Providing pliant young ladies, procuring mind-altering substances and bailing fast-living charges out of jail are the traditional responsibilities of the road manager.

But cult country singer Gram Parson's "executive nanny" also had the task of carrying out his employer's last desire - cremating his body in the Californian desert he loved.

When Gram finally checks out with a drugs overdose in a ramshackle motel, his manager Phil Kaufman (Knoxville) finds his dying wish is anything but straightforward.

For a start, the body is already at Los Angeles airport, where it is due to be picked by Gram's father for a traditional funeral back in New Orleans.

Secondly, Gram's mistress Barbara (Applegate) is insisting that a notice scribbled by the dead singer is a legally binding document leaving everything to her.

Recruiting stoned hippie Larry (Shannon) and his flower-power hearse Bernice, Phil reclaims the body from an airport hanger and heads off for the desert.

Unashamedly low budget, this shines with a shambolic charm with Knoxville displaying a nicely controlled performance at odds with his manic Jackass personas.

There's a pleasing anti-hippy bias ("Where there's a hippy there's a crime," one patrolman comments) and a satisfying acreage of cheesecloth and indiaprint.

Parsons purists probably won't like it - his father actually died when he was just ten and he was apparently happily married without a grasping harpy on the sidelines.

However, as an irresistible piece of rock'n'roll folklore made celluloid it displays a low-key decency and obvious affection for the dead singer.

As it's often been said, better to burn out than fade away.

Tim Evans