Emmylou Harris bringing her classic sound to the Michigan Theater
But anyone who knows Harris or has followed her career probably senses that grace is something that has actually always come naturally to her.
Harris has indeed always carried herself with grace, whether it’s in conversation, onstage, artistically or in terms of how she has built her career. One is hard-pressed to remember when she’s made a cravenly commercial move, whether we’re talking about selecting songs, deciding how a record should sound, or performing live.
In her early years, Harris — who comes to the Michigan Theater on Friday — focused on a country-folk-pop sound, built around her crystalline, pristine vocals — talents she initially honed singing harmonies for, and duets with, Gram Parsons. For most of her career, she’s been a song interpreter as opposed to a songwriter. And, early on, she showed impeccable taste in her selection of songs, putting her own, highly recognizable imprint on songs like Townes Van Zandt’s elegiac “Pancho and Lefty,” Delbert McClinton’s bruised-but-defiant “Two More Bottles of Wine,” T-Bone Walker’s urban-bluesy “Driving Wheel,” Chuck Berry’s playful “C’est La Vie,” Dolly Parton’s wistful “To Daddy,” and various country/bluegrass standards.
Her winning streak as an interpreter continued in later years, finding new possibilities in songs that were well-known among the roots-rock cognoscenti — such as Neil Young’s “Wrecking Ball,” Steve Earle’s “Guitar Town,” Creedence Clearwater’s “Lodi,” Lucinda Williams’ “Crescent City” and Bruce Springsteen’s “Mansion on the Hill.” Or, in other cases, she employed her heart-fluttering timbre and eloquent phrasing to shine a light on songs that were comparatively obscure to the pop audience — Gillian Welch’s “Orphan Girl,” Kate & Anna McGarrigle’s “Goin’ Back to Harlan,” and David Olney’s “Deeper Well” and “Jerusalem Tomorrow, ” etc.
In the early 2000s, Harris committed herself to expressing her songwriting voice more assertively than ever before — and her first two albums of the decade, “Red Dirt Girl” and “Stumble Into Grace” showed that she also could consistently spin compelling musical yarns of her own.
Her latest disc, “All I Intended To Be,” finds her combining those talents. She wrote four of the album’s songs, and co-wrote another two with the McGarrigles. But she intermingles those with her always-seductive interpretations of songs written by other songwriters — including two classics: Merle Haggard’s “Kern River” and Billy Joe Shaver’s “Old Five and Dimers Like Me.” Another standout is “How She Could Sing the Wildwood Flower,” a tribute to June Carter and the Carter Family. On that track, she gets vocal and instrumental backing from the McGarrigles, and the result, vocally, is something like a mini heavenly choir.
She also delivers a handsome cover of Tracy Chapman’s “All That You Have Is Your Soul” and a pensive reading of Patty Griffin’s “Moon Song.” Her own compositions on the disc include sturdy tracks like “Broken Man’s Lament,” “Gold,” and “Take That Ride,” which is a “spiritual” of sorts. In the song, the singer is reaching the end of her life, but ambivalent about her religious convictions.
Listen to the album "All I Intended to Be"
Harris has many devoted local fans. One is Mary Roth of Ann Arbor. “Emmylou is the genuine article,” says Roth, who sang and played guitar for various country-rock and Western-swing bands around Ann Arbor in the ‘70s, ‘80s and early ‘90s, like the Telluride Cowboys, the Double Shot Rangers and Cimmaron (which, not coincidentally, was the title of an ‘80s-era Emmylou album). “I’ve been an Emmylou fan from way back. I loved her music back in the early ‘70s. I sang a lot of Emmylou’s songs in the Telluride Cowboys,” Roth remembers fondly.
“Her music really does have a genuine quality. I’ve always been taken by the authenticity of her country roots. It’s not that schlocked-up ‘Nashville-trashville’ stuff that became popular in the ‘90s,” says Roth.
“Early on, when someone asked her to describe her music, she said ‘Just call me a country singer.’ And I still think of her that way, even though she’s branched out into other styles — which I understood, too, because an artist doesn’t want to stay in the same place forever.”
Another local Emmylou fan is Katie Saputo, an Ann Arbor social worker and Ark volunteer.
“I’ve seen her a couple of times at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, and she always blows me away,” says Saputo. “She’s so unique, and I love her presence — she’s so beautiful, and strikes me as a really positive, strong, female presence. And I love that she performs or records a lot with other artists, like Ryan Adams, or Lucinda Williams (not to mention Welch, Alison Krauss, Iris DeMent, Parton, Elvis Costello and Linda Ronstadt, to name a few more) — and how she incorporates other styles. I like her range and diversity.” “All I Intended” displays that range. Back in ’95, Harris made what at the time seemed like a startling left turn away from her usual mix of country, folk and pop and went in a more avant-roots direction with her “Wrecking Ball” album. Produced by Daniel Lanois, the record was drenched in humid, Southern Gothic atmospherics, with Harris sometimes lowering her vocals to a near-whisper, or singing in a frail-sounding falsetto. Meanwhile, Lanois’s serrated, heavy-on-the-reverb guitar fueled many of the tracks.
She stuck with that general style of production (without Lanois) for her next few albums, but on “All I Intended,” she strikes a balance between those sonic atmospherics and the country-folk imprint of her early years. Many of the tunes are ruminative, melancholy or introspective, and the disc marks a reunion with Brian Ahern, who produced her first 11 albums — and is also her ex-husband. This was her first project with Ahern in 25 years. The album also features guest turns by Parton, Vince Gill and guitarist Buddy Miller.
When it comes right down to it, what draws many listeners to Harris’s music is That Voice.
Emmylou Harris sings a cappella at the 2009 New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival:
“There’s something about her voice that is just fascinating,” says Roth. “Her voice can be high and thin, but it also has such texture, and an edge that gives it a graininess that is very beautiful. It’s just so distinctive. When you hear it, you just immediately know it’s her.”
PREVIEW Emmylou Harris Who: Crystalline-voiced country-folk-pop sweetheart who marked her 40th year as a recording artist in 2008. What: A mix of Harris’s original songs, bluegrass/country standards and her own unique interpretations of tunes written by some of the greatest songwriters of the last 60 years. Where: Michigan Theater, 603 E. Liberty St. When: Friday, 8 p.m. How much: $35 - $65 Details: 734-668-8397, 734-763-TKTS, Michigan Theater web site.
Kevin Ransom is a free-lance writer who covers music for AnnArbor.com. He first wrote about Emmylou Harris in 1992, and can be reached at KevinRansom10@aol.com.