Although McGuinn had some reservations about the band's proposed new direction, Parsons convinced him that a move towards country music could theoretically expand the group's declining audience. Thus, McGuinn was persuaded to change direction and abandon his original concept for the group's next album, which had been to record a history of 20th century American popular music, and instead explore country rock.
On March 9, 1968, the band decamped to Columbia's recording studios in Nashville, Tennessee, with Clarence White in tow, to begin the recording sessions for the Sweetheart of the Rodeo album. While in Nashville, the Byrds also appeared at the Grand Ole Opry on March 15, 1968, where they performed the Merle Haggard song "Sing Me Back Home" and Parsons' own "Hickory Wind" (although they were actually scheduled to play a second Haggard song, "Life in Prison"). Being the first group of hippie "longhairs" ever to play at the venerable country music institution, the band was met with heckling, booing, and mocking calls of "tweet, tweet" from the conservative Opry audience.
The band also incurred the wrath of renowned country music DJ Ralph Emery, when they appeared on his Nashville-based WSM radio program. Emery mocked the band throughout their interview and made no secret of his dislike for their newly recorded country rock single, "You Ain't Goin' Nowhere". Parsons and McGuinn would later write the pointedly sarcastic song "Drug Store Truck Drivin' Man" about Emery and their appearance on his show. Journalist David Fricke has described the reactions of Emery and the Grand Ole Opry audience as indicative of the resistance and hostility that the Byrds' venture into country music provoked from the Nashville old guard.
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