Emmylou

Last Wednesday night Nick and I went to see the foxy, silver-haired darling of Nashville, Emmylou Harris. Nick and I were first introduced to Emmylou by my Mum, and if memory serves me correctly, it was my brother Liam, who introduced Mum - he gave her Wrecking Ball as a birthday present many years ago. In many ways Emmylou was our introduction to the world of country, folk, blue grass and blues music. We had resigned ourselves to the fact that we may never get to see her perform live (her visit to Australia in January this year was her first in ten years). That was until we found out she was touring Europe.  Nick and I don’t have our hands on London’s pulse, so by the time we found out we could only get seats behind the stage. We were a little dubious about the seats but what a treat they turned out to be. We were in the ‘front’ row, very close to all the behind the scenes action. Plus the seats were only £15 – an absolute bargain.  

It took her a little while to get her unique voice going but once she did it was magnificent. Emmylou has a beautifully haunting voice that was even better live. She promised something’s old, something’s new, something’s borrowed and something’s blue and she delivered. She paid tribute to her dear friend Kate McGarrigle singing ‘one of the most beautiful songs every written’ in her honour – Talk to Me of Mendochin. She spoke of Gram Parsons (‘if it wasn’t for him I probably wouldn’t be standing in front of you tonight’), signing The Road. She sang many of her songs ‘recorded when she was a brunette’ including Red Dirt Girl, Orphan Girl, Every Grain, If I Needed You and Harlan - but also many songs from her new album. One of them, Big Black Dog, is such a delightful song about her dog. As the story goes, on a visit to the animal shelter she came across the big black dog and couldn’t resist him. She had no intention of keeping him permanently and was planning on finding a suitable owner, but the big black dog soon became part of the furniture. Unfortunately she did not sing Wrecking Ball or When you Left this World, two of her most beautiful songs, but you can’t have it all. And it seems the crowd agreed. Not once during the 2 hour show did I hear a single request shouted. It was as if everyone agreed that what Emmylou decided to sing was exactly what we wanted to hear.