70’s rock and classic country wedding, Blackbird Ranch, Joshua Tree, Pioneertown, CA. Photo: Sebastien Bicard
“Professional, knowledgeable, enthusiastic and down for a bit of an adventure. Jamie listened to our ideas and developed the perfect soundtrack for our wedding in the Joshua Tree area. He seamlessly transitioned from Gram Parsons-inspired, country/western tunes early in the event to a dance party that had the older and younger folks kicking up dust in the desert late into the night. What's more is that Jamie and his girlfriend/co-DJ, Rocky, were excited for a bit of an adventure and made the trek to the desert from SF for the wedding! Phenomenal service! Highly recommend Jamie and the folks at Ceremony DJs!!!” - Jeff Pello
A Secluded Desert Wedding in Joshua Tree National Park
This is a special one. Not only was it a great idea, but Jeff and Megan are really next level awesome. Another example of an amazing, magical venue converging with great ideas from the couple and a really receptive set of family members.
For this wedding, we made the trip down to Joshua Tree National Park for the event at Blackbird Ranch in Pioneer Town, CA. It was honestly, my first trip to the area, and while I was aware of some of the great rock and roll history that was afoot, I honestly had no idea before we saw it in person how much the whole place was steeped in rock and roll mythology.
A Gram Parsons Theme
If you know anything about music, you might know that Gram Parsons was a key figure in the merging of country music and what came to be seen as country rock in the late 60’s and early 70’s. He was a songwriter for The Byrds when they started to experiment with country music on their classic Sweetheart of the Rodeo album. He famously got them boo’d off stage at the Grand Ole Opry. He did all these great colabs with people like Emmylou Harris and was the main dude behind the Flying Burrito Brothers of “Wild Horses” fame.
Apparently Gram Parsons used to hang out in Pioneer Town like crazy, and Joshua Tree was the scene of his untimely death that comes with a whole story about his buddies finding him dead in the desert and taking him home, but then realizing he would’ve preferred to be buried in Joshua Tree, so turning around and taking his dead body back to Joshua Tree again? You can hike the trail to his death site where fans have made an informal memorial to him among the rocks, which I am kicking myself as I write this for not going to while we were there.
A Concept That Only Got Cooler
In any case, the idea was to do a Gram Parsons themed wedding essentially and riff on that intersection between classic rock and classic country while still not losing the punk and indie stuff for the dance part of the evening. We had done one or two classic rock weddings, and one or two classic folk weddings, but not an explicit country rock wedding, up until this point. So we took the opportunity to do a deep dive into the history of the area and all the related artists who are obviously just outside of LA, so it’s a whole scene.
An Epic Country Rock Ceremony
What we came up with was pretty great, but it starts with Jeff’s amazing selection of the ceremony music. The whole ceremony was themed around the Bob Dylan soundtrack to the film Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid. Which if you can imagine, with everyone in the desert wearing bolo ties among the cactus plants is amazing right there.
A 70’s Country Rock Dinner
So we set it up with some folky stuff before the ceremony. Turned up the 60’s pop country flavor a notch with some stuff like “Everybody’s Talkin’" by Nilson and “Walkin’ After Midnight” by Patsy Cline. Dove deep into 70’s country rock during dinner with stuff like Emmylou Harris, Flying Burrito Brothers, the more country stuff from The Byrd’s and The Rolling Stones. I think we even worked in some Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane and Crosby Stills and Nash for a little northern California flare.
A Soft Rock Disco Dance Party
For the dancing, we eased into it with some stuff like The Eagles “One of These Nights” and Linda Rondstat “You’re No Good” that had a disco beat, but still a country guitar flare. The idea was to riff on the stars for dancing portion and slowly work towards some modern indie things with a space disco feel, but after LCD Soundsystem “All My Friends” we just ended up going classic, punk with some stuff like The Violent Femmes and the B-52’s. I think we did the quiet part in “Rock Lobster” where it goes “Down! Down!” which in retrospect is like the punk version of how everyone always plays The Isley Brothers “Shout” at weddings, but way cooler.
A Late Night Hip Hop Quiet Storm
When it got really late and we had to turn the music down, we did kind of a quiet storm set with all new hip hop that had strong bass elements, but wouldn’t disturb the neighbors. Thanks to everyone who did a little dance for the quietest part of the evening while I tried to keep the party going even with the system turned down to one.
Big Ups & Shout Outs
Special shout out to the owner of Blackbird Ranch for being such a champ and handling all the car parking duties himself.
Special shout out to Sebastien Bicard for being Johnny on the spot with photo arrangements under the setting sun.
Special shout out to the caterer for the amazing food.
And of course, shout out to Jeff and Megan for being amazing hosts and putting us up in the campsite with everyone. We even got to stay in the hotel where Gram Parson’s stayed before he died the night after the event. So cool!
Gram Parsons definitely approves.
Ceremony Songs
Prelude:
Processional:
Bob Dylan “Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid (Main Theme)”
Recessional:
First Dance:
Father Daughter Dance
Requests:
Bon Iver “Holocene”
Jeff Buckley “Hallelujah”
Bob Dylan “Forever Young”
Neil Young “Harvest Moon”
Simon and Garfunkel “Sounds of Silence”
Sturgill Simpson “All Around You”
Beatles “Strawberry Fields Forever”
Bob Dylan “Cantina Theme (Workin' for the Law)”
Fleetwood Mac “Albatross”
My Morning Jacket “Golden”
Lord Huron “Ends of the Earth”
Venue: Blackbird Ranch / Photogrpaher: Sebastien Bicard / DJ: Ceremony DJs / Caterer: Spotted Hen Catering / Rentals: Circa Vintage Rentals / Transportation: Lin Lines Shuttles
