{"id":41680,"date":"2009-09-12T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2009-09-12T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/reviews\/all-i-intended-to-be\/"},"modified":"2009-09-12T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2009-09-12T00:00:00","slug":"all-i-intended-to-be","status":"publish","type":"review","link":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/reviews\/all-i-intended-to-be\/","title":{"rendered":"All I Intended To Be"},"content":{"rendered":"

I immediately fell in love with Emmylou Harris after first hearing her acclaimed Wrecking Ball <\/i>album as a teenager. Wrecking Ball <\/i>was not a country album, but I knew of Emmylou as a country singer, so for a long time it was my only album of hers in my collection. This changed when Harris released her primarily self-penned masterpiece Red Dirt Girl <\/i>in 2000, and after catching her show here in Melbourne that year, I went out and picked up every one of her albums I could get my hands on.<\/o:p><\/p>\n

What made those releases so unique was Harris\u2019s departure from recording country, and with the help of producer Daniel Lanois, she put out what is best described as rootsy alt-rock compositions that suited her angelic, often eerie tones perfectly. Not one to repeat herself too often, Harris released one more atmospheric alt-rock album in 2003, the sublime Stumble Into Grace<\/i>, <\/i>which completed a trilogy of sorts. So for her twenty-first original studio album released last year, Emmylou returned to her country roots and turned out the impressive All I Intended To Be<\/i>, <\/i>which recorded her best sales figures in almost thirty years.<\/o:p><\/p>\n

A few influences from her previous releases are still heard throughout this album, but it is more country than anything else. This, however, is my kind of country because there\u2019s no generic country rock (think Keith Urban) to spoil the pure tones of Harris\u2019s voice, and producer Brian Ahern has built on her previous works with Lanois and Malcolm Burn to create wonderful soundscapes that Emmylou weaves around effortlessly. This is a mixture of original songs and covers, and although recording took place over a three year period, it sounds as if it were cut in a couple of days.<\/o:p><\/p>\n

The album opens superbly with Emmylou\u2019s ageless voice doing wonders for the disparity of \u201cShores Of White Sand.\u201d Longtime collaborator and guitarist extraordinaire Buddy Miller offers some beautiful harmonies that make this one of their finest moments together. \u201cHold On\u201d is a heartbreaking cut that Harris delivers with a sincerity and tenderness that only she can. Patty Griffin\u2019s \u201cMoon Song\u201d is a throwback to Emmylou\u2019s early days, featuring some beautiful harmonies by Mary Ann Kennedy<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Emmylou\u2019s interpretation of \u201cBroken Man\u2019s Lament\u201d is pure genius, as is her ability to resonate with the male character from whose point of view the song is sung. Her self-penned \u201cGold\u201d is a simple but moving country ballad that is greatly enhanced by Dolly Parton\u2019s warm tones, and when the two are joined by Vince Gill, it comes as close to perfection as anything country that I have heard in some time. \u201cHow She Could Sing The Wildwood Flower\u201d was written by Harris with the McGarrigle sisters. Possibly left over from their sessions for Stumble Into Grace<\/i>, <\/i>this track adds some tradition to the album, which is a welcome treat. <\/o:p><\/p>\n

A beautiful reading of Tracy Chapman\u2019s \u201cAll That You Have Is Your Soul\u201d fits in well and is again testament to Harris\u2019s interpretative skills. It seems that a common thread of great interpretive singers that I\u2019m familiar with (Marianne Faithfull, Wendy Matthews, and Emmylou, to name a few) is great instincts about what will work for them and what won\u2019t. They rarely make the wrong choice, and this enables Emmylou to make amazingly consistent albums of her own and others songs with a ridiculous ease.\u00a0 <\/o:p><\/p>\n

My favorite track on this album is her own \u201cTake That Ride,\u201d which finds Harris asking wearily \u201cDon\u2019t you believe it\u2019s time to let me go? \/ The clock is winding down and I\u2019m moving slow \/ I could keep on dancing but it\u2019s just for show \/ Don\u2019t you believe it\u2019s time to let me go?\u201d \u201cOld Five And Dimers Like Me\u201d is here as a duet with John Starling, and on the old Merle Haggard ditty \u201cKern River,\u201d Starling again weaves his morbid tones around Harris\u2019s equally somber reading for great effect. Another Harris original, \u201cNot Enough,\u201d deals with the death of a friend and quite movingly finds her voice close to breaking during the first verse. <\/o:p><\/p>\n

Harris and the McGarrigle sisters wrote \u201cSailing \u2018Round The Room\u201d after viewing a documentary about the Terri Schiavo. Following \u201cNot Enough,\u201d it\u2019s almost too morbid to listen to, but this one is at least delivered in a more hopeful manner, which was a good choice at this point. \u201cBeyond The Great Divide\u201d closes out the album with a typical country singalong ballad that lifts the mood greatly. Harris really excels when singing with and around others, and that is no more prevalent than on this closer.<\/o:p><\/p>\n

All I Intended To Be <\/i>is yet another feather in the hat of Emmylou Harris, who never ceases to amaze me with her effortless ability to sing just about anything as if it were her own. Despite enjoying her sixty-second year, Harris\u2019s voice has barely aged throughout the last couple of decades and her creative juices are still flowing rapidly enough for her to keep producing work of this quality. A national treasure of her homeland, Harris continues to expand her reach throughout the world and its generations, which by now has earned her the respect and admiration she so richly deserves.\u00a0 <\/o:p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":67,"featured_media":30047,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[6689],"rating":[5613],"class_list":["post-41680","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-emmylou-harris","rating-rating-a-minus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/41680","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=41680"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/41680\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30047"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41680"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=41680"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=41680"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}