Emmylou Harris

This live project, which includes the talents of the always great Buddy Miller, is an interesting reflection of an American icon. Eclectic, it is reflective of Emmylou Harris' excursions into areas of music beyond the country and rock spheres she has already conquered. But it is the country arena that best showcases her ever-flowering ability with a song…

This is one of the most intriguing albums of Emmylou Harris' career, and that is saying a lot. It marked the first album where she wrote or co-wrote all the songs, and the strength of the songwriting makes one wonder why she had never attempted it before…

In 1990, Emmylou Harris' run of superb mid-'70s albums was over, and she hadn't yet assembled the Nash Ramblers, the acoustic band that gave her music a heady kick-start prior to her first striking collaboration with Daniel Lanois, Wrecking Ball…

There's something just the slightest bit comic about calling an Emmylou Harris album Stumble into Grace. While Harris has always sounded as if both earthly and spiritual grace were created with her in mind, when she sings, it seems she can no more stumble than a dolphin can be taught to walk on dry land. Stumble into Grace finds Harris following in the same creative path she began to pursue with Wrecking Ball and Red Dirt Girl, which is to say that the influence of her country-influenced material is more felt than heard as she dips her toes into the spectral and atmospheric accents of folk, indie pop, and world music…

That Cimarron, Emmylou Harris' ninth regular album, was assembled largely from recording sessions held for her previous couple of records is no necessary reflection on its quality. In fact, Cimarron was a typical effort for Harris, presenting her usual mix of country favorites, songs borrowed from the pop/rock arena, and singer/songwriter discoveries…

Rhino Records asked producer Brian Ahern to select his favorite tracks from the Emmylou Harris albums he helmed – he produced her first 11 studio offerings for Reprise Records. That's quite a daunting task when you consider that some of those recordings were Elite Hotel, Luxury Liner, Quarter Moon in a Ten Cent Town, and Pieces of the Sky, just to name a few. But Ahern rose to the task and put together a solid, aesthetically perfect set here, highlighting many different aspects of Harris' career at the time: from her trademark, utterly pure singing voice, to her song selection, to the sound of her band and the studio she recorded in, this is a top-notch set from start to finish and serves as an excellent introduction to her early work for the newcomer…

“A good song can survive and shine in different ways in the hands of different musicians,” says Emmylou Harris. “It can have different meanings at different times in your life. A good song can travel with you anywhere.” It’s that philosophy which has guided her fifty-year career in music, where she has covered countless songs across countless genres and put her own indelible stamp on each one. The same philosophy animates both Spyboy, her touring band in the late 1990s, and Spyboy, the 1998 live album that demonstrates how these musicians made her songs shine. Sequencing old songs alongside new ones, the album tests the tensile strength of each one, pushing them into wilder and more psychedelic territory while remaining grounded in earthy country music. It’s completely unique in her catalog, a crucial document of an important chapter in her career, and it’s finally getting reissued after years of being unavailable. “It’s such a special record,” she says. “Well, they all are, but this one is really, really special. That was such a fantastic band and such an amazing time.”

Emmylou Harris - Songbird: Rare Tracks & Forgotten Gems (2007) [4CD+DVD] {Rhino}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 1.77 Gb | MP3 @320 -> 700 Mb
DVD5 -> 2.01 Gb | All Regions | NTSC 4:3 | LPCM, 2 ch | ~ 35 m | ISO Image
Artwork @ 300 dpi (jpg) -> 12 Mb | 5% repair rar
© 2007 Rhino / Warner | 8122 79969 0 1
Country / Country Rock / Progressive Country / Traditional Country

It's difficult to write about Emmylou Harris without lapsing into a long train of superlatives – she really does have one of the most beautiful voices of her generation, and her taste in material and skill in using her instrument is nearly faultless. However, as good as Harris is and as consistently strong as her body of work has been, one could make a convincing argument that she's been frequently underrated through much of her career – more than just a lovely woman with a pure, clear voice and a fine ear, she's championed a number of gifted songwriters before they went on to have distinguished careers of their own (from Rodney Crowell to Gillian Welch), matured into a first-rate tunesmith herself, collaborated with a remarkable array of artists, and has never been afraid to take her talents into unexpected directions, from purist bluegrass to the experimental atmospherics of her work with Daniel Lanois.