog promenade through the seminal 1968 album by Gram Parsons’ International Submarine Band is widely regarded as the record that launched the country-rock movement and was the first album to spotlight Parsons’ charismatic vocals and visionary songwriting.

Often relegated to a footnote in Parsons’ career, Safe At Home remains a foundational text in country-rock, laying out the parameters of this new subgenre and influencing subsequent generations of artists—country outlaws, alt. country punks, Americana string-bands, and Nashville insurgents. But it’s more than just an artifact, and it’s more than just the first confident effort by a restless artist who was hailed as a hero only after his untimely death. Safe At Home is, at heart, an inventive, lively album crackling with energy and ideas and offering fresh angles on familiar sounds. The International Submarine Band approached rock with no presumptions and, more crucially, approached country with no condescension.

That’s even more apparent on the new mixes included in this edition, which isolate and emphasize Parsons’ vocals. If the original mixes demonstrate his close chemistry with the other players, these new tracks reveal the care and consideration with which he approached country music, whether it’s the profound ache in his voice on “I Still Miss Someone” or the desperation he conveys behind the taunts of “Strong Boy.” He’s not merely singing the songs, but interpreting them: plumbing their depths to see where their sentiments might align with his own experiences. He’s writing the rules of country-rock with each word, with each note.

Blue Eyes • I Must Be Somebody Else You’ve Known • A Satisfied Mind • Folsom Prison Blues / That’s All Right • Knee Deep In The Blues • Miller’s Cave • I Still Miss Someone • Luxury Liner • Strong Boy • Do You Know How It Feels To Be Lonesome?