EMMYLOU HARRIS
All I Intended to Be
(Nonesuch)
*** (out of 5)
With that crown of white-blonde hair that Emmylou Harris developed about a decade ago, she looks more ethereal than ever—less a country and western singer than an Asian apparition out of The Bride With White Hair. Her voice only heightens the resemblance; on her new CD, it rings out as clearly and cleanly, and with as much heart-stabbing power as ever. What other singer could make the chorus of “Hold On” (which simply repeats the title phrase three times) so moving, just in the way her voice leaps, like a yodeler, from one chord to the next? And on the tracks where she sings with Kate and Anna McGarrigle” it’s like a Mt. Olympus summit meeting of great folk voices.
Harris’ songwriting is not as magical, however, and All I Intended to Be is bogged down by filler like “Gold” and “Not Enough,” which pale in comparison to Merle Haggard’s eloquently mournful “Kern River” or even Billy Joe Shaver’s rueful “Old Five and Dimers Like Me.” A voice like Harris’ deserves the best songs in the world; it sounds cruel, but it might be that her own songs just aren’t good enough for her.
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