Emmylou Harris

It's telling that Emmylou Harris' new record company is a predominantly classical-music
label. By now, Harris is a high-end institution: enduring and refined. Her ethereal voice,
with its silken core and ragged edges, is the perfect delivery system for the tastefully
chosen songs she has purveyed for three decades. On her latest, the singer who brought
country music to intellectuals and intellect to country music has distilled her jus... More >

What a weird (dishonest? ironic? clueless?) name for a record that's all literature and arty sound effects. Even the title song, while indeed describing the white South of the artist's putative roots, balances on the fulcrum of a four-syllable word: Meridian, which joins allelujah, sanctuary, Antonia, and great big Michelangelo in reminding us that Harris has put away childish things. Instead we get a record worthy of her (to mush up review gush) "celestial" and "eminent" voice, one that "shimmers with poetic imagery and soul." Mortality, redemption, angels, all the important stuff, adorned with Daniel-Lanois-once-removed soundscape. Nary an antiwar song, yet you know Joan Baez is proud. (Grade: C)