Last Date
Emmylou Harris'sLast Datehad a nobler purpose than scaling the country charts in 1982. Harris envisioned the album as a statement for her Hot Band's preeminence as a live-gig ensemble. To prove that point, she assembledLast Date's 12 tracks from a tour of California honky-tonks, places where Harris imagined a listener might get the essence of country music--which seen through these tracks more closely resembles the later-emerging alternative-country scene than most of the 1990s' commercial "young" country. She chose a program of cover tunes, no fewer than four of them either written by or associated strongly with her former leader, the lateGram Parsons. The others come from all over--Bruce Springsteen,Neil Young,Hank Snow,Floyd Cramer,Conway Twitty, andBuck Owens. What each gets here is a new paint job, with the Hot Band driving the tunes hard (thanks to drummer John Ware) and Harris's voice nearly crackling with intensity at times. Aside from Ware, the Hot Band lineup is not Emmylou's most acclaimed, but it is a unit fired up to tackle tunes that Harris simply claims for herself--just as slyly as she claims the top shelf in the world of live country music during her Hot Band's 15-year existence.--Andrew Bartlett