The pot leaf, a poppy flower, a sugar cube dipped in LSD. The pills, I will
defer to a pillhead, who I’m sure could tell me exactly what they were. Just
understand, that like the religion of the cross, they can be abused and they can heal.
This little throw pillow is referencing a suit worn by Graham Parsons that I was lucky enough to see on a trip to the Frist Center for the Visual Arts in Nashville. Country music has been dressing it’s stars in ornate cowboy suits since the beginning of it’s commercialization. Roy Rogers, Gene Autry and other movie star cowboys reinforced the image in the American subconscious of ornate cowboy duds.
Gram Parsons was the pre-cursor to southern rock/country rock of the seventies. He went to Nudie Cohn to have a suit made for himself by the master who dressed Elvis and Hank Williams. Nudie’s apprentice Manuel (Manuel Arturo Jose Cuevas Martinez), a native of Mexico who joined the master in the 1950s, actually designed the white suit with the above motif on the back that came to be known as the “Gilded Palace of Sin” suit.
Polly Parson’s, Gram’s daughter, explained that the suit got split up over time, and a woman found the coat in a thrift shop while a man owned the pants. As mentioned, the two pieces were brought together for a retrospective of Manuel’s work at the Frist Center.