"For Emmylou Harris, it's no cliche to say that every song is a story. The country legend has spent 50 years roaming between folk, bluegrass, rock'n'roll and Americana, curating her own songbook of deeply humanitarian music. On this first stop of her European farewell tour, she says goodbye to Scottish fans as part of the Celtic Connections festival, offering up a suitably career-spanning set-list accompanied by memories of Gram Parsons, Nanci Griffith, Bill Monroe, Townes Van Zandt and Willie Nelson, to name just a few."
"Her voice is still spine tingling, now with a lived-in dustiness that only enriches her storytelling: Red Dirt Girl, her great blues tragedy, devastates now more than ever. It is majestic to watch her conduct three-part harmonies for an earthy, spiritual a cappella of Bright Morning Stars, and her delight in her band is infectious: It's alright to cheer the boys! she urges, after a show-stopping mandolin solo from Eamon McLoughlin."
"She plays for almost two hours, pausing only to take a sip of tea, and a roaring performance of Parsons's Luxury Liner ends with both her fists in the air: What fun! After an emotional standing ovation, she can barely rip herself away, and instead offers up Boulder to Birmingham, her majestic ballad about reckoning with Parsons's death. And just as there's scarcely a dry eye in the house, she chases it with Chuck Berry's You Never Can Tell just for fun, she winks."
Emmylou Harris, at nearly 79, performs the first European stop of her farewell tour at Celtic Connections, offering a career-spanning set that mixes folk, bluegrass, rock'n'roll and Americana. She intersperses songs with memories of musical peers and mentors while delivering a spine-tingling voice now enriched by lived-in dustiness. Highlights include a devastating rendition of Red Dirt Girl, majestic three-part harmonies on Bright Morning Stars, a swaggering cover of Johnny Cash's Help Him, Jesus, and a roaring Luxury Liner finale. The band earns cheers, audience members dance and the show culminates in an emotional encore of Boulder to Birmingham.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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