Emmylou Harris 1984, "Two More Bottles of Wine"

Tags: establishment press

Deportees

I couldn't embed the Arlo Guthrie video I wanted to in the last post.

But here's one featuring Arlo with Emmylou Harris singing Woody Guthrie's song "Deportees". It's hard to top that. Woody wrote the song about those who we called "undocumented workers" today. Their situation still sucks today.



Tags: arlo guthrie, emmylou harris, woody guthrie

Emmylou Harris, et al, "Flesh And Blood" video

This is a video featuring Emmylou Harris, Mary Chapin Carpenter and Sheryl Crow (with Marty Stuart playing in the shadows):



Tags: emmylou harris, mary chapin carpenter, sheryl crow

"Wheels of Love" by Emmylou Harris, Iris Dement, and Mary Black

A great country song about the eternal and impossible quest for the perfect love.



Tags: emmylou harris, iris dement, mary black

Light of the Stable

Emmylou Harris' Light of the Stable is still my favorite Christmas album. It was originally released in 1979, still the pre-CD era.

The cover art on the current CD edition (see above) was previously only available on a single version of the title song. I like the way the artist mixed elements of the story around. Instead of three wise men, three angels. Instead of angels in the field, the angels are in the stable.

A couple of the tunes are country-gospel favorites that you don't here very much, "Christmas Time's A-Coming" and "Beautiful Star of Bethlehem". The title song "Light of the Stable", I've only heard on this album, but it's a lovely song, and Emmy shows her ability to render it reverent but not stuffy.

Emmy is my favorite singer, so I can't claim to be very objective. But her versions of the well-known traditional hymns "O Little Town of Bethlehem", "The First Noel" and "Silent Night" are just outstanding. Her versions of "Little Drummer Boy" and "Away in a Manger" are also excellent. She gives "Away in a Manger" a poignant sound that fits well with the lyrics but gives lost in most versions because it's treated more like a lullaby.


Two less-familiar songs were included on the original album, "Golden Cradle" and "Angel Eyes". Both are good, but I was first familiar with "Angel Eyes" in the duet version she did with Willie Nelson, who sings harmony on this version. But I always thought it was more of a tribute to Emmy herself, although the "You can move the hearts of men" line could fit the Christ-child, too, though in a different way. I also like the lines in that song: "The ways of the world are feeble/Don't give up on simple people".

The current CD version includes three additional songs that presumably were recorded about the same time but never released before: "There's a Light", "Cherry Tree Carol" and "Man is An Island". As a hardcore Emmy fan, I'm glad to have the extra tracks. But in this case, as in others where "bonus" tracks are added, they don't necessarily add to the overall effect of the album.

Especially since I was used to the way it originally was. Christmas makes me nostaglic for the good ole days. When football was still the roughest thing on campus, and kids all still respected the college dean.

Tags: christmas songs, christmas songs, emmylou harris, light of the stable