Before recording 1968’s Safe At Home, the International Submarine Band had a few songs in the can that sounded like generic garage rock, but Parsons and company decided that Safe At Home should be an all-country affair and employed a couple of Nashville cats to dress up these songs with pedal steel and honky-tonk piano. The result sounds largely inspired by what Buck Owens and Don Rich were cranking out of Bakersfield. Always one to grab for a higher rung on the ladder, Parsons abandoned ship…er…submarine shortly after to join the Byrds. Some of these tunes like the opening “Blue Eyes” and the driving “Luxury Liner” are the seeds of country rock hinting at how Parsons would replace the Byrds’ jangle with twang and eventually bring to fruition his vision of cosmic American music with the Flying Burrito Brothers and his own solo recordings. “Knee Deep In the Blues” is a bonus track that surfaced from the vaults in 2004.