SHELTER: ME (LORD)

 At times of terror and turbulence we, as humans, often seek solace or succour from a higher power, quite whatever that might be. And, no, this isn't extending a troll to the many millions who hold dear such an idea, certain of the reality. I get the need, sure, I get the need, even often wishing I could accept what I can't fully embrace. But I don't believe, arguably more agnostic than atheist, but fully respect the want of others to have a faith. So much so that I can absolutely love the musical convictions offered by those with belief and surety. Religious music can move me to tears and frequently does. Here, as the ravages rained down upon Ukraine fill our 24 hour rolling news channels, I feel sure, were I in the maelstrom of Mariupol, that it would be songs like this that would be filling my head.

One could easily assume the above, as performed by Louisiana bluesman Tab Benoit, to be an ancient spiritual, handed down from generation to generation, even brought over on the slave ships, so earthy, rugged and real the entreaty. I certainly assumed so, Benoit having the knack of uprooting the overlooked and arcane to cover for his repertoire of authentic sounding country blues from the bayous. Having a voice like an earthquake and adept workmanlike precision on his guitar certainly hinders little. Hell, if you forgive the use of the word in this context, he just makes you want to believe in his God. (Or, at least, to take the Marc Cohn option, "Ma'am, I am tonight!")

But it isn't an old hymn, as I discovered, coming from a much more recent source. Here, above, is the original version, as appearing on Buddy Miller's 2004 album, Universal House of Prayer. I sometimes feel an overt Christian faith is deemed as disadvantageous in the world of rock and roll, not least as the Devil is said to have the best songs. Well, if that is the case, someone forgot to tell Buddy Miller, hotshot guitarist and record producer, who has played alongside both Robert Plant and Emmylou Harris, and produced, amongst others, Richard Thompson and Patty Griffin. This is as well as having his own solo career and that as a duet, with his wife, Julie, who actually wrote the song featured. Below is a live version, Buddy with three of his famous friends, Emmylou, Patty and, also a recipient of his production work, Shawn Colvin.

Quite apart from the couldn't be clearer lyrical thrust, is the odd fact that this self same song was used as the theme of a TV reality show in the U.S. Named Sons of Guns, it was about the life and business of a gun dealership. Which sorta sits uncomfortably. So, get rid the thought of it selling guns, and concentrate on applying it to losing the guns, and tanks, and bombs, from Ukraine, or, at least, from the hands of Putin's "military exercise". Maybe offered up as a prayer?

Have a last version, this time from Canada's excellent Blackie and the Rodeo Kings, joined here by no less than Mrs Springsteen herself, Patti Scialfa:

Shelter Tab, Buddy and Blackie's.

STRANGE/WEIRD: COMFORT OF STRANGERS - BETH ORTON

I suppose there is some assumption that strange and weird are the same. Perhaps the easiest way to dispel that is with a substitution. The idea of the comfort of strangers is a long held balm, having companionship without any knowledge or judgement of your back story. The comfort of weirdos is just wrong, I think. Usually, anyway.

Beth Orton has had a long career, only fleetingly making her way into these pages. Probably a bigger name on this side of the pond, she has had quite a game with the avoidance of genre typecasting, making her idiosyncratic way between electronica, folk and, even, a brief dabble with neo-soul.

Don't Wanna Know (About Evil)

Early work was almost exclusively in dance/electronica, collaborating first with William Ørbit ('Ray of Light'), and later with Andrew Weatherall ('Screamadelica'). However, her future direction was defined possibly more by the Japan only single she made with Ørbit, released under the name Spill, and shown in the clip above, a cover of one of John Martyn's better known songs. Her first work under her own name came 4 years later, in 1996, with Trailer Park, led ahead by the single, another cover, this time, demonstrating an eclecticism of source material, of the Ronettes. However, it was her own songs that were the more noticed, a heady mix of plaintive and faltering vocals, underpinned by thoughtful electronic sounds and beats. First featured in her superpinkymandy album, collaborating still with Ørbit, see how the song below has shifted from its initial sound, to how it reappeared on Trailer Park, with Weatherall now at the controls.

She Cries Your Name

Touring the U.S. with the near all female festival collective, Lilith Fair, brought her into contact with american audiences for the first time, as she made influential links with soul man Terry Callier and with country stateswoman, Emmylou Harris, who appeared on her 2nd album, Central Reservation, and 3rd album, Daybreaker, respectively. Gradually she was making an imprint, with Daybreaker selling north of 150k in the states.

