But in fact, this film is only the first documentary to be made about the man, who died after an alcohol and drug-fuelled binge in 1973, aged 26. His remarkable music was an electric merger between the traditional country balladeering of a George Jones or a Merle HaggardL with the throbbing rock scene of the late '60s and '70s. "Cosmic American music" is how the man himself termed it, and drug-buddy Keith Richards termed his uniquely soulful vocals as "a kind of beautiful pain".

It was no rags to riches tale, coming as he did from an extremely affluent southern family that had more traumas than a Tennessee Williams play. Alcoholic father commits suicide, mother marries man who becomes mentor to Gram, mother dies after years of alcoholism. Thanks to a huge trust fund, after dropping out of Harvard he pursued his music career without worrying about paying the rent the way other musicians had to.

While his time in The Byrds and The Flying Burrito Brothers yielded immortal music that will make us all cry forever, bandmates reveal here Gram's ambition to achieve a pop stardom akin to The Beatles and the lifestyle that went with it, which often made him neglect the songs. Hillman's comments are particularly interesting, qualifying his love and respect for his friend with a mild disdain for his scatty unprofessionalism and lust for celebrity.

Emmylou Harris is also on hand to recall her involvement with Gram in the studio and the melee that was their tour together. She seems to understand the revolution his music was best of all. Other input comes from Richards, REM's Peter Buck and Dwight Yoakam along with surviving family and ex-band members. Wife Gretchen was portrayed as a gold-digging harridan in the 2003 film Grand Theft Parsons which told the story of how Parsons' roadie Phil Kaufman stole his corpse and drove into the Joshua Tree desert and cremated him, honouring a pact the two made. Gretchen talks with disgust about this incident, as do his sisters, while Kaufman himself speaks of an intimacy with Parsons these women never achieved.

The beauty of his music and the tragedy of his life means that it was virtually impossible for director Gandulf Hennig to avoid mythologizing Parsons. Jarringly, some talk of Parsons here as if he were some other-worldly phenomenon. We don't need this. The remarkable tale of Parsons' life and death are entertaining enough. There are plenty of his songs too (it is the music that is otherworldly), just to tug at your heartstrings a bit more.

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