All I Intended to Be

iTunes Review

Now in her ‘60s and a member of the Country Music Hall of Fame, Emmylou Harris doesn’t slow down for her latest collection, which features Harris in fine vocal form. She lends her interpretive gifts to the songs of others, both well-known and obscure, while sharing the microphone with a worthy rotating cast. Teamed up with old producer Brian Ahern, who produced her first 11 albums, Harris put him to the test, requiring him to align tracks from various sessions in Canada, Los Angeles and Nashville, including a drum track from the late Doobie Brother Keith Knudsen for the album’s touching opener, John Wesley Routh’s “Shores of White Sand.” For a well-lauded country artist, Harris is less traditional than her pedigree might suggest. While Ahern doesn’t attempt the modern-art ambience of Daniel Lanois or Malcolm Burn, he does employ a similar stillness, and Patty Griffin’s “Moon Song,” Mark Germino’s “Broken Man’s Lament,” and Tracy Chapman’s “All That You Have is Your Soul” have a chilling spiritual dimension to their performances.