Comfort of Strangers

And so to 2006 and the album that heads this piece, it finding her forsaking, largely, the electronica aspects for a more organic sound. Perhaps the title is apt, as, yet again she has another producer, Jim Rourke, both Ben Watt (EBTG) who produced much of the earlier two albums, having been ditched, along with her record company. Likewise, in the same way as Johnny Marr and Ryan Adams had writing co-credits on earlier albums, this time M.Ward just happened to be on hand for a share of the title track.

Magpie

A prolonged delay then followed, as she was preoccupied both with parenthood and the ravages of auto-immune gut affectation, Crohn's disease. Nonetheless, having spent some of the intervening time picking up guitar techniques from no less than Bert Jansch, 2012's Sugaring Season, was heralded as her best, and features contributions from Laura Veirs and, by now, her husband, Sam Amidon. Again, this is predominantly espousing her earlier style, more folk than 'tronica. So quite why she went back full circle for her next outing is anyone's guess. Whilst lauded at the time, Kidsticks I found lacklustre in songs and glib in the simplicity of the synthesised backing tracks. It made more waves by upsetting Joshua Tree lovers, the original video for song, 1973 having to be withdrawn. Thankfully, when I caught her live, in 2018, she was back to the simpler relative acousticity, herself, a battered six-string and solitary additional backing from (electric) guitar. I wrote about it, she getting but a fleeting mention. I await with interest as to her next magpie step and to which strangers will give her comfort.

Don't let her be a stranger.

HORSE/S: PONY/S, DONKEY/S, MULE/S & ASS/ES

All the same thing, aren't they? All have hooves and tails, and the why-the-long-faces, so, yes, they must be. OK, I know, they aren't, but can you all recall the differences? I will assume that you know horses, the odd-toed ungulate mammal, whether cart, race or just a plain old Dobbin, so, moving swiftly on......

Jenny's Got a Pony/Los Lobos

I haven't a clue what this song, by the always excellent Los Lobos, could possibly be about. Is there much of a pony population in East L.A.? Anyhow, this riveting ride, SWIDT, comes from their 1990 opus, 'The Neighbourhood', showing off their best, a fusion of latino, tex-mex and plain good old rock'n'roll. Ponies are horses, in fact, the delineation tending to relate to smaller sizes of beast. Whilst clearly there are tiny ones, whether your steed is a horse or a pony is often as much in the eye of the beholder. In slang a pony might be a small amount of liquor. Is that what Jenny got? Alternatively,  in my country a pony is £25, increasingly equal to $25.

Donkey Town/Mark Knopfler & Emmylou Harris

Donkeys are not horses, but are very close. I think they look cuter but traditionally have tended more to be more beasts of burden than for racing. And to be the butt of many an insult, the derogatory opinion being that donkeys are for peasants, horses being only fit for the higher echelons. Hence, I guess, this song, from the, at the time, critically underacclaimed album of duets, Knopfler imagining himself, yeah, right, as a loser in a one horse, sorry, donkey town. If Emmylou were there, chum, I'd stay.

Muleskinner Blues/The Cramps

This is where it all gets a bit surreal, as I explain a muleskinner is ahead of a mule. And, until today, I had the notion that the pelt of a mule might be a useful commodity. Good leather or something like that. Wrongity-wrong, it is the human handler of a mule or a set of mules. So called as you had to be quick witted to outsmart them, or "outskin" them, me, neither, given their stubbornness. No wonder they got the blues, the song originally a hit for Jimmie Rodgers in the 30s, before the Cramps gave it a reverential kick up the, um, ass. We don't feature the late lamented Cramps here enough, I feel. 

A mule is the sterile progeny of when a horse, or pony, mates with a donkey, the genetics close enough to procreate but not close enough to prolong the line further. It seems a bit of a long way to go for a somewhat short end to me. But, mule lovers, worry not, they can now be cloned. Mule is also slang for the middle man in a drugs heist, responsible for transporting the illicit material across county lines and continents, often, literally, in their "middles". Why the name? Presumably as such individuals are seen as slow witted carriers of little importance beyond the carriage of the goods. Confusingly, what they carry may often go by the slang of horse. Or, perhaps in a sly dig at its retrieval, shit.

Jack Ass/Beck

Here's where I could get myself into trouble, as in get my ass kicked, mixing and muddling my homonyms. But, I will resist that temptation and stick to the literal, wherein Beck Hansen compares his situation to that of a Jack, or male, Ass, or donkey, the two terms being near equivalent. (See horse/pony). So it is really back to Mark Knopfler and his donkey town, self-esteem apparently quite a rare premium for worldwide superstars. But, in recompense for reading this far, I can't but leave you without just a little horseplay...... (Spoiler: twerk free; have you ever typed ass into youtube?)

