North Florida Music Hall of Fame

Winterhaven native, raised in Waycross, Ga. After moving back to Winterhaven in the early 1960s, Parsons played in a series of teen bands including The Rumors—alongside Kent LaVoie (a.k.a. Lobo) and Jim Stafford. Parsons graduated from Jacksonville’s prestigious Bolles School in 1965, where he led local folk-rock group The Shilos, who released two singles on Columbia. After entering Harvard, Parsons formed The International Submarine Band and bolted for Greenwich Village. Then he just as impetuously leapt to Los Angeles, where the band recorded one album on Lee Hazlewood’s LHI Records. That album is now considered a classic. Parsons left the band and briefly became a member of The Byrds; he performed on and wrote songs for their Sweetheart of the Rodeo album. He soon quit the group, refusing to appear with it in apartheid South Africa. He then began hanging out in Europe with Keith Richards, until he was chased off by an irritated Mick Jagger. Longstanding rumor has it that Parsons wrote or co-wrote “Honky Tonk Women” as well as “Wild Horses.” Parsons returned to L.A. and formed The Flying Burrito Bros with former Byrds member Chris Hillman, whom he supposedly met standing in line at a bank (they quickly recorded the definitive version of “Wild Horses”). Parsons and Hillman would pioneer the country-rock sound, which became a huge influence on West Coast acts like The Eagles, Poco, Firefall, etc., as well as on The Stones.