1/19/2024 0 Comments Songbird song emmylou harris![]() It's telling that a private recording of Guy Clark's "Immigrant Eyes," recorded as a birthday present for Clark, is as carefully considered and beautifully rendered as anything on these four discs - one thing that becomes clear is that Harris takes no shortcuts as an artist, and for the broad eclecticism of this set, she's uniformly intelligent, emotionally true, and thrillingly accomplished whenever she decides to sing a song. Discs three and four are devoted to collaborations and unreleased material, including several demos that have never before seen the light of day, highlights from her Trio albums with Dolly Parton and Linda Ronstadt, several tracks from the Gram Parsons tribute Return of the Grievous Angel, appearances on tribute collections and discs by other artists, and a handful of live tracks. ![]() The first two discs of Songbird represent a roughly chronological overview of Harris' discography, beginning with an outtake from her little heard 1970 debut album, Gliding Bird (an album she's all but disowned in the past), rolling up to speed with two examples of her work with Gram Parsons, and then diving into her solo work from 1975's Pieces of the Sky to 2003's Stumble Into Grace, focusing on Harris' personal favorites rather than radio hits (which were in short supply from the 1990s on anyway). Harris and Austin have purposefully avoided her most recognizable work on Songbird, instead charting an alternate path through her back catalog. Songbird: Rare Tracks & Forgotten Gems is a hefty four-CD box set (with a bonus DVD) compiled by Harris in collaboration with James Austin that does justice to the scope of a career that's spanned five decades thus far, and unlike most multi-disc collections it isn't merely a super-sized "greatest-hits" collection. However, as good as Harris is and as consistently strong as her body of work has been, one could make a convincing argument that she's been frequently underrated through much of her career - more than just a lovely woman with a pure, clear voice and a fine ear, she's championed a number of gifted songwriters before they went on to have distinguished careers of their own (from Rodney Crowell to Gillian Welch), matured into a first-rate tunesmith herself, collaborated with a remarkable array of artists, and has never been afraid to take her talents into unexpected directions, from purist bluegrass to the experimental atmospherics of her work with Daniel Lanois. It's difficult to write about Emmylou Harris without lapsing into a long train of superlatives - she really does have one of the most beautiful voices of her generation, and her taste in material and skill in using her instrument is nearly faultless. Purchase and download this album in a wide variety of formats depending on your needs.
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