Get Off Your Ass and Jam/Funkadelic

Pony, donkey, mule, ass (or ass.)

IN MEMORIAM: LIAM ÓG O’FLYNN

A much more influential individual than the blank expression that meets the hearing of his name in most circles, O'Flynn was the first uillean pipe player to gain notice to a rock and roll audience, as a core member of the first Irish traditional act to really break through to the same. No, I don't refer to either the Chieftains or to Sweeney's Men, pacesetters though they were. I refer to the mighty and majestic Planxty. The Chieftains were important, for sure, breaking down barriers and bringing the music into respectability outside of otherwise hooleys and bar sessions, latterly also for their work with major names in the fields of folk, country and rock. And Sweeney's Men, who included O'Flynns's later Planxty bandmate, Andy Irvine, took the mainstream safety of the Clancy Brothers into a wilder and more bohemian sensitivity. Go compare the difference between the Chieftains handling of this tune, 'Give Me Your Hand' ('Tabhair Dom Do Lamh') by the blind 17th century Irish harpist Turlough O'Carolan, with the altogether more exuberant Planxty version below, the tune kicking in at 2.27, following the song ahead of it:

I bloody loved them. They were hitting their prime in the early 70s, just as I was hitting mid-teens and expanding my then musical palette from the pop charts to anything and everything I could get my ears on, usually directed by the inkies, the music influential press that governed all the hip from the non hip. Planxty were seriously hip. With a line-up of O'Flynn, Irvine, Donal Lunny and Christy Moore, they played traditional irish jigs and reels, airs and ballads, seamlessly integrating their own material into the same. With two fine singers and an instrumental prowess encompassing guitar, bouzouki, mandolin, bodhran, hurdy-gurdy, whistles and, most importantly, uillean pipes, that irish bellows driven bagpipe, capable of a plaintive wail, swirling and bending notes, like nothing on earth, one part banshee, one part lullaby. Yes, I had heard a little of this instrument before; the aforementioned Chieftains had introduced me to it, and Horslips, the Dublin folk-rockers had deployed it a little. But nothing like O'Flynn, who could make it sing, scream, howl and lilt, sometimes simultaneously. This is his description of the instrument. And I haven't even mentioned his whistle playing, both normal whistle and low, a few blasts thereof instantly evocative of joy or sorrow, dependent on mood.

It would be no hyperbole to say this band revolutionised how the world had previously seen irish music. From a twiddley diddley dee diversion, this was suddenly to be taken with the utmost seriousness, alongside and in the same breath as the Stones and Bowie. But with more fun. O'Flynn was possibly the quiet man of the group, more soberly attired and less hirsute than his compadres, but it was his solos that had the crowds in awe. A number of incarnations of this band took place over the years and the decades, as individual members peeled off and others joined in, Paul Brady and Matt Malloy to name two, the band formally breaking and re-forming twice, the last such being 20 odd years after their debut, in 2003-5. But whenever it was called Planxty, so always there was O'Flynn.

After the final demise, and in the earlier breaks, O'Flynn was never short of work, with a who's who of session work that ranged from the folk circles he began within to Kate Bush, Mark Knopfler, Emmylou Harris and more. With Planxty no more there was a short period as and in LAPD, he, Irvine, Lunny and Paddy Glackin, the title being to represent Liam, Andy, Paddy and Donal. Hell, on past form they could have called it Planxty and got away with it, but they didn't. However, health was beginning to cause concern, and O'Flynn left in 2013. A private man outside music, he died in March after what was called a long illness. Here's a video of the song featured a little above, 'As I Roved Out', in a live and later setting, Planxty at Vicar Street, Dublin, in 2004, the pipes part transposed to whistle.

His legacy lives on through the wave of younger players who have followed him and been inspired by him, with both pipes and whistle commonplace in the repertoire way beyond any silo of trad. arr.

Rest in peace.

Interested?

Chaos/Confusion: Disorder In The House

Warren Zevon (w/Bruce Springsteen): Disorder In The House
[purchase]

Warren Zevon is one of those artists whose music I’ve enjoyed and appreciated over the years without ever really being a fan, or learning all that much about him. There’s just so much music out there, and so little time. David Letterman, on the other hand, was a huge Zevon fan. He was a guest on Letterman’s various shows more than two dozen times, and even filled in 20 times as bandleader when Paul Shaffer was unavailable.

