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With a schoolmarmish, chiding tone befitting a true Rock Snob, Harvey Kubernik of Los Angeles, a veteran journalist, L.A. scenester, and author of the compelling This Is Rebel Music: The Harvey Kubernik InnerViews, can barely contain his indignation about our claim of Gram Parsons's having "invented country rock." [p. 90]

"Sorry to inform you," writes Harvey, "but Gram Parsons did not invent the genre or trend. Do your homework." Kubernik goes on to quote extensively from an interview he conducted with Chris Darrow, a longtime country-rock vet who co-founded the Snob-revered band the Kaleidoscope (Jimmy Page's "favorite band of all time"), served time in the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band (but well before the first President Bush mistakenly hailed the group as "The Nitty Ditty Nitty Gritty Great Bird"), and backed Linda Ronstadt for many years.

Darrow said in his interview with our Snob friend Harvey, "I think that country rock was a West Coast phenomenon and that the bands were the originators, not the individuals. The East Coast solo artist was a different breed from the West Coast collaborative unit. Most of the situations that arose in the West Coast were band situations and whether there was strife or not, the element of the band usually prevailed. Guys like Gram Parsons were much more self-directed and solo-oriented than most of the West Coast personalities that worked with him. Chris Hillman has always been a good team player. Bluegrass training!

"When I first heard [Parsons's first group] The International Submarine Band I wasn't sure what to say. I thought that it was hackneyed and derivative and kind of naïve. It wasn't Buck Owens, or Merle Haggard or even Ralph Stanley. The use of a steel guitar was about the only thing that separated it from the other guys our age. John Herald of the Greenbrier Boys doing 'Love Bug' was a much better interpretive statement...

"The use of tradition as a source for inspiration is a guiding force here. The New Lost City Ramblers with Mike Seeger were heroes to us in the early Sixties. Mike and his cohorts were all multi-instrumentalists and chose great material from a variety of genres and interpreted it in a string-band style. It was about learning the stuff and playing it yourself... The use of studio musicians to create certain styles sometimes goes against this credo. The early Byrds records had Hal Blaine, Leon Russell, and Al Casey on them. Bringing in a steel guitar player is what the Buffalo Springfield did on 'Kind Woman.' The Byrds' 'Sweetheart Of The Rodeo' wasn't played by the members of the band; Earl Ball and JD Maness were brought in. What I'm saying is that country rock did not sprout out of the head of Gram Parsons and everybody else followed. It was a process and he was a solo artist. His independent income allowed for him to be free of the constraints of playing with 'the guys' for bread. He was a talented guy but I am one who refuses to put a single name to the father of this genre."

Harvey, this is almost too Snobby for words! Thank you for your contribution. We invite a rebuttal from Emmylou Harris and from members of the "Gene Clark Invented Country Rock" camp.