{"id":41043,"date":"2008-08-05T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2008-08-05T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/reviews\/red-dirt-girl\/"},"modified":"2008-08-05T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2008-08-05T00:00:00","slug":"red-dirt-girl","status":"publish","type":"review","link":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/reviews\/red-dirt-girl\/","title":{"rendered":"Red Dirt Girl"},"content":{"rendered":"

By the year 2000, Emmylou Harris had come a long way from the days of singing with Gram Parsons, recording with The Hot Band, and countless collaborations with some of the finest artists in the music world. Following the critically acclaimed Wrecking Ball, <\/i>released in 1995, was going to be tough work. That album gave Harris a fresh sound (thanks to Daniel Lanois) and won her a new audience while still keeping her loyalists happy. The decision to write all of the songs herself (save for one cover and a few co-writes) was to be this record\u2019s masterstroke.\u00a0 The second major decision that would prove to be just as rewarding was recruiting Malcolm Burn to produce the record. Malcolm worked as a sound engineer on Wrecking Ball <\/i>and several other projects for Daniel Lanois.<\/o:p><\/p>\n

The soundscape that Burn provides here, much like its predecessor, leans more to alternative rock than to country, a genre which most folks would associate Harris with. With great help from Buddy Miller, Darryl Johnson, and a few guest appearances, Harris brings her lyrics to life in a way that only she could. At times, her singing is angelic, and in the case of \u201cBang The Drum Slowly,\u201d an elegy for her late father, it\u2019s touchingly mournful. \u201cMy Antonia,\u201d a duet with Dave Matthews, is an enchanting ditty sung with great tenderness by Matthews, who provides the male perspective of the conversational lyrics.<\/o:p><\/p>\n

\u201cI Don\u2019t Wanna Talk About It Now\u201d is one the most rockiest songs Harris has recorded to date, and it\u2019s one of the many highlights to be found here. Its opening lines \u201cGod knows how I love ya \/ Like a user needs a drug \/ And I\u2019ll never be free of ya \/ You are poison in my blood\u201d set the tone for this caustic slow burner about an obsession to hold onto an unrequited love. \u201cJ\u2019ai Fait Tout (translated: I Did Everything I Could) follows a similar path but it comes with a twist in that the darkness of the lyrics is countered with a light breezy groove that\u2019s catchy as hell.<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Whilst some may recoil at having to listen to Harris\u2019 voice for the entirety of an album, for me it\u2019s one of life\u2019s greatest pleasures. Without the faintest hint of a \u201ccountry twang,\u201d her ability to evoke any desired (or required) emotion is nothing short of genial. One of several examples of her gift here is \u201cTragedy,\u201d an almost country ballad save for a haunting arrangement set by Burn and the equally haunting harmonies of Bruce Springsteen and Patti Scialfa. Her performance here is truly soulful. <\/o:p><\/p>\n

Harris shifts gears for the title track and tries her hand at some direct storytelling. It\u2019s a touching tale of a childhood friend who\u2019s life went from bad to worse, and it\u2019s here that the album has its only genuine country moment.<\/o:p><\/p>\n

The only cover on this record is a Patty Griffin song, \u201cOne Big Love,\u201d chosen purely for its infectious groove and nonsense lyrics (a case in point: \u201cEverybody do like a monkey \/ If you wanna go on and be funky.\u201d) It\u2019s a welcome relief at the right time from the dark mood that\u2019s quite prevalent throughout the record. The track is rock in its execution and gives the band a chance to let loose and have fun.<\/o:p><\/p>\n

The album is bookended by the two most curious songs to be found here. Opener \u201cThe Pearl\u201d is given the full Burn atmospheric treatment to accompany Harris\u2019 poem-like lyrics, which relate the age old metaphor that true beauty must first have suffered some pain; in this case, it\u2019s how the oyster becomes the pearl. The closer is not as simple to decipher. Harris herself has said she likes to end an album with \u201ca dot, dot, dot, tune in next time,\u201d and she has certainly done so here with \u201cBoy From Tupelo.\u201d The lyrics are evasive at best and may even give a sly nod to Elvis: \u201cJust ask the boy from Tupelo<\/st1:place><\/st1:city> \/ He\u2019s the king and he \u2018oughta know.\u201d\u00a0 <\/o:p><\/p>\n

Harris toured heavily behind this record; it charted well and was again well-received by the critics and her fans alike. It also very deservedly won her a Grammy for \u201cBest Contemporary Folk Album.\u201d This was Harris\u2019 thirty-first album as either a solo release or collaborative effort, and in my opinion it\u2019s her best, the shiniest jewel in her crown, proving that not only was she a wonderful singer but an introspective and sensitive writer, too — an artist in the truest sense of the word.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":67,"featured_media":29465,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[6689],"rating":[5646],"class_list":["post-41043","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-emmylou-harris","rating-rating-a"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/41043","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/67"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41043"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/41043\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29465"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41043"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=41043"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=41043"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}