Emmylou Harris
All I Intended to Be
(Nonesuch, 2008)

There are many music fans who know the basic story of Emmylou Harris’ career. She was discovered at a small club by Chris Hillman and Gram Parsons of the Flying Burrito Brothers, and was first recognized by a sizeable audience on record on Gram Parsons’ legendary solo albums. She then began recording for a major label on her own, making albums with a country-based folk approach, which reinterpreted songs that had tremendous appeal to the burgeoning ’70s soft rock crowd. She eventually veered closer to country and, despite her own uncompromising style and approach, made a place for herself in the sometimes insular world of country music.

Throughout those first 15 years or so, Harris solidified a place for herself in country music, while still playing with and enjoying the admiration of rock music fans. Given the musical culture of Nashville, Harris could have easily maintained her country base, had a long and fruitful career recording and performing, and been one of the true sweethearts of the country music rodeo. Always interested in many forms of music, and occasionally collaborating with some unlikely artists, Harris made an album in 1995 that proved her to be one of the most eclectic and musically adventurous artists in music. The album, her second for Elektra, was Wrecking Ball. Produced by Daniel Lanois and including interpretations from Jimi Hendrix, Bob Dylan, Neil Young, and Lucinda Williams, the album rightfully placed her among the pantheon of Young and other contemporaries, and reminded listeners that folks like Lucinda Williams may never have existed without Harris’s influence. The album was not a calculated career move, but instead the fruit of a restless musical soul seeking to sing songs of heartfelt meaning regardless of what style of music they were. Since Wrecking Ball, Harris has made some of her most personal and stylistically varied albums, including Red Dirt Girl, Stumble Into Grace, the live Spyboy album, and All the Roadrunning, her collaboration with Mark Knopfler. On those albums, as on her new one, Harris shows herself to be at her most prolific as a songwriter. Even more compelling is the fact that the songs proudly stand alongside her well-chosen covers.

It is Harris’ choice of material that truly sets her apart from so many other artists, as is the case again on this new album, her first in five years and one that finds her working again with her original producer, Brian Ahern. It would seem simple on the surface for an artist to simply pick good songs and be successful, but often that just isn’t the case. Harris has an uncanny knack for performing songs both familiar and unfamiliar. She also mixes in her own songs seamlessly, making Harris’ recent albums, including this new one, some of the best music she has ever made.

It’s hard to categorize the music Harris is making on this new album and ultimately it doesn’t matter. The country base is still there (the album was primarily recorded in Nashville), but there’s a richness and fullness of sound to the music, without being overly produced, that makes it so riveting. In the end, though, her voice remains the heart of her music. The aching compassion with which she sings reveals a voice as real as any in music today.

Harris begins the album with songs by relative unknowns such as Jack Wesley Routh and Jude Johnstone, and then covers songwriters with which the current music cognoscenti are very familiar (Patti Griffin and Mark Germino). She is surprisingly able to make these disparate songs sound like they are hers. There are three songs she wrote herself and they are as good as anything she has ever written. The two she co-wrote with Kate and Anna McGarrigle are musically adventurous and are quite different from anything she has done before. Support from the McGarrigle sisters on vocals and certain musical touches strongly bear the imprint of their style. The centerpiece of the album in many ways is Harris’ cover of Tracy Chapman’s “All That You Have is Your Soul”, which Harris somehow makes all her own. The track that is the most unique here is her cover of Billy Joe Shaver’s “Old Five and Dimers Like Me”, the song from which she draws the title of the album, on which Shaver effectively adds vocals. The cover of Merle Haggard’s “Kern River” is a small gem.

It’s striking how Harris can both harken back to old-time music and also cover newer songs, or write new songs that sound so urgently of today. It would appear that Harris is simply incapable of making a bad album. After hearing this superb recording, let’s hope she doesn’t take five years to release her next effort.

Listen to: “Hold On” [at myspace.com]

More articles by Steve Matteo:

Album review of Sarah Bettend, Shine

Meet the Smithereens… Again!

Album review of Monade, Monstre Cosmic