Although it was not the first country rock album, "Sweetheart of the Rodeo" was the first album widely labeled as country rock to be released by an internationally successful rock act, pre-dating the release of Bob Dylan's "Nashville Skyline" by over six months. The first bona fide country rock album is often cited as being "Safe at Home" by Parsons' previous group, The International Submarine Band. However, the genre's antecedents can be traced back to the Rockabilly music of the 1950s, the Beatles' covers of Carl Perkins and Buck Owens' material on "Beatles For Sale" and "Help!", as well as the stripped down arrangements of Dylan's "John Wesley Harding" album and the Byrds' own forays into country music on their pre-"Sweetheart" albums. The Band's debut album, "Music from Big Pink", released in July 1968, was also influential on the genre, but it was "Sweetheart of the Rodeo" that saw an established rock band playing pure country music for the first time.