Emmylou Harris Albums (24)
'All I Intended to Be'
Release Date 1/1/2008
Tracks 13
Label Nonesuch
See Album Tracklist and Review
What The Critics Say
In 1995, Emmylou Harris made a decisive break with her creative past, recording the album Wrecking Ball with producer Daniel Lanois and abandoning the traditional country purity of her best-known work for lovely but spectral musical landscapes and exploring her muse as a songwriter in a way she had never attempted before. After Wrecking Ball, Harris recorded three albums in which she made the most of her new creative freedom and honed her impressive gifts as a songwriter, but All I Intended to Be, her first new release in five years, finds her reaching back toward a sound and style that recall the country and folk influences of her earlier work. But All I Intended to Be is clearly the work of an artist who is looking to the past entirely on her own terms, and with the lessons learned since 1995 clearly audible at all times. All I Intended to Be was produced by Brian Ahern, who was behind the controls for most of her albums of the '70s and '80s, and it features a handful of session players who worked with Harris and Ahern in the past, while Harris' occasional partner in harmony Dolly Parton contributes backing vocals to "Gold" (as does Vince Gill). The album's largely acoustic textures manage to sound both homey and fresh; if the melodies and the arrangements nod politely to traditional country sounds (and hold hands on "Gold"), the space in the production and the unpretentious artfulness of the songs reflect an intelligence and restraint largely absent from country music in the new millennium. Harris wrote or co-wrote six of these 13 songs, leaving more room for covers than on Red Dirt Girl or Stumble into Grace, but the tone of the album is consistent throughout, and she brings a streamlined passion to material by Patty Griffin, Billy Joe Shaver, and Merle Haggard that makes them her own. (Harris also writes and sings several tunes with Kate and Anna McGarrigle in what continues to be a truly inspired collaboration.) And as always, the most memorable thing about All I Intended to Be is Emmylou Harris' voice; there are few singers in any genre with a greater natural skill and better instincts, and as wonderful as these songs are and as fine a band as she and Ahern have on hand, it's her glorious voice that turns these simple materials into gold, and she only improves with the passage of the years. The surfaces of this album may seem less bold than the albums that immediately preceded it, but All I Intended to Be is the work of a consummate artist who is still reaching out to new places even when she points to her creative history. ~ Mark Deming, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
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. While Harris has long been just as interested in nuance and blank spaces as the notes of her songs, producer Malcolm Burn (who also collaborated with her on Red Dirt Girl) knows what to make of the purposefully spare surfaces of these new songs (which, again, like Red Dirt Girl, were, for the most part, written by Harris herself), and the results are splendid. Part of the revelation of Wrecking Ball and Red Dirt Girl was hearing Harris moving in a startling new direction, and while Stumble into Grace seems less novel in the context of its immediate predecessors, the bitter clarity of "Time in Babylon," the gentle but energetic textures of "Little Bird," and the funky shuffle of "Jupiter Rising" confirm that she hasn't run out of new avenues to explore. After three decades as a world-class talent, what's most heartening is that Harris is not only making some of the finest music of her career at a time when many artists would be treading water, but she's delightfully confounding expectations at the same time. Stumble into Grace shows she's still playing at the top of her game. ~ Mark Deming, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
On her 29th album, Emmylou Harris continues the evolution from innocent folkie to present day renaissance woman. Alternately sparse and lush, Red Dirt Girl can be seen as a companion piece to 1995's Wrecking Ball with the production credits going to Malcom Burn (who previously worked with Harris engineering and mixing Wrecking Ball). Here, drum loops and middle eastern melodies nestle in comfortably next to warm guitar work and Harris' gently wavering voice. Her extensive guest work on dozens and dozens of recent releases (showing up on albums by everyone from Guy Clark to Midnight Oil) pays off with great help from Bruce Springsteen, Patti Scialfa, Buddy and Julie Miller, Guy Clark, Kate McGarrigle, and even alt-rock upstarts Dave Matthews and Luscious Jackson's Jill Cunniff. The diverse production only adds to Harris' earthy songwriting, adding interest to what could otherwise be lulls during the more subdued songs, and really showcases the understated lyrics that the singer has slowly become recognized for. The teary dirge "Bang the Drum Slowly" written for her father (who died in 1993) wrings with emotion and ethereal atmosphere, while "J'ai Fait Tout" (co-written with Cunniff) is an upbeat and jangly pop song, complete with hip-shakin' tambourine. While this is a big departure from her rootsy '70s releases like Blue Kentucky Girl and Roses in the Snow, it still burns with an honest intensity and clear voice that Harris is known for 20 years later. ~ Zac Johnson, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
