Emmylou Harris - Songbird: Rare Tracks & Forgotten Gems

Four-disc booty of personal faves and unreleased beauties

Emmylou Harris’ career has been uncommonly consistent. A song server who once defined herself as “a channel for music”, she’s been guided by an intuitive ability for both inhabiting a song and poking at its boundaries. At odds with mainstream Nashville, Emmylou’s country is no place for beery weepies or outsized Stetsons. In keeping with her unshowy approach, this handsome package is a selflessly pruned set. Only two tunes, Lucinda Williams’ deeply atmospheric Sweet Old World and Anna McGarrigle’s Going Back To Harlan, make the cut from 1995’s career-reviving Wrecking Ball, while 2001 masterpiece Red Dirt Girl is represented by a lone Bang The Drum Slowly. Instead, Harris devotes two discs to her work with others, including 12 unreleased songs. Of these, 1978’s emotive Palms Of Victory, salvaged from unfinished business with Dolly Parton and Linda Ronstadt, is dazzling, as is unvarnished demo All I Left Behind and an aching reading of David Olney’s 1917, again with Ronstadt, that’s almost unbearably intense. Naturally, her heroes and mentors are given their dues too. After years of grinding the East Coast folk circuit, both Gram Parsons duets, The Angels Rejoiced Last Night and The Old Country Baptizing, are palpably infused with the spirit of someone stumbling upon their true calling. Post-Gram, 1976’s Tulsa Queen shows her blossoming in spectacular style. Many others feature here too, from George and Merle to Beck and Sheryl Crow, but this is Harris’ own singular journey. Like Gram said: “There just ain’t no way she’s not going to break your heart.”

Rhino | R2 74744

Reviewed by Rob Hughes
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