EMMYLOU HARRIS : SPYBOY

 

  1. My Songbird
  2. Where Will I Be
  3. I Ain't Living Long Like This
  4. Love Hurts
  5. Green Pastures
  6. Deeper Well
  7. Prayer in Open D
  8. Calling My Children Home
  9. Tulsa Queen
  10. Wheels
  11. Born to Run
  12. Boulder to Birmingham
  13. All My Tears
  14. The Maker

Label : Grapevine

Venue : Exit/In Club, Nashville, Tennesse, USA

Recording Date : May 31, 1998

Released : August 11, 1998

Length : 61:56

Review (AllMusic) : This live project, which includes the talents of the always great Buddy Miller, is an interesting reflection of an American icon. Eclectic, it is reflective of Emmylou Harris' excursions into areas of music beyond the country and rock spheres she has already conquered. But it is the country arena that best showcases her ever-flowering ability with a song. "I Ain't Living Long Like This" and "Love Hurts" stand out boldly. "Tulsa Queen," a co-write with Rodney Crowell, is an amazing display of her vocal prowess, as is the a cappella "Calling My Children Home." "Boulder to Birmingham" is equally effective in its power and intensity, while Jesse Winchester's "My Songbird" seems to be custom-made for Harris. She delivers in triplicate on the traditional "Green Pastures." Still, even after all these years, there is a transcendent emotional depth and connection when Harris performs "Wheels," a song written by Chris Hillman and Harris' early mentor, Gram Parsons. Her relationship with Parsons is well documented, but it is best evidenced by her performances of the work he left behind, as this performance of "Wheels" proves. An original, she continues to conjure up interesting and diverse vocals, while giving her talented bandmembers the go-ahead to show off their skills as well. This live project is awe-inspiring, much like Emmylou Harris herself.

Review (Wikipedia) : Spyboy is a 1998 live album by Emmylou Harris and her backing band, Spyboy, which she formed for a tour to perform songs from her 1995 career-redefining album, Wrecking Ball. Taking a stripped-down approach, Harris is backed by a trio comprising country singer-songwriter Buddy Miller on guitar and New Orleans musicians Daryl Johnson on bass and Brady Blade on drums. Along with songs from Wrecking Ball, such as "Where Will I Be" and "Deeper Well", Harris performs other songs from earlier in her career, such as "Born to Run" from Cimarron, "Love Hurts", which she first performed with Gram Parsons, "I Ain't Living Long Like This" from Quarter Moon in a Ten Cent Town and her ode to Parsons, "Boulder to Birmingham", from her 1975 debut album, Pieces of the Sky.

Review (The Japan Times) : Emmylou Harris left one subsidiary of Warner Bros. (Asylum) in the mid-'90s before being picked up by another (Nonesuch) last year. During those five years she released an excellent but overlooked album with Linda Ronstadt and toured the world with a three-piece band called Spyboy (named after the jester that leads a Mardi Gras parade), perfecting the darker folk-rock sound she and producer Daniel Lanois developed for 1995's "Wrecking Ball," an album of heavy-weather atmospherics and glum songs. On her live DVD, "Spyboy," recorded during a 1998 concert at Nashville's Exit/In club, Harris seems determined to exploit her Second Coming as a country music innovator. Between songs she talks about how she's always "pushed the envelope" to the point where she feels she's "broken right through the paper." The self-promotion is unnecessary considering how much more affecting these performances are than the ones on "Wrecking Ball" (or, for that matter, the ones on her new album, "Red Dirt Girl," which is essentially "Wrecking Ball, Part 2"). Buoyed by the guitar and harmonies of alt-country god Buddy Miller and anchored by the jazzlike rhythm section of Darryl Johnson and Brady Blade, Emmylou rides the waves of these 10 songs with her usual sense of drama, but without all the production business that made the Lanois project so murky. And with that amazing mane of silver-gray hair, she's never looked more like a Lorelei. Whether she's growling through Rodney Crowell's fatalistic rocker "I Ain't Living Long Like This" or calling down angels on her own "Prayer in Open D," her narrative instincts transcend the limiting label she's always worn as "an interpreter's interpreter." She's the only singer who does what she does.