sat 30/11/2024

CD: Emmylou Harris - Hard Bargain | reviews, news & interviews

CD: Emmylou Harris - Hard Bargain

CD: Emmylou Harris - Hard Bargain

Country veteran shows the young'uns a clean pair of heels

Forty years into her career, Emmylou Harris keeps on growing

Always renowned as an interpreter of other artists' material, Emmylou Harris has been a late developer as a songwriter. On 2008's All I Intended to Be, she successfully balanced cover versions with her own songs, but this time she has written eight songs single-handed, and three more in collaboration with Will Jennings. It's a sign of her writerly progress that her own work comfortably holds its own against the non-originals "Cross Yourself", composed by producer and multi-instrumentalist Jay Joyce, and Ron Sexsmith's slightly turgid title track.

Always renowned as an interpreter of other artists' material, Emmylou Harris has been a late developer as a songwriter. On 2008's All I Intended to Be, she successfully balanced cover versions with her own songs, but this time she has written eight songs single-handed, and three more in collaboration with Will Jennings. It's a sign of her writerly progress that her own work comfortably holds its own against the non-originals "Cross Yourself", composed by producer and multi-instrumentalist Jay Joyce, and Ron Sexsmith's slightly turgid title track.

In "The Road", Harris is unusually explicit about her work with Gram Parsons and the impact he had on her life

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Another startlingly beautiful album from one of the great singers and latterly, songwriters of her time. Thanks.

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