Back in 2002, Zevon was diagnosed with lung cancer, and shortly afterwards appeared as the only guest on Letterman’s show. Their interview soon became a classic. Letterman’s respect and compassion for his dying subject, coupled with Zevon’s unflinching honesty and humor (which gave Letterman the opening to be funny, too) is striking.  During the course of their discussion, Zevon responded to Letterman’s question about his new-found understanding of life and death with the phrase “Enjoy every sandwich,” which became a pretty well-known distillation of his life's philosophy. Zevon also performed three songs on the show that night. The Letterman show is worth watching, and you can see the interview here, the performance of “Mutineer,” here, “Genius” is here, and Letterman’s request, “Roland The Headless Thompson Gunner” is here. And Letterman's and Shaffer's heartfelt announcement of Zevon's death about a year later is here.

At the time of the Letterman interview, Zevon had recently released an album whose title, My Ride’s Here, seemed eerily prescient in retrospect. But to be fair, his prior album was called Life’ll Kill Ya, so it is probably more fair to say that he was comfortable with his death as a concept, not that he had any mystical foreshadowing of his demise.

After his diagnosis, Zevon worked on his last album, which ended up titled The Wind. It is hard to listen to the album without feeling that Zevon was trying to sum up his tumultuous life and preparing for its end. It includes 10 original songs (or co-writes with his long-time collaborator Jose Calderón), and a poignant cover of Dylan’s “Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door.” The album included numerous high profile guests, including Mick Fleetwood, Jackson Browne, Joe Walsh, Tom Petty, Billy Bob Thornton, Dwight Yoakam, T-Bone Burnett, David Lindley and Emmylou Harris.  While the album contained its share of contemplative ballads, Zevon could still rock and show his trademark twisted humor, most notably with guest Bruce Springsteen, who shared vocals and played electric guitar on the raucous “Disorder In The House.”

The song lays out the chaos and confusion in the titular house--overflowing bathtubs, falling plaster, doors coming off their hinges. It’s so bad that “even the Lhasa Apso seems to be ashamed.” Then, it becomes clear that the song is about criminals being chased by the police, but it appears that the narrator escapes.

To me, what is most memorable about the song is the fun that Zevon and Springsteen seem to have performing it. The Wind was released two weeks before Zevon died, at the age of 56. The album received five Grammy nominations, including Song of the Year for "Keep Me in Your Heart," and it won two Grammys, for Best Contemporary Folk Album, and "Disorder in the House" was awarded Best Rock Performance by a Duo or Group With Vocal. These were the first Grammys of Zevon's career, and I suspect that he’d be chuckling to himself if he knew what it took for him to get them.

RIGHT: FATE'S RIGHT HAND/Rodney Crowell

Couldn't resist. Or at least I think I couldn't, but maybe not. Fate. Kismet. Call it what you will, it's all pre-destined, yeah? Maybe.

In keeping with my last posting, I thought I would again follow on the dextrous direction that began with red and was followed by the devil. In truth, I am not sure of what fate's right hand, or indeed left, might mean, or how they may differ, unless the former is the butter side up, the latter, butter side down. Indeed, is luck the same as fate? Is fate the same as luck? I am uncertain whether this metaphysical troubled Rodney Crowell much when writing the song. It just sorta sounds good, the lyric then being one of those stream of consciousness lists like Reasons to be Cheerful (right hand) or We Didn't Start the Fire (left hand), the words as important for their order and sound as their meaning, yet entirely also dependent thereupon. Clever, if confusing.

Rodney Crowell feels to have been around forever in my musical lifetime, first as the callow youth alongside Emmylou Harris in her Hot Band, writing the knock-out (and album stand-out) side one closer, Till' I Gain Control Again, on Elite Hotel. That was back in 1975, and he has kept on keeping on. Marrying into country royalty, becoming husband to Roseanne, daughter of Johnny, Cash in 1979, until 1992, will have done no harm either, but he was already successfully penning material for a range of significant other artists, including Bob Seger, as well as a roster of more typical country performers. Having had limited success with his solo records, he effectively put his career on hold to helm her own, writing much of the material and producing. In the 80's he hit his own paydirt, with a run of records that cemented his reputation. 1988's Diamonds and Dirt managed 5 (country) number ones alone. Here's one of 'em.

