Emmylou Harris and Rodney Crowell: Old Yellow Moon (Warners)

 |   |  <1 min read

Rodney Crowell and Emmylou Harris: Open Season on My Heart
Emmylou Harris and Rodney Crowell: Old Yellow Moon (Warners)

Two-part question to Emmylou and Rodney: What took you so long (they've been musical pals for almost four decades) and why songs – albeit good ones – mostly from back-catalogues?

Longtime fans of Harris – who rightly applauded her exceptional concert here last year – will embrace this and forgive her that throat-catch breathy vocal inflection (which becomes damn irritating after a while), and enjoy her version of the ballad Spanish Dancer.

But it's Crowell's burned-edge vocals and ability to inhabit a lyric (the careworn Open Season on My Heart with Harris in perfect synergy) where the real oil lies.

The broody low'n'sultry swing of Black Caffeine is kinda cool (although must have come easy for such seasoned friends) but attention here alights on slow songs where Crowell leads (Dreaming My Dreams impinged by Harris' vocal inflection) and less so the country-rockers.

Harris delivers on Matraca Berg's achingly wistful and nostalgic Back When We Were Beautiful and the title track is a polished rhinestone, but mostly this makes you yearn for a new Crowell album (and a new Emmylou if it isn't too polite).

Beautifully played, pleasant and professional stopgap only occasionally offering the best from either artist.

There is more about Emmylou Harris at Elsewhere starting here. And about Rodney Crowell starting here.

Share It

Your Comments

post a comment

More from this section   Music at Elsewhere articles index

Males: Run Run Run/MalesMalesMales (Fishrider)

Males: Run Run Run/MalesMalesMales (Fishrider)

Attuned to elevating West Coast USA pop – with a twist of power-pop in the manner of the close-harmony Shoes – this Dunedin duo here add an early single (the likably chipper,... > Read more

BEST OF ELSEWHERE 2008 Lucinda Williams: Little Honey (Universal)

BEST OF ELSEWHERE 2008 Lucinda Williams: Little Honey (Universal)

After her last, quite exceptional but largely melancholy album West (in part influenced by death in the family) it is almost as if Williams is here staking her claim again to some sassy rock'n'roll... > Read more

Elsewhere at Elsewhere

MORE JAHZZ FROM THE KIWI UNDERGROUND (2024): Jahzz it is and jazz it be

MORE JAHZZ FROM THE KIWI UNDERGROUND (2024): Jahzz it is and jazz it be

The on-going releases of left-field local jazz, improvised music and outlier sounds continues apace. The bandcamp site for Kiwijahzz lists 11 volumes of Jazz From the Underground Nightclubs of... > Read more

EPs by Yasmin Brown

EPs by Yasmin Brown

With so many CDs commanding and demanding attention Elsewhere will run this occasional column by the informed and opinionated Yasmin Brown. She will scoop up some of those many EP releases, in... > Read more