I might give it to
Black Sabbath but
Sweetheart of the Rodeo? I have my doubts... but I guess you might have something there
Most successful early country/rock hybrid I could think of.
I think The ALLMAN BROS. was much more influential (hadda go back to the top to spell that one!) . But thats just me opinion.
Yeah, but THE ALLMAN BROTHERS sound was influence by the Byrds---so they inherit all the bands the Allman Brothers influenced.

"When Sweetheart Of The Rodeo is measured against the music of the late sixties, and judged on its merits, and its continuing influence, the LP is undeniably a masterpiece. Sweetheart of the Rodeo was an incredibly bold and daring concept LP, that was obviously doomed to commercial failure, but it provided the spark that sent American popular music searching for its roots. The LP is one of the seminal albums of the era, a profoundly important recording that changed the direction of American popular music overnight, influencing performers like Crosby, Stills, & Nash, the Grateful Dead, the Eagles, Bob Dylan, the Flying Burrito Brothers, the Rolling Stones, Poco, Pure Prairie League, Little Feat, Linda Ronstadt, the Beatles, Neil Young, and Elvis Costello. Sweetheart of the Rodeo also laid the groundwork for the Southern Rock movement of the early seventies, with groups like the Allman Brothers Band, Wet Willie, the Charlie Daniels Band, and the Marshall Tucker Band mining the rich vein of southern music tradition."--
some guyLike it or not it was an influential record.
I don't entirely agree; listen to
RICK NELSON's '60s DECCA records
Bright Lights/Country Music and
Country Fever which were there before
THE BYRDS were (a direction he continued with
THE STONE CANYON BAND).
NELSON also had more and more Country Rock on his later Imperial releases which are very early '60s (particularly
Album Seven by Rick). More importantly,
Sweetheart of the Rodeo is a landmark because of the artists who worked on it, the fact it brought them together, particularly
GRAM PARSONS and
CHRIS HILLMAN (heart and soul of
THE FLYING BURRITO BROTHERS) and the influence their sound had on later bands, the "California sound" often attributed to
THE BYRDS, but they're only part of the story.