However, for me it is his later trio of recordings, starting with The Houston Kid, in 2001, that hold the strongest appeal. Biographical in style, I strongly commend these three, with Fate's Right Hand, containing the eponymous song of this piece, and The Outsider making up the triad, now commonly referred to as the Houston trilogy. This period of his life also produced his book, the commendable and likewise autobiographical Chinaberry Sidewalks: a Memoir, covering the same somewhat tumultuous childhood as do the songs. Wonderful stuff. Here's a song:

Into the last decade he has again teamed up with Emmylou Harris, producing a brace of duet albums and going on tour with her, still managing other output as well. This years Close Ties reveals him now to be an elder statesman, performing alongside ex-wife Cash and Sheryl Crow, amongst others. I have seen him twice within the last five years, once with Emmylou, and once as a featured singer with the celebrated Transatlantic Sessions, the show that brings together the best of scots/irish with american musicians, held every year over here in the UK. On both occasions he shone, the grittier counterpoint to Emmylou at the one, and an altogether americana tour de force at the other.

A final word, lest all this talk of country be off-putting. This isn't and never has been any saccharine "& western": his genre has always been in those slightly rougher roadhouses, where rockabilly meets western swing, leaving always room for a weeping steel barroom ballad, ahead of another rousing rocker. I'd like to shake his hand. Right hand.

Choose Rodney!

Childhood: Calling My Children Home

Emmylou Harris: Calling My Children Home

[purchase]

My prayers go out to the community of Newtown, CT. In a recent bluegrass jam, I sang a rendition of "God Loves His Children" which I had learned from Flatt and Scruggs’ recordings of 1948-59. The gospel song wasn’t quite the same without an a cappella quartet and driven by Scruggs’ fingerpicked lead guitar work. It’s also difficult for some to make sense of the line in that song which states, “He will protect you anywhere you go.” If that’s true, why does he allow bad things to happen? One must consult the Bible for the answer and realize that God does allow bad things to happen, but there’s also a big difference between allowing those things to happen and causing them. God has his reasons, and he doesn’t have to explain them to us.

In any case, for this week’s theme, I’ve chosen another gospel song which I also like to sing entitled "Calling My Children Home." It has these simple but profound lines:

I live my life, my love I gave them,
To guide them through this world of strife.
I hope and pray we’ll live together,
In that great land here after life.

I can only imagine the grief and suffering which the people of Newtown are experiencing. Emmylou Harris dedicated her 1998 performance of the song to her close friend, bass-player Roy Huskey, who had passed on a few months before. Today, I dedicate it to those children, teachers and administrators who tragically died in Newtown. “I’d brave life’s storm, defy the tempest. To bring them home from anywhere.”

Unusual Instruments: After the Gold Rush

Dolly Parton, Linda Ronstadt & Emmylou Harris: After the Gold Rush

[purchase]

...In which Emmylou Harris, Linda Ronstadt and Dolly Parton meet Benjamin Franklin. Or, more specifically, the instrument Franklin invented in 1761 -- the glass armonica, the first instrument to be invented in Colonial America. The glass armonica comprises 37 chromatically tuned bowls, mounted on a rotating spindle. The armonicist operates the instrument with a foot pedal, and rubs the spinning glass with his fingers. The result is an ethereal, almost spooky, tone. Hearing -- but not seeing -- her husband play the instrument for the first time, Mrs. Franklin said she feared she’d died and was listening to the sound of angels.

Franklin’s invention was particularly well received in Europe. Marie Antoinette was said to have taken armonica lessons. Mozart was inspired to write two works for it. Mozart in turn introduced it to physician Franz Mesmer, who used the instrument’s dulcet tones to help, well, mesmerize his patients. The arminoca’s faint sound made it difficult to be heard in concert halls, and the prolonged exposure to the glass posed health risks to the armonicists. Soon the instrument faded away. The (seriously) glass armonica website estimates there are only a dozen glass armonica players in the world today.

One of those is a fellow named Dennis James, who plays armonica on Harris, Ronstadt and Parton’s cover of Neil Young's "After the Gold Rush." It appears on their Trio II CD, released in 1999. (Ronstadt’s 1992 record, Winter Light, also featured James on armonica.) Even without the armonica solo, it's a strange cover -- the ladies change the lyrics a bit, and Parton later claimed none of them had any idea what the song was about. Still, the accompanying video was quite popular on VH-1 and country music video channels, in part because of the fascinating instrument that managed to one-up the trio’s angelic harmonies. (Watch a performance on David Letterman’s Late Show here; the armonica solo starts at about 3:46.)

