Emmylou Harris - Red Dirt Girl

When Bob Dylan and producer Daniel Lanois combined forces in 1988 to record "Oh Mercy", the music world was astonished to see just how much great stuff Dylan still had in him.  He promptly followed that with "Under a Red Sky", which wasn't an embarassment, but it did sound rather trivial and meandering compared to its predecessor.  Lanois was not involved.  Then came 1997's "Time Out of Mind", again a collaboration with Lanois.  Lightning struck again, and it is regarded as one of the all-time great Dylan records.

Emmylou Harris, like Dylan, proves with "Red Dirt Girl" that, without the right producer, lightning does not strike twice.  This new release isn't a bad record; it has some very strong songs on it, and her voice is as enchanting and soulful as ever.  But Producer Malcolm Burn unsuccessfully tries to continue the style that Daniel Lanois brought to 1995's "Wrecking Ball".  Lanois restrained the energy of his musicians, but knew when to take the lid off and let things boil over.  Burn's band is just background, their fusion just a floatation device for the vocals.   It's almost like the musicians are being too respectful, standing too far back, too afraid to really let it rip.   This is a little hard to take after the live album "Spyboy" revealed just how this group can fan a flame into a forest fire. 

And since these songs, all but one written by Emmylou, are often very long, wordy, and traditional, they grow somewhat tiresome.  Near the end, when some truly marvelous songs pop up, the listener's attentions may already have wandered.

Malcolm Burn is a fine producer, and has brought subtlety and power to already established artists.  (His work with Midnight Oil on "Breathe", despite that album's commercial disappointment, is among the band's very best.)  Harris told Wall of Sound, ""[Burn] likes to record with everybody in the same room, so there's a sense of everything kind of bleeding into everything else.   Plus, he's very driven by the vocal performance. He believes that the track you end up with should be determined by the live vocal."

Indeed, Harris's vocals have center stage here, and they're marvelous, as always.  But the music should strengthen the song, especially long songs, by changes in tone and energy.  It's rather ironic, but I think someone might creatively cover the songs and make them stronger, adding bolder punchier music.  It's the same "Wrecking Ball" flavor, but it's gone stale, lost all its zip and bite.  

Don't get me wrong.  There are some impressive works here.  The best surprise is that Harris sounds like she was born to sing duets with Dave Matthews--their collaboration on "My Antonia" is the most beautiful thing on the record.  "Hour of Gold" sends chills down my spine with its spooky tribute to her parents' lasting marriage.  "J'Ai Fait Tout" moves on an intense, slow-burn, double-time rhythm; it might have become the album's big rocker, like "Deeper Well" on "Spyboy". 

The lyrics primarily explore the deaths of unsung heroes.  "Red Dirt Girl" memorialized the hard, tragic life of a young mother of five whose existence was not the sort of thing to be noticed by "the news of the world."  The echoing dirge of "Bang the Drum Slowly" remembers a war hero, complete with a hint of "Taps" at the end.  "Boy from Tupelo" is about the desire to disappear and leave a legacy as memorable as Elvis's own.  And "Michelangelo" is a wonderful dream about resurrecting a lonely artist.  

But the overwhelmingly serious tone taints the places where things should lift up a bit.  Patti Griffin's "One Big Love" (the album's only cover) should be a breath of fresh air, but Harris sings it without any sense of play or fun.  If you've heard the original, you know that it's a funky, tongue-in-cheek number that should make us dance instead of sigh.

Some editing would have been helpful. Emmylou is, ultimately, a GREAT interpreter of other people's material.  Her own songs here run a little long, get a little too wordy, and depend often on cliche, and are too heavy with Biblical allusions that try to lift these small-town stories to a mythic level.  In "My Baby Needs a Shepherd", she sings mournfully about a prodigal child "lost out in the dark.  "Nobody can find her," she sings, then adds, "Not even Noah and his ark."  To me, that's rather a forced rhyme. 

I'd still say "Red Dirt Girl" is a must for Emmylou fans. After all of those great interpretations she's given us, it is interesting to hear how she herself writes, what stories she has to tell when she's all by herself.  It does, though, go a long way to showing just how rare and wonderful a privilege it is for an artist to work with Daniel Lanois.  I certainly hope the two of them will work together again. 

JEFFREY'S GRADE:  B-