Long before the term alt.country was invented as a crude marketing device, Emmylou Harris was offering a challenging alternative to the crass sentimental schlock that had become the norm for the country genre. A sublime and sensitive interpreter of other people’s songs since the early seventies, she has latterly applied her own pen to paper, and Stumble Into Grace, arguably her best album since 1995’s Wrecking Ball, is a superb clutch of songs either written or co-written by the grande dame of country.
Yet despite the collaborations these songs at times sound so personal they hurt. For example, ‘Can You Hear Me Now’ is vintage Harris, her achingly fragile soprano voice carrying a touch of Kris Kristofferson-like forlorn melancholy in a song that evokes the contradictory claustrophobia of deep loneliness. On the sunnier ‘Jupiter Rising’ she adds a hint of the Caribbean and makes it work spectacularly well, and on ‘Little Bird’, co-written and co-sung with the McGarrigles, she crosses the Andes à la Paul Simon. These are areas supposedly verboten to “proper” country singers!
From the opener ‘Here I Am’ right through to the Lanoisesque ‘Cup Of Kindness’ she uses the trademark sob in her voice and the catch as the note bends to take the listener on a rollercoaster ride of emotions that few singers, country, alternative or otherwise, can emulate.