★★★★★
Even with the luxury of 19 years to ponder, absorb and unravel its allure, Wrecking Ball still sounds groundbreaking. Many credit producer Daniel Lanois for pushing Emmylou Harris to work in a new sonic landscape back in 1995 when she was considered strictly a country/folk/bluegrass musician. But, as we find out from the DVD documentary on this expanded and remastered edition, the idea to work with Lanois was all Harris'...
- www.americansongwriter.com
2014-05-06
★★★★★
1995 masterpiece reissued with disc of out-takes and making-of DVD... Upon its original release, Wrecking Ball prompted acclaim and bewilderment in equal measure. It was, unquestionably, a great record. It just didn't sound very much like the sort of great record that Emmylou Harris made. Her canon of great records to this point, while formidable, also conformed to a certain type: orthodox Nashville country lightly doused with essence of Laurel Canyon folk-rock...
- www.uncut.co.uk
2014-04-24
★★★★★
When Emmylou Harris made Wrecking Ball , the atmospheric meditation on the unbearable lightness of being, it appeared the diaphanous vocalist had been gate-checked by the hardcore country music she'd lifted up, made cool and given a hipster sheen that was based on getting back to its roots. With nothing to lose, she enlisted U2 producer Daniel Lanois and surrendered to what the tides of great songs sensitively--and evocatively--rendered could yield. It was, simply, a watershed...
- www.pastemagazine.com
2014-04-09
★★★★★
Track Listing: CD1 (Wrecking Ball Remastered): Where Will I Be?; Goodbye; All My Tears; Wrecking Ball; Goin' Back to Harlan; Deeper Well; Every Grain of Sand; Sweet Old World; May This Be Love; Orphan Girl; Blackhawk; Waltz Across Texas Tonight. CD2 (Deeper Well: The Wrecking Ball Outtakes): Still Water; Where Will I Be (alternate version); All My Tears; How Will I Ever Be Simple Again; Deeper Well; The Stranger Song; Sweet Old World (alternate version); Gold; Blackhawk (alternate version); May...
- www.allaboutjazz.com
2014-04-06
★★★★★
Harris' 70s outputestablished her as animportant and distinctivecountry music voice, not justa duet foil to Gram Parsons,and was well represented onher first volume in Warners'budget-priced Original AlbumSeries. This second batchcovers the next decade,which may not have producedas many winners but is stillworthy of investigation.
- recordcollectormag.com
2013-11-07
★★★★★
A collaboration at once overdue, and worth the wait... This album has been an unrealised ambition for Harris and Crowell since 1974, when Harris was choosing tracks for her solo debut, Pieces Of The Sky. The producer overseeing Pieces Of The Sky, Brian Ahern, played Harris a track by budding Texan songwriter Rodney Crowell. It was called "Bluebird Wine", and it became the opening track of the album. "Bluebird Wine" is also the eighth track on the Brian Ahern-produced Old Yellow Moon...
- www.uncut.co.uk
2013-04-01
★★★★★
Though they began working together nearly 40 years ago, Old Yellow Moon is the first equal billing project between Harris and Crowell; while it's a rich and warm meeting of old friends, another celebrated country figure looms large. This is a vibrant and alluring collection of old school honky-tonk tearjerkers and saloon bar shuffles that can't help but bring to mind Emmylou's early 70s recordings with the late Gram Parsons...
- recordcollectormag.com
2013-04-01
★★★★★
Whether it's traditional country music, country rock, folk-rock, bluegrass, or alt-country, Emmylou Harris has tackled it all with her effortless soprano vocals. This compilation is a retrospective of her three-decade career, and confirms her place as influential songstress. Harris personally selected the tracks for this album, and she expertly pulls at least one track from nearly every one of her solo albums, opting for songs that to her were artistically important rather than a greatest hit...
- www.the-trades.com
2013-04-01
★★★★★
' shimmering, yearning soprano is one of the great voices in music. Long before it is a country song, or a sad song, anything she sings is an Emmylou Harris song. Yet at the same time, curiously, the Alabama native is a singer whose best moments come in partnership. And on Old Yellow Moon, in that potentially hokiest of country traditions - the boy/girl duet - an old alliance triumphs with charm...
- www.bbc.co.uk
2013-04-23