Holiday Classics: Christmas Time’s A-Coming

Emmylou Harris: Christmas Time’s A-Coming

[purchase]

Country music Christmas albums: Bah, humbug. They are almost all forgettable, often featuring the same couple of dozen songs, ("Little Drummer Boy," anyone?), philharmonic-style string arrangements and overly solemn vocals.

But there's one I will defend: Emmylou Harris’s first and only Christmas record, "Light of the Stable." And not just because it's the only Christmas record I know of with a Neil Young song as the title track. It's a significant record because it heralded (hark!) Emmylou's neo-traditional stylings of the early 1980s. Released in Europe in 1979 (It became available in the U.S. a year later; the cover above, showing a pregnant and not particularly comfortable Emmylou, is from the original English release), "Light of the Stable" came out a half-year before "Roses in the Snow," Emmylou's traditional country/bluegrass standard bearer. "Light of the Stable" also featured the first officially released "Trio" track, with Dolly Parton and Linda Ronstadt providing supporting vocals on the title song. Thanks to the bright, acoustic arrangements, "Light of the Stable" still sounds fresh today. Even "Little Drummer Boy." Though, in deference to the Facebook "Little Drummer Boy Challenge," the album's opening track, “Christmas Time’s a-Coming,” is offered here instead.

Guest post by Mt. Vernon Mike

Homonyms: Wrecking Ball

Emmylou Harris: Wrecking Ball

[purchase]

Gillian Welch w Old Crow Medicine Show: Wrecking Ball

[unavailable, purchase studio version]

I suspect that we are going to see this week how certain metaphors strike different songwriters. A wrecking ball is a fine example to start with. Emmylou Harris makes a pun on the word ball, and her narrator invites a boy to a dance. The danger is implied rather than stated, and the song is an eloquent statement on the sense of personal danger that can come with the beginning of a new relationship. For Gillian Welch, her narrator is the wrecking ball of the title, and it is her life and prospects that get demolished. Welch’s Wrecking Ball was on her 2003 album Soul Journey, and that it is the purchase link I have provided, But the version heard here comes from the following year, from a live performance at radio station WXPN’s World Café program, and the backing band was Old Crow Medicine Show. Wow! It sounds as good as you would expect if you know both artists. This version is somewhat less produced than the album version; in either case, the strength of the song shines through.

Vocal Harmonies: Love Hurts

Gram Parsons with Emmylou Harris: Love Hurts

[purchase]

First there was the Everly Brothers version of the song written by Boudleaux Bryant (actually, there were two: the slow original from 1960 and an upbeat take in 1965). Then there was the appalling cover by Nazareth that became a hit. And shortly before the Scottish rockers violated this most tenderly angry heartbreak songs of all, Gram Parsons and Emmylou Harris did it perfect justice.

Perhaps they did so not only because both were exquisite vocalists (and Emmylou Harris is, of course, a supreme harmonist), but perhaps it was also because they were experiencing the cruelty of love – maybe of the impossible variety, or perhaps unrequited.

Gram and Emmylou are said to have felt a strong attraction to one another. Harris certainly was in love with him, but insists that there never was a romance because Gram was married, even though that marriage was on the rocks. Whatever Parsons felt for Harris (and he had a relationship with a woman called Margaret Fisher), when he died on 19 September 1973 – before ‘Love Hurts’ was released in 1974 on the Grievous Angel LP – his wife Gretchen Burrell barred Emmylou from his funeral.

Gram and Emmylou might never have been together in a physical sense, but ‘Love Hurts’ unites them forever. Note this bitter line: “Some fools think of happiness, blissfulness, togetherness. Some fools fool themselves I guess, but they’re not fooling me. I know it isn’t true.” And then rewind, and hear how Gram and Emmylou harmonise the word “togetherness”; the preceding words are mocked, but the word togetherness soars with longing. As they re-enter the stream of disillusion, their sweet harmonies are drenched in the hot blood of a broken heart.

The Night Sky: Jupiter Rising

Emmylou Harris: Jupiter Rising

[purchase]

Emmylou Harris is still probably best known as the woman who sang back-up for Graham Parsons, and then went on her own, helping to establish the sound we now call alt-country. But, especially in her later years, Harris has refused to be tied to any single musical genre. Jupiter Rising is a playful and flirty pop song, and its beat almost qualifies it as ska. It’s not the most profound thing Harris has ever done, but it may be the most fun.

