Meyer, David N.

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Meyer, David N.

(Lloyd St. Alcorn)

PERSONAL:

Born in Gainesville, GA.

ADDRESSES:

Home—New York, NY; Ketchum, ID.

CAREER:

Writer. Teaches cinema studies at New School, New York, NY; film editor and lead critic, Brooklyn Rail.

WRITINGS:

"THE DREAM QUEST" TRILOGY; AS LLOYD ST. ALCORN

Halberd, Dream Warrior, Signet (New York, NY), 1987.

On the Shoulders of Giants, Signet (New York, NY), 1988.

The Serpent Mound, Signet (New York, NY), 1989.

NONFICTION

The 100 Best Films to Rent You've Never Heard Of: Hidden Treasures, Neglected Classics, and Hits from Bygone Eras, St. Martin's Griffin (New York, NY), 1997.

A Girl and a Gun: The Complete Guide to Film Noir on Video, Avon Books (New York, NY), 1998.

Twenty Thousand Roads: The Ballad of Gram Parsons and His Cosmic American Music, Villard (New York, NY), 2007.

Contributor to books, including Book of the Subgenius: The Sacred Teachings of J.R. "Bob" Dobbs, Fireside Books; Three-Fisted Tales of Bob; and Under the Fang. Contributor to newspapers and magazines, including Entertainment Weekly, Sunday New York Times, Glamour, GQ, Men's Journal, and Rocket.

SIDELIGHTS:

David N. Meyer is best known for his well-received biography, Twenty Thousand Roads: The Ballad of Gram Parsons and His Cosmic American Music. The book chronicles the life, career, and influence of Parsons (1946-73), an iconic figure in the evolution of country music in the 1970s. Scion of a wealthy but dysfunctional Southern family plagued by emotional violence, alcoholism, and suicide, Parsons was drawn to country music after enrolling at Harvard University, from which he flunked out in his first year. He briefly joined the Byrds, with whom he made the seminal album Sweetheart of the Rodeo. He soon left the band, however—a decision that, for Meyer, meant that Parsons wanted to spend more time with his new friend, Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards. Though he continued to write songs that have been covered by a wide range of musicians, Parsons became addicted to heroin and adopted a lifestyle notorious for its excess and self-destructiveness. He died of an accidental drug and alcohol overdose.

Meyer acknowledges the myths that have surrounded Parsons, who cultivated an image of rebelliousness and decadence. But the biographer depicts his subject as deeper than that image. In his view, Parsons was a fearless musician who was not afraid to risk his status by playing country music, a little-respected genre at that time. Parsons cofounded the International Submarine Band and the Flying Burrito Brothers, with whom he recorded the 1969 album The Gilded Palace of Sin. He also recorded two solo albums, GP and Grievous Angel; the title track of the latter, with words and lyrics by Parsons and Thomas S. Brown, provides the lines that gave Meyer the book's title: "Oh, and I remember something you once told me / And I'll be damned if it did not come true / Twenty thousand roads I went down, down, down / And they all lead me straight back home to you." Intent on creating a "Cosmic American Music," Parsons combined elements of Americana with rock and with rhythm and blues to create a unique genre, variously called alt-country or country-rock. In Meyer's view, Parsons "exerted greater influence on our national musical taste than any other single musician."

According to New York Times Book Review critic Gregory Cowles, Twenty Thousand Roads is "frustratingly sloppy and self-indulgent, but studded with interesting tidbits." Cowles appreciated Meyer's details about Parsons's musical associates, including fellow members of the Flying Burrito Brothers, as well as Emmylou Harris, Parsons's musical and romantic muse. But the critic questioned Meyer's estimation of his subject's influence and importance. "In an era that featured Buffalo Springfield, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Dylan and the Band, artists hardly needed the example of Gram Parsons to dig into rock's rural roots," he wrote. R.J. Smith made a similar point in the Los Angeles Times, observing that, despite his charisma and musical vision, Parsons "was hardly one of the leading innovators of his era." Nevertheless, Smith appreciated the biography as a "clear-eyed look" at its subject.

While Time Out New York Web site contributor Mikael Wood found Twenty Thousand Roads a sometimes "overheat[ed]" tribute filled with as much "fanboy adulation" as "documentary grit," many reviewers considered the book appropriately analytical. In a starred review, a writer for Publishers Weekly valued Meyer's "semidetached stance as a critical fan," and Entertainment Weekly contributor Shirley Halperin noted the biographer's careful and thorough research. Austin Chronicle reviewer Doug Freeman observed that the book "provides no grand revelations" about Parsons, but does discuss its subject in ways that are "refreshing and continually insightful." Smith, writing in Los Angeles Times, called the book "far and away the most thorough biography of Parsons," though the musician remains "an elusive, never-quite-present figure, quickly retreating behind a carapace of women and drugs, guilt and hopefulness."

Meyers, who teaches cinema studies at the New School in New York City, has also written two books on film: The 100 Best Films to Rent You've Never Heard Of: Hidden Treasures, Neglected Classics, and Hits from Bygone Eras, and A Girl and a Gun: The Complete Guide to Film Noir on Video. He contributes frequently to various newspapers and magazines, including Entertainment Weekly, Sunday New York Times, Glamour, GQ, Men's Journal, and Rocket.

Early in his career, Meyers adopted the pseudonym Lloyd St. Alcorn, under which he wrote "The Dream Quest Trilogy," comprised of the novels Halberd, Dream Warrior; On the Shoulders of Giants; and The Serpent Mound.