Chris Ethridge, founding member of Flying Burrito Brothers, dies

Members of the International Submarine Band chose a name for their new group that practically assured it would never rise above cult status. Sure enough, that band disappeared with barely a trace after making a handful of recordings in the mid-1960s. But after ISB members Gram Parsons and Chris Ethridge teamed up with ex-Byrds singer and songwriter Chris Hillman and steel guitarist Pete Kleinow to form the pioneering country-rock group the Flying Burrito Brothers, the ISB won itself permanent footnote status in the history of pop music.

Ethridge, who has died at 65 in Meridian, Miss., of complications from pancreatic cancer, was the group's bassist, and co-wrote several songs with Parsons, widely lauded as one of the most innovative figures in the marriage of country and rock in the 1960s. Ethridge also spent about eight years in Willie Nelson's touring band, a gig during which he recorded one of Nelson's most famous anthems, 'Whiskey River.'

'Here's what people don't know or don't remember,' Hillman told The Times on Monday. 'Three of Gram's greatest songs were co-written by Chris: those would be 'Hot Burrito #1,' 'Hot Burrito #2' and 'She.'

"And I've always said: Gram Parsons' greatest recorded vocals were those two ['Hot Burrito'] songs," Hillman said. "Maybe it's my opinion, but I was there and I know I never heard him sing better than he did on those two songs. He just nailed 'em.'

Hillman said he had spoken by phone over the weekend to Ethridge, who was unable to talk. Ethridge's daughter told Hillman that her father had been hospitalized with pneumonia following a round of chemotherapy for the cancer, which had been diagnosed in September.

Ethridge was born in 1947 and raised in Meridian ' where the man known as the father of country music, Jimmie Rodgers, grew up ' and moved when he was 17 to Los Angeles. There he met Parsons and fell in with the burgeoning group of musicians who came of age listening to Elvis Presley, Chuck Berry and other seminal rock artists while also cultivating their passion for traditional country, bluegrass and folk music.