Emmlyou Harris at Overture Hall
Emmylou Harris And Her Red Dirt Boys made an extremely rare Madison appearance on Tuesday at Overture Hall, delivering 90 minutes of haunting country hooks to a loyal crowd that—for the most part—appeared to have aged right along with Harris. But if you think that this youngster from The A.V. Club didn't drop his Overture Center Souvenir Cup in amazement when Harris began belting out opening number “Easy From Now On,” well, you’re wrong. “It’s a quarter moon in a 10-cent town / Time for me to lay my heartaches down,” warbled the country legend as she gently strummed at her acoustic guitar. That sippy cup almost hit the ground a second time when Harris and band followed up with a shimmering rendition of Gram Parsons’ “Grievous Angel.”
Harris had a beyond-stellar cast of musicians at her back in the Red Dirt Boys, but no member made the crowd feel his presence felt the way fedora-clad guitarist Buddy Miller did. Miller’s feel-based guitar licks danced around Harris’ vocal melodies with maximum taste and ease. However, mandolin player and violinist Rickie Simpkins added plenty of busy-fingered texture and melody, too. (Miller actually kicked off the show with an excellent opening set, featuring a stunning duet with Harris on The Left Banke’s “Walk Away Renee.”)
“This really is a lovely city,” declared Harris. “I walked my dogs and went shopping earlier today. I was like a locust walking up and down State Street.”
After a delicate take on Merle Haggard’s “Kern River”—which Harris insisted was her “favorite Merle Haggard song ever, and that’s sayin’ a lot”—the songstress poked fun at the cover art of her latest album, 2008’s All I Intended To Be. “It’s a picture of me walking down this road like it’s supposed to mean something; my friend calls it the Blair Witch Project cover.”
Harris’ set stretched way back to her first few albums. “This song was recorded while I was still a brunette… that didn’t last too long,” Harris joked before “If I Could Only Win Your Love,” a Louvin Brothers-penned song from 1975’s Pieces Of The Sky. Harris did a lot of story-telling in her shy speaking voice between songs, including how she got bloody fingers from learning to play on a cheap guitar and recording with “my friends Dolly and Linda."
The show hit a sharp climax just before the set ended. Harris and her backing band (except for the cello player) put their instruments down and gathered around a single microphone for an a cappella rendition of The Country Gentlemen’s “Calling My Children Home.” The crowd fell stone-silent as Harris’ impassioned voice rose above and fell into the soaring vocal harmonies of Miller and Simpkins. "Those lives were mine to love and cherish / To guard and guide along life's way / Oh God forbid that one should perish / That one alas should go astray,” Harris crooned.
Harris jumped into full-on hoe-down mode for the folk stomp of set-closer “Get Up John,” before the full band took a bow and walked off stage. While it wasn’t surprising that they all returned to the stage moments later for an encore number—the least soul-crushing tune of the night, “Save The Last Dance For Me”—it was a bit strange that Harris only played one encore, and that it wasn’t “Boulder To Birmingham.” But as Harris said during some stage banter earlier in the night, she’s “at the age where I can pretty much do whatever I want.”
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