Emmylou Harris and Rodney Crowell first met in the mid-\u201870s just as Harris\u2019 career was really taking off. After she began recording Crowell\u2019s songs for her records, their friendship was solidified when Crowell joined Harris\u2019 legendary road band The Hot Band, a move that instantly gave the band a grittier sound than they had had previously. Over the years, the pair has continued to collaborate on each other\u2019s projects and many of Harris\u2019 solo albums have included covers of Crowell\u2019s songs.\u00a0 <\/p>\n
For some reason, though, it took almost forty years for the pair to make good on their long-held plans to cut a full album together, which eventually came out early this year. I\u2019m pleased to say they did a good job with it, but the record contains only a couple of gems and is a little too ballad-heavy for my liking.\u00a0 Old Yellow Moon<\/i> was recorded entirely in Nashville and both Harris and Crowell played acoustic guitar across the record. Along with a plentiful group of session players under Brian Ahern\u2019s sparse production, it all came together fairly well.\u00a0 <\/p>\n
The record is entirely made up of cover versions of some of the pair\u2019s favorite songs, a few of which were written by another of Harris\u2019 old Hot Band members Hank DeVito. \u201cHanging Up My Heart\u201d is one of those songs and has Emmylou on lead vocals with Vince Gill harmonizing as an added treat; it isn\u2019t my favorite song here, but it\u2019s a nice way to open the record. Two more DeVito penned songs are included, and the somber closer is also the title track, but it\u2019s a little too dark for this particular record. But the third, \u201cBlack Caffeine,\u201d is one of the strongest cuts here and really shakes things up a bit, giving the record some much needed grit. <\/p>\n
\u201cChasing That Feeling\u201d is another edgier track as the pair offer a fantastic take on Kris Kristofferson\u2019s ode to addiction: \u201cYou got loaded again \/ Ain\u2019t you handsome when you\u2019re high \/ Nothing matters \/ Chase that feeling \u2018til you die.\u201d Emmylou\u2019 finest moment on the record is her stunning rendition of Patti Scialfa\u2019s \u201cSpanish Dancer,\u201d which is a beautiful story and Harris tells stories in song better than most; Gill also plays guitar on this one. <\/p>\n
\u201cInvitation To The Blues\u201d is given a straightforward country arrangement that is really well played, but it isn\u2019t as strong as some of the other tracks here. Crowell also contributes three of his own songs here, and the best of that bunch is by far \u201cBluebird Wine,\u201d a song that happens to be the first of Crowell\u2019s songs that Harris ever recorded (it opens her classic 1975 LP, Pieces Of The Sky<\/i>). The other two Crowell tracks are straightforward country acoustic ballads (\u201cHere We Are\u201d and \u201cBull Rider\u201d) that offer some nice moments for the two to harmonize on, but this record really works best when the tempo is upped and the shackles are off. <\/p>\n
I may be biased here because I am a massive Emmylou Harris fan, but I truly believe that it is her voice and incredible ability as an interpretive singer that saves the day here. Crowell is at times a fantastic songwriter, but he isn\u2019t a great singer as his voice is quite limited in what it can do, so it was really up to Emmylou to lift these songs up and make them special. For the most part, she did a great job, but as much fun as the pair clearly had making Old Yellow Moon<\/i>, it really doesn\u2019t represent the best of what Harris or Crowell for that matter have to offer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":67,"featured_media":31746,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[9303],"rating":[5615],"class_list":["post-43458","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-emmylou-harris-rodney-crowell","rating-rating-b"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/43458","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=43458"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/43458\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31746"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43458"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=43458"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=43458"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}