Sweetheart of the Rodeo

Roger McGuinn first planned a double album tracing twentieth-century American popular music, but Gram Parsons, who joined in February 1968, steered the band toward country. Sessions were held in Nashville in March and finished in Hollywood. Two Dylan songs came from his then-unreleased basement tapes. Gary Usher produced, with Roy Halee and Charlie Bragg engineering.

Lee Hazlewood claimed Parsons was still under contract to him, so McGuinn replaced Parsons' lead vocals on The Christian Life, You Don't Miss Your Water and One Hundred Years from Now. The band's Grand Ole Opry appearance on 15 March 1968 was received with hostility, and Parsons reportedly embarrassed the host by singing Hickory Wind without warning. He quit over the South Africa tour. The original credits wrongly list Jon Corneal, who plays only on the outtake Lazy Days.

The album reached number 77 in the United States and did not chart in Britain, and it sold less than any earlier Byrds record. Jon Landau in Rolling Stone praised the way the band played country as country, while Robert Shelton in the New York Times called it a distinguished bore. Mark Deming of AllMusic credits the serious treatment without parody. In 2018 McGuinn and Hillman toured the album with Marty Stuart and His Fabulous Superlatives.