Tuesday, August 4, 2020

Emmylou Harris, Vince Gill & Rodney Crowell - Opry Livestream, Grand Ole Opry House, Nashville, TN, 8-1-2020

Here's a home concert that took place just a few days ago. This is somewhat different than the usual home concert in that three stars got together on the same stage and played a bunch of songs as an acoustic trio (with one more musician joining them to add flourishes on mandolin and other instruments). All three are long-time country stars: Emmylou Harris, Vince Gill, and Rodney Crowell.

I must admit that I'm not a really big fan of most country music, so I don't know much about Gill or Crowell. I'm mainly interested in this for Harris. As far as I can tell, she hasn't done any home concert appearances during the coronavirus pandemic, until this show. This is part of a weekly series called "Opry Livestream" that has been put on by the Grand Ole Opry in lieu of their usual regular concerts in Nashville, Tennessee. If you're a country music fan, search YouTube for "Opry Livestream" and you'll find a bunch of their other 2020 home concerts, which generally feature two or more country stars playing together.

This concert is 47 minutes long. For the entire duration, all three stars stayed on stage and strummed their guitars. Each one took turns singing, but the others often joined in, especially Harris, who is reknowned for her harmony vocals. They also talked with each other quite a lot between songs. If you listen to that, it's clear that that all three have been close friends for a long time, dating all the way back to the 1970s. Harris and Crowell did two albums together in recent years as well.

In putting this album together, I cut out a bunch of interruptions by various Opry announcers, which were basically commercials. I suspect those were added in later in any case. The sound quality is just fine. The only disappointment I have is that the last song ends abruptly. In the YouTube recording, it came to a sudden halt to make room for another one of those announcements/commercials. I faded it out instead to make the ending less jarring.

01 If I Could Only Win Your Love (Emmylou Harris, Vince Gill & Rodney Crowell)
02 talk (Emmylou Harris, Vince Gill & Rodney Crowell)
03 Oklahoma Borderline (Emmylou Harris, Vince Gill & Rodney Crowell)
04 talk (Emmylou Harris, Vince Gill & Rodney Crowell)
05 Still Learning How to Fly (Emmylou Harris, Vince Gill & Rodney Crowell)
06 talk (Emmylou Harris, Vince Gill & Rodney Crowell)
07 Old Yellow Moon (Emmylou Harris, Vince Gill & Rodney Crowell)
08 talk (Emmylou Harris, Vince Gill & Rodney Crowell)
09 Song for the Life (Emmylou Harris, Vince Gill & Rodney Crowell)
10 talk (Emmylou Harris, Vince Gill & Rodney Crowell)
11 Bluebird Wine (Emmylou Harris, Vince Gill & Rodney Crowell)
12 talk (Emmylou Harris, Vince Gill & Rodney Crowell)
13 Even Cowgirls Get the Blues (Emmylou Harris, Vince Gill & Rodney Crowell)
14 talk (Emmylou Harris, Vince Gill & Rodney Crowell)
15 'Til I Gain Control Again (Emmylou Harris, Vince Gill & Rodney Crowell)
16 talk (Emmylou Harris, Vince Gill & Rodney Crowell)
17 You Can't Say We Didn't Try (Emmylou Harris, Vince Gill & Rodney Crowell)
18 talk (Emmylou Harris, Vince Gill & Rodney Crowell)
19 Leaving Louisiana in the Broad Daylight (Emmylou Harris, Vince Gill & Rodney Crowell)

For the cover art, I took a screenshot from the video.

11 comments:

  1. Rodney Crowell's self-titled first album is a stone cold classic!

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    1. I've never heard it. I should probably check it out. Anyone who married Rosanne Cash must be a pretty cool guy. ;)

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  2. Thanks. I have seen all 3 perform and they are fantastic.

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  3. Rodney Crowell played in Emmylou's band in the 70s, and she recorded several of his songs back then. He's definitely worth listening to!

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    1. Yeah, they talk about that a bit in their banter between songs.

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  4. Hey thank you for this. Do you have a copy of the early mix for Emmy’s Red Dirt Girl? Some extra songs in there...

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    1. I've never even heard of it. What are the extra songs?

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    2. It's what I assume is an early mix of the Red Dirt Girl album, I think Malcolm Burn (?) does the duet vocal of My Antonia in anticipation of Dave Matthews plus there are 3 songs not on the record: Streets Of Babylon, The Goodbye Girl & Cup Of Kindness (which surfaced on Stumble Into Grace much more produced than the cut here). Let me know if you'd like to here, you've introduced me to so much here.
      Nick

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  5. Also, a slight aside, did you catch the Concert For Joe (Strummer) yesterday on youtube, I think it has been taken down now. I only recorded a couple of tracks Jeff Tweedy and a blinding version of Straight To Hell by Lucinda Williams. I captured to WAV if you'd like to add to one of your later anthologies...

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  6. Ignore me it's not down at all...
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=522hHPWLoxA&t=6112s

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