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Emmylou Harris & Rodney Crowell

Venue: Bridgewater Hall
Town: Manchester
Date: 8th May
Website: http://www.emmylouharris.com

"Old Yellow Moon", the long-awaited duet album by Emmylou Harris and Rodney Crowell was released earlier this year to great acclaim and deservedly so because it is a superb album. "Long awaited" is no exaggeration as this album has been in the offing for no less than forty years! Back in 1974, Emmylou was listening to demo's of songs for her first "proper" album and she was given a tape by a then-unknown Texan songwriter called Rodney Crowell. The rest, as they say, is history as Emmylou went on to record many of Rodney's excellent songs, such as "Bluebird Wine", "Till I Gain Control Again", "Tulsa Queen", "Leaving Louisiana In The Broad Daylight" and "I Ain't Living Long Like This"[all of which we will hear tonight]. Emmylou also invited Rodney to join her legendary Hot Band as rhythm guitarist and duet vocalist, alongside such luminaries as Elvis Presley sidemen James Burton and Glen D. Hardin.

However, until "Old Yellow Moon", Emmylou and Rodney had not made an album together. Now they can cross this off their bucket list.

I was, indeed, fortunate to witness the opening night of Emmylou's and Rodney's UK tour tonight, in the superb surroundings of Manchester's Bridgewater Hall. With no support, it was straight into the headliners first set.

This tour is a celebration of the shared musical history of the two singers and the first number reached right back to the summer of 1973 and Emmylou's short but career-defining musical partnership with Gram Parsons, with a superb version of "Return Of The Grievous Angel". This wasn't the only song associated with the late, lamented GP, as the duo also performed Gram's "Wheels", "Luxury Liner" and "Sin City", with Rodney, of course, taking the part of Emmylou's late mentor. For a dyed-in -the-wool fan of Parsons' music, this was manna from heaven !

Of course, Emmylou made her name with the fabulous [but expensive] Hot Band. There was no James Burton or Albert Lee on guitar tonight but Emmylou has found a most worthy successor in Australian Jedd Hughes, who is one of Nashville's hottest guitar slingers, having worked with Patty Loveless, Keith Urban and Jewel amongst others. A link to Hot Bands of the past was present in the genial form of pedal steel guitar maestro Steve Fishell, who played in The Hot Band in the 1980's. Another sought-after Nashville musician, Byron House, was on bass. Byron has worked with Dolly Parton, Sam Bush and Jerry Douglas, to name but a few.

This was very much a joint billing between Emmylou and Rodney, as the setlist featured many of Rodney's excellent songs, including several that have been recorded by Emmylou, including the song that Rodney played for Emmylou when they first met -"Till I Gain Control Again", from Emmylou's classic 1976 album "Elite Hotel". This was a spine-tingling version of the song complete with a great guitar solo from Jedd Hughes [who needs James Burton?]. Another great Harris/Crowell collaboration was "Tulsa Queen" from 1977's "Luxury Liner" album and tonight's performance was one of shimmering beauty. Other highlights from Emmylou's and Rodney's shared history were "Leaving Louisiana In The Broad Daylight" and "I Ain't Living Long Like This".

Emmylou has always had the knack of choosing great songs to cover, as evidenced by her superb versions tonight of the late, great Townes Van Zandt's "Pancho And Lefty" and the lovely "I'll Be Your San Antone Rose" by the late Susanna Clark, who died last year. Apparently, this is the first song that Susanna had ever written!

Emmylou is, herself, a fine songwriter as shown by the atmospheric "Red Dirt Girl" and her touching tribute to her friend, the late Kate McGarrigle, "Darlin' Kate", which Emmylou sang solo with great emotion, with just her own acoustic guitar for accompaniment. The "unplugged" section of the show continued with a gorgeous rendition by Emmylou and Rodney of The Louvin Brothers' "The Angels Rejoiced In Heaven Last Night" which featured wonderful harmony singing from the duo and which seemed to mine the very essence of what Country music is about. As Rodney said of Emmylou " She has the soul of a poet, the voice of an angel and the heart of a cowgirl".

You will have probably noticed that I haven't mentioned any of the songs from the new album yet. The reason for this is simple : we didn't hear any until well into the second half of the show !

First off from the new album was, naturally, the opening track, Hank DeVito's "Hanging Up My Heart", which is classic country rock. Hank was the pedal steel guitarist in the original Hot Band and he wrote or co-wrote three of the songs on the new album [lucky man !].This was followed [as on the album] by a "Country shuffle from the Roger Miller songbook" namely "Invitation To The Blues" which is pure country and which featured sterling pedal steel work from Steve Fishell.

For the new album Rodney has updated the lyrics to his song "Bluebird Wine" which was the first track on Emmylou's first "proper" album "Pieces Of The Sky". Tonight, he and Emmylou performed a rocking rolling version of the song.

Two of the more poignant songs on "Old Yellow Moon" are "Dreaming My Dreams"[ Allen Reynolds] and, especially, Matraca Berg's "Back When We Were Beautiful", on which Emmylou and Rodney put on a vocal tour de force. Mention should also be made of Jedd's lovely acoustic guitar solo.

In contrast both musically and lyrically was the Kris Kristofferson song "Chase The Feeling", which deals with the evils of drink and featured great harmony vocals from Emmylou and Rodney.

The last number of the second set was the title track of the album "Old Yellow Moon" a haunting, reflective ballad by Lynn Langham and Hank DeVito [him again] after which the audience, naturally, went wild and demanded an encore , which, of course, they got. In fact they got two. The first was Rodney's hit song "Stars On The Water" [which has been covered by Jimmy Buffett and George Strait] and the second was the classic Gram Parsons/Chris Hillman song "Sin City" [which was originally recorded by the Flying Burrito Brothers]. This featured a great pedal steel solo by Steve Fishell and rounded off a wonderful evening spent with two old friends as they looked back over forty years of great music together. It was a pleasure and a privilege to be there.

Peter Cowley
Picture Phil Carter not taken at gig

A review of Emmylou & Rodney at the Birmingham Symphony Hall can be found here