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. "I Ain't Living Long Like This" and "Love Hurts" stand out boldly. "Tulsa Queen," a co-write with Rodney Crowell, is an amazing display of her vocal prowess, as is the a cappella "Calling My Children Home." "Boulder to Birmingham" is equally effective in its power and intensity, while Jesse Winchester's "My Songbird" seems to be custom-made for Harris. She delivers in triplicate on the traditional "Green Pastures." Still, even after all these years, there is a transcendent emotional depth and connection when Harris performs "Wheels," a song written by Chris Hillman and Harris' early mentor, Gram Parsons. Her relationship with Parsons is well documented, but it is best evidenced by her performances of the work he left behind, as this performance of "Wheels" proves. An original, she continues to conjure up interesting and diverse vocals, while giving her talented bandmembers the go-ahead to show off their skills as well. This live project is awe-inspiring, much like Emmylou Harris herself. ~ Jana Pendragon, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
Wrecking Ball is a leftfield masterpiece, the most wide-ranging, innovative, and daring record in a career built on such notions. Rich in atmosphere and haunting in its dark complexity, much of the due credit belongs to producer Daniel Lanois; best known for his work with pop superstars like U2 and Peter Gabriel, on Wrecking Ball Lanois taps into the very essence of what makes Harris tick -- the gossamer vocals, the flawless phrasing -- while also opening up innumerable new avenues for her talents to explore. The songs shimmer and swirl, given life through Lanois' trademark ringing guitar textures and the almost primal drumming of U2's Larry Mullen, Jr. The fixed point remains Harris' voice, which leaps into each and every one of these diverse compositions -- culled from the pens of Neil Young, Bob Dylan, Jimi Hendrix, Steve Earle, and others -- with utter fearlessness, as if this were the album she'd been waiting her entire life to make. Maybe it is. ~ Jason Ankeny, All Music Guide
'Cowgirl's Prayer'
Release Date 1/1/1993
Tracks 11
Label Elektra/Asylum
See Album Tracklist and Review
What The Critics Say
Cowgirl's Prayer, recorded in 1993, was the last album Emmylou Harris recorded before beginning a long association with producer and songwriter Daniel Lanois, creating her band Spyboy, and recording her exit from Elektra with Wrecking Ball. In other words, it was the last "traditional" Emmylou Harris record. Produced by Allen Reynolds and Richard Bennett, it features 11 stellar cuts by songwriters such as Lucinda Williams ("Crescent City"), Leonard Cohen ("Ballad of a Runaway Horse"), David Olney ("Jerusalem Tomorrow"), Kieran Kane ("The Light"), Eddy Arnold (the classic "You Don't Know Me"), and, in a welcome change, Harris herself ("Prayer in Open D"). This is also filled with Nashville session aces as well as Kane; backing vocalists who include Trisha Yearwood, Alison Krauss, and Ashley Cleveland; and famed bassist Edgar Meyer. The Arnold track, Harris' own composition, and her reading of Williams' "Crescent City" are standouts to be sure, in that Harris allows her voice to move deeper into the lyric than the arrangements would normally allow. But it is on Olney's "Jerusalem Tomorrow" that the weight of the album rests, with Al Perkins' whining pedal steel and Sam Levine's clarinet winding their way through the mix. The story involves a charlatan who heals the sick and makes a mute speak, a false prophet who feels his game is being eclipsed by a strange, wandering Galilean who doesn't charge for his works of wonder. When the false prophet encounters Jesus, he decides to go along with his game as long as his way is paid, and prepares to go into Jerusalem the next day. Given that it is spoken and not sung, Harris dislocates her way of conveying emotion in a song; that she becomes convincing as a male figure is another shapeshift, and finally that there is no overly moral tone in her delivery, but strictly one of empathy, opens up not only the song, but Harris and the rest of the album to an entirely different set of critical criteria. Cowgirl's Prayer is one of Harris' most emotionally honest and musically satisfying recordings that matches the intensity, diversity, and musical ambition of her earliest works. ~ Thom Jurek, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
This is the album debut of the Nashville Ramblers, her acoustic backing band featuring Sam Bush and Roy Huskey Jr, recorded over three nights in the former home of the Grand Ole Opry. Harris's choice of songs strikes a balance between hillbilly classics and folk-influenced rock, with Bill Monroe receiving heaviest tribute but sharing space with Tex Owens, Bruce Springsteen, and John Fogerty. ~ Brian Mansfield, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
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. As a result, Brand New Dance captures Harris at the end of one cycle and just before the start of another, and the material and production suggest Harris was ready for some changes. Emmylou Harris probably couldn't make a truly bad album if she tried, and as always, she's in lovely voice on Brand New Dance, but she doesn't always sound especially engaged with the material, most of which falls into the "good-but-not-great" category (notable exceptions -- a strong cover of Bruce Springsteen's "Tougher Than the Rest" and the title cut). In addition, producer Allen Reynolds puts a shade too much pop-friendly gloss on the arrangements and mix for several of these tunes, and despite the presence of a truly impressive team of accompanists, this album never quite catches fire as in Harris' best work. Brand New Dance is a strong and professional piece of work, but Harris' next few albums would remind fans she was capable of a lot more than that. ~ Mark Deming, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
Like most of Emmylou Harris' albums, Bluebird is an expertly performed album, featuring some truly startling and affecting tour de forces. The material features a handful of truly great songs, like John Hiatt's "Icy Blue Heart" and her original "A River for Him." ~ Thom Owens, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
Angel Band is yet another fascinating left turn, an acoustic record comprised of country-gospel songs like "We Shall Rise, " "If I Be Lifted Up" and "Someday My Ship Will Sail, " performed with great subtlety and nuance. ~ Jason Ankeny, All Music Guide
