Best Emmylou Harris album?

[Dodfather]

Hi guys,

I'm a huge Emmylou fan and have been listening to her a lot lately. Unfortunately none of my friends know her work as well as I do (a few songs but that's it) so I thought I could start a thread here!

So, what's everyone's favourite album? I own 14 of her albums and here is my top 5. I should say that, shockingly, I don't own Wrecking Ball. Don't ask me why, I really don't know!

1. Quarter Moon In A Ten Cent Town (1978)
2. Pieces Of The Sky (1975)
3. Blue Kentucky Girl (1979)
4. The Ballad Of Sally Rose (1985)
5. Red Dirt Girl (2000)

* Very honourable mention to Western Wall: The Tucson Sessions (1999), her duets album with Linda Ronstadt. It's wonderful. I decided to just make my list a solo ones though.

Let the debate begin!

Al.

[Nico]

I have always loved Wrecking Ball...probably my favorite, and then I'll cheat and say her box set because it's absolutely perfect.

[Dodfather]

I have always loved Wrecking Ball...probably my favorite, and then I'll cheat and say her box set because it's absolutely perfect.

and the categorisation debate rages ever on... are box sets/greatest hits cheating? I say so, but then again...

[HejiraNYC]

I like Emmylou in small doses- otherwise her earnestness and nihilism become grating after a while. That's why I love love love Western Wall and the first Trio album. Honorable mention also goes to her album with Mark Knopfler. As for her solo work... I would also have to go with Wrecking Ball because of its spooky Daniel Lanois production. I like spooky music!

[trackaghost]

The Songbird box set is amazing.

As for my favourite albums, I'd say as following:

1. Red Dirt Girl
2. Stumble Into Grace
3. Pieces Of The Sky
4. Roses In The Snow
5. Wrecking Ball

Emmylou has always been one of my favourites, I love her work with Gram Parsons too and anything she sings back-up on from Dylan's Desire to Neil Young and even Bright Eyes. She's also an artist that seems to grow and get better as she gets older which is rare.

[AgeOldDesire]

1. Bluebird
No Regrets is utter bliss. And Bonnie Raitt's backing vocals on Icy Blue Heart are just gravy.

2. Luxury Liner
Tulsa Queen gets me every time. The cover of She is wonderful.

3. Wrecking Ball
Emmy always likes to try something new. This is it. 14 years later and it still gives me chills.

4. Evangeline
Deserves the WTF award for not being available on CD.

5. All I Intended To Be
Emmy's latest effort contains what may be my favorite song she's ever written, Not Enough. It is haunting to say the least.

[Dodfather]

The Songbird box set is amazing.

As for my favourite albums, I'd say as following:

1. Red Dirt Girl
2. Stumble Into Grace
3. Pieces Of The Sky
4. Roses In The Snow
5. Wrecking Ball

Emmylou has always been one of my favourites, I love her work with Gram Parsons too and anything she sings back-up on from Dylan's Desire to Neil Young and even Bright Eyes. She's also an artist that seems to grow and get better as she gets older which is rare.

Really like this album. I'll Go Steppin' Too is fantastic!

[carrie721]

i could talk about emmylou for a friggin' year and never tire of it.

The Songbird box set is amazing.

As for my favourite albums, I'd say as following:

1. Red Dirt Girl
2. Stumble Into Grace
3. Pieces Of The Sky
4. Roses In The Snow
5. Wrecking Ball

i love all these albums but i would put wrecking ball above stumble into grace, and above red dirt girl, too, actually. i love the heartbreaking, lush qualities of RDG, but it suffers a bit from a dearth of sonic and thematic variety. the breadth of WB really hits me where i live, from the biting, scratching, filthy desperation of deeper well to the three-chords-and-the-truth simplicity of sweet old world. also, this:

i walked to the river
and I walked to the rim
i walked through the teeth of the reaper's grin
i walked to you rolled up in wire
to the other side of desire

and this:

well the heart opens wide like it's never seen love
and addiction stays on tight like a glove
oh where oh where will I be

win at life.

anyway, my list:

1) wrecking ball see above.
2) red dirt girl the first emmylou album i ever owned. i now have all of them. and i mean all of them. :lol:
3) quarter moon in a ten cent town "easy from now on" - sometimes i think this is my life's theme song. i'm almost always wrong. my life's theme song is actually "two more bottles of wine." and "leaving louisiana in the broad daylight." and "i ain't living long like this." i have to say, though, that as much as i love both dolly and emmylou, i don't particularly like emmylou's dolly covers. "to daddy" is a miss for me.
4) roses in the snow emmylou. bluegrass. can't go wrong.
5) spyboy i don't usually put live albums in my top 5 albums for any artist, but since this is the best live album of all time, i'll make an exception. live versions of "where will i be," "deeper well," "boulder to birmingham," "calling my children home," and "prayer in open d" are stunning.

Emmylou has always been one of my favourites, I love her work with Gram Parsons too

one word: she.

and anything she sings back-up on from Dylan's Desire

thank you for making me listen to that album.

to Neil Young and even Bright Eyes. She's also an artist that seems to grow and get better as she gets older which is rare.

she's the artist i wish stevie were. if stevie did anything half as courageous as wrecking ball i'd STFU and never say a bad thing about her again.

I like Emmylou in small doses- otherwise her earnestness and nihilism become grating after a while.

lately i have to be in a very specific mood to listen to emmylou.

That's why I love love love Western Wall and the first Trio album. Honorable mention also goes to her album with Mark Knopfler. As for her solo work... I would also have to go with Wrecking Ball because of its spooky Daniel Lanois production. I like spooky music!

agree on trio, don't agree on western wall. i like the title track (rosanne cash can do no wrong) and loving the highwayman, but really, i could take or leave the rest.

[BombaySapphire3]

Have been a fan since the 1970s I'd have to say Quarter Moon in a Ten Cent Town tied with Red Dirt Girl and of course all those sublime Gram Parsons songs on which she sings with him on GP and Grievous Angel.

[Cornflake Girl]

I have always loved Wrecking Ball...probably my favorite, and then I'll cheat and say her box set because it's absolutely perfect.


I feel like I'm stalking you tonight. I'm really not. Honest. I agree with that completely. After 'Wrecking Ball', I decided the only person I want to hear sing Bob Dylan and Neil Young's songs is Emmylou.

I have to add, her latest album, 'All I Intended to Be', is gorgeous. There's a great mix of her own writing and covers of brilliant songs (ie Tracey Chapman's 'All That You Have is Your Soul'). It's one of the few albums I could really gush about. But I'll stop now.

[Sorceress]

Emmy's version of All That You Have is Your Soul is a brilliant, beautiful song.
Shores of White Sand is beautiful from that album too. Overall, All I Intended to Be is such a life-stage album that it's depressing to listen to. It's the "I'm past 60, looking back, reviewing my life, my losses...and I'm going to die too" kind of thing. Wise, but depressing.
That said, Wrecking Ball is one of my favorite albums of all time.
Red Dirt Girl, Roses in the Snow, Elite Hotel, and the live All the Road Running are my others. For live albums, Spyboy is fabulous, and At the Ryman is nice too for the more country old-timey feel. What I listen to is determined by my mood--melancholy: newer stuff(WB on); happy: old stuff.