MCT

A makeshift memorial to Gram Parsons is in the courtyard of the Joshua Tree Inn, where he died. 

 Tom Uhlenbrock/St. Louis Post-Dispatch/MCT

American music sensation Gram Parsons shook up several genres of music before he died in 1973.

Given his lack of strong ties to the New Orleans area, one reader wondered, “Why is Gram Parsons buried in Metairie? What is his connection to Louisiana?”

The answer isn’t out of love for the state, but in inheritance laws.

Parsons is credited with pioneering the and was listed on Rolling Stone's . before starting The Flying Burrito Brothers with bandmate Chris Hillman, he was known for a unique rock-country blend before he died of an overdose at the age of 26. 

Parsons’ mother, Avis Snively, came from a wealthy Florida family. She married World War II fighter pilot Ingram Cecil Connor II, producing Gram and a sister known as “Little Avis.” Following Connor II’s suicide in 1958, Snively remarried Louisiana native Bob Parsons. Many in the family worried Parsons was just after the family money. Jason Walker chronicled the marriage in his biography, “Gram Parsons: God's Own Singer.”

Walker described him as “the very image of the Errol Flynn-esque playboy,” and as a “sharp dresser with a smooth tongue.” Ben Fong-Torres offers a similar account in “Hickory Wind: The Life and Times of Gram Parsons.”

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Gram Parsons, Garden of Memories Cemetery (Nov. 5, 1946 - Sept. 19, 1973) Musician Gram Parsons, born and raised in central Florida and Georgia, influenced music in the mid 1960s with his style of country and rock 'n' roll sounds. "Parsons died young, at age 26, in Joshua Tree, Calif.," wrote in 2013, at the 40th anniversary of his death. "His life got a peculiar epilogue (as documented in the 2003 film "Grand Theft Parsons") when two friends of his absconded with his corpse, which was waiting at the Los Angeles airport to be shipped to Louisiana for burial, and attempted to immolate it in the Southern California desert. They were caught, and the body recovered; Parsons is now buried in the Garden of Memories cemetery off Airline Drive in Metairie."

“Parsons had one transparent goal,” Fong-Torres wrote, “to get his hands on as much Snively money as he could.”

Shortly after the marriage, Parsons legally adopted the two siblings. Ingram Cecil Connor III became Gram Parsons. The two had a complicated relationship.

Avis died of problems related to excessive drinking when Gram was in high school, leaving Parsons as the sole guardian to Little Avis, Gram and half-sister Diane. Parsons married the nanny and moved to New Orleans with Little Avis. By 1970, he had committed a pregnant Little Avis to DePaul Hospital.

His relationship with Gram remained stable enough for Gram to fly down to New Orleans and get married at a wedding hosted by Bob in 1971. Their relationship would become rockier later, when Bob disclosed more of his role in aiding Avis’ drinking, as Walker documented.

When Gram Parsons overdosed in the Joshua Tree Inn, he had no existing will.

“All Bob had to do to come into some big money was prove that Gram had at some point been a resident of the state,” Walker wrote.

If Bob Parsons could prove Gram Parsons was a resident of New Orleans, dead or alive, he stood a chance of inheritance under Louisiana inheritance laws. Bob Parsons made arrangements to have Parsons’ body shipped to Louisiana, where, once buried, his claim of residency would be solidified.

Hearing the plans to move Parsons’ body, road manager Phil Kaufman remembered the pact he had made with Parsons, that whoever died first would cremate the other in the California desert.

Helped by a friend with a hearse, Kaufman went to the airport where Parsons’ body was held and convinced officials to release the body to him, claiming alternate transportation had been arranged. Kaufman went to Joshua Tree, where he burned the corpse, in a somewhat botched job — he was later arrested and charged with stealing the coffin.

The recovered remains were shipped to Bob Parsons, who buried them in the Garden of Memories Cemetery in Metairie after a New Orleans ceremony. Parsons’ money would be split between female relations. Bob Parsons died shortly from liver cirrhosis.

“He never made a cent out of his stepson,” Walker wrote.