8 Emmylou Harris

Stumble Into Grace

NONESUCH 2003, £11.54 You Say: “A beautiful work of art from start to finish… the beauty, grace and power of her voice, backed by terrific bands, can bring the strongest man to tears.” Doug Watson, MOJO Facebook The follow-up to Red Dirt Girl, and another part of an unquestionable purple patch. By now, it was pretty clear that in leaving behind the supposed country mainstream, she had found not only her voice as a songwriter, but a new sound full of darkness and light, underpinned by a keen sense of the right collaborators – as proved here by the rumbling protest song Time In Babylon, co-written with Jill Cunniff of all-female alt-rockers Luscious Jackson. The notion of ‘alternative country’ has long been a cliché, but this is the sound of that basic idea, flowering to wondrous effect.