Show Tunes: Millworker

Pearl Jam: Millworker

[live, 2004]

Emmylou Harris: Millworker

[purchase]

Lavinia Ross: Millworker

[purchase]

I posted the author's "original" of this song way back in 2008 for our Work theme; aptly enough, the song was written for the score of the James Taylor-penned musical "Working", based on the Studs Terkel novel of the same name. Though neither the musical nor the 1979 album this song ultimately appeared on were terribly well received, I've always liked this simple song, and ol' JT clearly does, too, or he wouldn't keep recording it, trying to find just the right balance between the resignation and the desperation of the narrator, a widowed blue-collar millworker and mother from my home state of Massachusetts.

But today is for coverage, and thankfully, a number of musicians have taken this one on, from Pearl Jam to Emmylou Harris. Here's both: the former live and ragged; the latter, recorded relatively early in Emmylou's career, a solid countrypop tune exactly as plaintive and haunting and dreamlike as you'd expect it to be - plus a warm, gentle cover I just received in the mail last week from organic farmer and occasional singer-songwriter Lavinia Ross.

I Have a Dream: I Will Dream

Emmylou Harris: I Will Dream

[purchase]

I Will Dream is a song of unrequited love. There is a tenuous quality to both the emotion and the song. Emmylou Harris captures this quality perfectly with her performance. The song is a co-write with Harris and Kate and Anna McGarrigle. Jane Siberry contributes the wonderful intertwining background vocals. Three of my favorite acts all do their best here, and the collaboration works, well, like a dream.

1979: Sorrow in the Wind

Emmylou Harris (with The Whites): Sorrow in the Wind

[purchase]

To be sure, 1979 was a tremendously exciting year in punk and new wave music, as documented here all week so wonderfully by everyone. The overproductions of the 70s invited a backlash that changed the sound of popular music. But, there was other music that year. In country music, there was also a backlash against the same kind of production and commercial influences. The difference was that the backlash in country music never took hold.

This was the neotradtionalist movement. Perhaps it would have been more enduring if someone had found a better name for it. The idea was to go back to simpler, more acoustic-based music. And some of the results were stunning. The Whites had a wonderful album out that year, More Pretty Girls Than One. Unfortunately, that one has become impossible to find. But Emmylou Harris also had an album out that year, and she captured the sound perfectly on Sorrow in the Wind, with The Whites on guest vocals.

The album was Blue Kentucky Girl, and it is notable as well for a reason no one appreciated at the time. 1987 would see the release of Trio, a group consisting of Harris, Linda Ronstadt, and Dolly Parton. That album proved so popular that a sequel was released in 1999. But Even Cowgirls Get the Blues, on Blue Kentucky Girl, was the first song they did together.

I should note that the neotraditionalist movement did not disappear altogether. Ricky Skaggs has kept alive first in his own work, and also more recently with his record label, Skaggs Family Records. The roster of artists includes The Whites.

Thanks and Appreciation: Thanks To You

Jesse Winchester: Thanks To You

[purchase]

Emmylou Harris: Thanks To You

[purchase]

Chris Smither: Thanks To You

[purchase]


I encountered this song as a 1997 cover in the hands of ragged folk-blues guitarist Chris Smither, who plays the song out as a rapid-fire wail of almost proud self-pity and heaven-sent salvation, a ray of light sparking down from heaven to save the narrative sinner.

But curiosity brought me in search of the source, and as fans of the prolific and well-covered songwriter Jesse Winchester might have predicted, the 1988 original is nothing like the cover.

Oh, sure, it's still blues. But this tune comes from the other end of the genre, where the blues - and its image of heaven as an eventual comfort for even the worst of sinners - are something smooth and sultry, framed in dustbowl Americana production, and veritably dripping in gospel harmonies and slow, southern slide guitar. From the subtle bounce of the intro synth to the final fade-out, this is an image of heaven as seen through a boozehound's haze, a slow credit-roll from a frozen eternity in a terminal flophouse before a life spent in the dismal dark fades eternally into the light.

Meanwhile, of course, Emmylou Harris splits the difference, bringing in a sultry yet ever-so-slightly-uptempo country gospel barroom americana blues ballad that still retains the keys, and those glorious gospel harmonies. The 1993 date on Emmylou's cover, and the slightly more upbeat pace, suggests that Smither must have heard both before going his own inimitable way.

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Afterthought: we've given thanks to family and friends a lot this week, and deservedly so. We're a lucky bunch here on Star Maker, in no small part because we have this community to carry our voices and conversations; we owe a debt of thanks to each other, and to you, the reader, as much as we do our immediate loved ones.

