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All I Intended To Be - Emmylou Harris
Sunday, July 13, 2008
Her talent is as undiminished as her feeling for the music. By Brian Wise
Emmylou Harris
All I Intended To Be
Nonesuch
For some fans, such as myself, the high point of Emmylou Harris’s formidable recording career came in 1995 with the Daniel Lanois-produced Wrecking Ball. It was an astonishing development in her career and showed just how adventurous and ground-breaking an artist she could be (as if her recordings with Gram Parsons had not proved that more than two decades earlier).
Harris has certainly been busy in recent years - collaborating with Mark Knopfler, touring with Neil Young and Elvis Costello and assembling a boxed set. So this is a welcome return to the studio for a singer who could, frankly, sing the phone book and make it sound entertaining.
All I Intended To Be is Harris’s first new release in five years and harks back to the country and folk influences of her earlier work but with some of the wide screen feeling of Lanois’ production, under the direction of former partner Brian Ahern (who worked with her in the ‘70s and ‘80s). The previous studio albums Stumble Into Grace and Red Dirt Girl helped to get Harris into songwriting and, though she expressed some initial trepidation at this, she has certainly proved herself in this arena.
Harris has contributed five originals or co-writes (with Kate and Anna McGarrigle) to the new album, as evidence of her growing prowess as a writer. She has also chosen some superb songs to interpret, including Patty Griffin’s ‘Moon Song,’ Merle Haggard's ‘Kern River,’ Mark Germino’s ‘Broken Man’s Lament,’ Billy Joe Shaver's ‘Old Five and Dimers Like Me’ and Tracy Chapman’s ‘All That You Have Is Your Soul.’
The album opens with Jack Wesley Routh’s ‘Shores Of The White Sand’ and closes with his co-write with JC Crowley, ‘Beyond The Great Divide.’ The former song having a Lanois feel, the latter (with a harmony vocal from John Starling) having a more modern country feel. Book ending the album with these selections almost seems to be a statement about its intent. ‘How She Could Sing The Wildwood Flower,’ a tribute to June Carter Cash co –written with Kate and Anna McGarrigle, sounds like an instant classic.
Guests include Dolly Parton on Harris’s ‘Gold’ and Vince Gill duetting on Chapman's song, while the studio band includes such great names as Emory Gordy on bass, Bill Payne (Little Feat) and Glen D Hardin on keyboards, Greg Leisz on slide electric guitar and Buddy Miller and the McGarrigles on harmony vocals.
It is a superb collection of musicians and singers, with Harris demonstrating with her pristine voice that her talent is as undiminished as her feeling for the music.