Steve Harris

Clarinettist Barnaby Robson performs a rich programme of 20th-century and contemporary music for clarinet and piano, including world-premiere recordings. The release opens with Barnaby Robson’s collaboration with BAFTA-winning sound designer Martin Cantwell: a recording of Steve Reich’s intricate New York Counterpoint, which involves eleven pre-recorded clarinet lines. Herbert Howells is celebrated for his choral music but his instrumental works are less famous; with pianist Fiona Harris, Robson performs the 1946 version of Howells’s Clarinet Sonata, never recorded before.

Tribute albums frequently betray their subject, but not this homage to Johnny Cash’s Bitter Tears, the country giant’s 1964 salute to Native Americans. A concept album about a discomfiting cause – the US’s treatment of its indigenous people – Tears was a radical statement resisted, to Cash’s fury, by the Nashville establishment. For its 50th anniversary, producer Joe Henry gathers a stellar house band that takes turns to lead. Gillian Welch delivers an entrancing As Long As the Grass Shall Grow; Emmylou does likewise with Apache Tears. Steve Earle drawls: “I ain’t no fan of Custer” and instrumentals evoke North America’s haunted plains. Very fine.

Emmylou Harris - Wrecking Ball (2014) [2CD+DVD] {Nonesuch Remastered Deluxe Edition}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 642 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 239 Mb
DVD5 -> 3.50 Gb | All Regions | NTSC 16:9 | Dolby AC3, 2 ch | ~ 50m | ISO Image
Full Artwork @ 600 dpi (jpg) -> 103 Mb | 5% repair rar
© 2014 Nonesuch Records / WEA | 7559-79822-4
Country / Folk / Alternative Country / Contemporary Country / Progressive Country

Emmylou Harris’s groundbreaking album Wrecking Ball reissued April 8 on Nonesuch Records. Produced by Daniel Lanois (U2, Bob Dylan, Neil Young, Willie Nelson), Wrecking Ball won the 1996 Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Folk Album and was highly praised by critics worldwide. The new three-disc set features the remastered original album, a bonus CD of previously unreleased material, and a DVD of the documentary Building the Wrecking Ball, which was directed by Bob Lanois and includes interviews and studio footage of Harris and Lanois as well as special guests Kate and Anna McGarrigle, Neil Young, Steve Earle, Brian Blade, and others.

This double-disc reissue documents one of the more curious careers in country music. Both 1978's White Mansions and 1980's The Legend of Jesse James are Southern song cycles that were conceived by Britain's Paul Kennerley, then an unknown songwriter who somehow recruited a high-profile cast for each. A Civil War saga from the Southern perspective, White Mansions suffers from caricature and cliché but benefits from signature contributions by Waylon Jennings, Jessi Colter, and Eric Clapton. Jesse James has more focus and narrative momentum, with Levon Helm, Johnny Cash, and Emmylou Harris in lead roles. Though the albums are more noteworthy for artistic ambition than memorable material, Kennerley subsequently became a successful Nashville songwriter.

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.

Emmylou Harris - Singin' With Emmylou, Vol. 1 & Vol. 2 (2003) {Raven Records RVCD-93/RVCD-164}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 863 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 333 Mb
Full Artwork @ 300 dpi (jpg) -> 49 Mb | 5% repair rar
© 2000, 2003 Raven Records | RVCD-93 / RVCD-164
Country / Progressive Country / Alternative Country / Country Rock / Contemporary Country

Although it is no secret that Emmylou Harris is one of the modern era's most prolific guest vocalists, it's only when you see her appearances laid out one after the other that you realize just how many other performers have called upon her over the years – a gamut that runs from Linda Ronstadt to Little Feat, from Bob Dylan to Bonnie Raitt.