But though my sense of heaven is a bit personal and vague these days, I was a sinner like so many of us, for much of my life. And like so many of us, I suspect, I owe thanks to the universe, the goddess, God, the everything - whatever you call it - for always offering that sense of comfort, and always being there for me, waiting patiently until I, too, saw the light. Even if it took music, love, friends, family, and so many other vehicles for me to find it when I needed it so much.

Thanks, universe. Thanks, everyone. To you, and to yours.

Cry Cry Cry: All My Tears

Julie Miller: All My Tears

[purchase]

It's no secret I'm a coverhound, and this one's been done plenty raw and emotional, both by Steve Earle and Emmylou Harris, not to mention an oddly endearing christian rock take from Jars of Clay. But though most covers take both Julie's original intonation and Buddy Miller's ringing electric atmospheric undercurrent as gospel, I prefer the sparse mountain banjo and breathy vocals of Julie Miller's own solo effort, revisited as an appalachian tune for the 2001 film Songcatcher years after the song first debuted as a countryrock duet with Emmylou on Julie's 1993 album Orphans and Angels.

Emmylou's Wrecking Ball demo recording isn't bad, either. The piano is a nice touch.

Emmylou Harris: All My Tears

[demo unreleased; final version here]

Duets: Gram & Emmylou

Gram Parsons: Ooh Las Vegas
Gram Parsons: We'll Sweep Out the Ashes in the Morning

[purchase]

I know it's a rather obvious choice, but I just can't let this week go by without offering something from Gram Parsons & Emmylou Harris.

I don't even think I need to say much here... just that when Gram and Emmy sing together... I think that's what music is supposed to sound like.

Baby Mine: My Baby Needs A Shepherd

Emmylou Harris: My Baby Needs A Shepherd

[purchase]

One of the few songs about babies and mothers to actually use the word "baby" in the title, My Baby Needs A Shepherd comes to us from 2000 tour-de-force Red Dirt Girl, an album which won Emmylou Harris a Grammy in the Contemporary Folk category after years of self-definition as a country artist, and, perhaps more significantly, one which marked her true transformation from song connoisseur to poetic songwriter after a long career of coversong and collaboration.

Despite the literal title, Emmylou's narrative here is somewhat cryptic. Various sources have suggested the song is both "pro-life and pro-love and pro-motherhood" and "a tragic look at the struggle to find the strength to live this life"; Emmylou herself, in liner notes and interviews, has focused on the song's sonic texture more than its literal meaning, suggesting that it is "like a medieval fable colored by Middle Eastern sounds", letting the loss, rather than the circumstances, remain the focal point.

But though nominally about a baby, this is ultimately a song about a mother; as such, the power of the unspoken goes a long way here. Most listeners agree this is Emmylou at one of her finest and most powerful moments, crying for an absent baby lost along the way, decrying her own fault in letting go of her hand, and her inability to guide her to salvation now that she is gone. Her despair is palpable, and all the more potent for its placement in a mother's voice.

Winter Wonderland: Roses in the Snow

Emmylou Harris: Roses in the Snow

[purchase]

Roses in the Snow was Emmylou Harris' bluegrass album. Released in 1980, it was the follow up recording to her 1979 release Blue Kentucky Girl... a straightforward country record that produced a number one single and won Emmy a Grammy for Best Female Country Vocal Performance. Of course, the smart thing to do after releasing a successful and highly acclaimed country album is to then immediately release a bluegrass album in the midst of the Countrypolitan, Urban Cowboy world of 1980's Nashville. Her label didn't want to release it at first, but eventually caved after Emmylou refused to shelve the project. The label heads feared a commercial failure.

However misguided the move may have seemed to some... Emmylou made it work. The album went to number two on the country charts (it was certified Gold faster than any other Emmylou recording) and is still as well loved as any in her catalogue. Tony Rice, Ricky Skaggs, Albert Lee, Emory Gordy, and producer Brian Ahern formed the core of the band for this album with guest appearances by Johnny Cash, Dolly Parton, Willie Nelson, Jerry Douglas, Linda Ronstadt, and The Whites. With a cast like that, it's easy to see how Emmylou created a masterpiece.

When Emmylou was looking for songs for Roses in the Snow, she began going through record stores and looking for bluegrass songs written and performed by female artists... a rarity at the time in a male dominated genre. In a dusty pile in the back room of Tower Records, she found an album by bluegrass artist Delia Bell. Emmylou had never heard of Bell, but she bought the album anyway and was introduced to the Ruth Franks penned "Roses in the Snow." The story of lost love told from a female perspective captured Emmy's imagination and led her to include it as the lead track, and title cut, on her album.