Harris’ new band her best
by Steve Webb, The Knickerbocker News, July 13, 1981
Four songs into Emmylou Harris’ concert Sunday at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center, it was obvious that her latest version of the Hot Band is the best in a live setting.
That song was “Making Believe,” a rich and slow ballad enhanced on stage by Don Johnson’s work on piano, Steve Fishell’s steel guitaring and Barry Tashian’s harmony vocals. The effect contained all the sadness the song’s lyric suggests.
The show generally featured material from all of Ms. Harris’ album, 25 songs in just under two hours for 5,800 people — 1,200 more than last year.
The highlights came from various areas of the singer’s versatile repertoire, and generally succeeded because of the accompaniment. Ms. Harris is a reflexive singer in that she does her best work reacting to strong accompaniment.
The Louvin brothers’ composition, “If I Could Only Win Your Love,” sounded as fresh as it did in 1975 on her “debut” album “Pieces of the Sky.” Its lilting chord progression was followed by a rocking version of “Two More Bottles of Wine” featuring fiddler-mandolinist Wayne Goodwin on saxophone, a new element in the Hot Band.
She recalled her 1980 acoustic-instruments tour with three traditional pieces, highlighted by “Wayfaring Stranger.” But none of these matched the swing and jazz-tinged numbers that followed. A torchy rendition of “Miss the Mississippi” was followed by an excellent workout of “How High the Moon,” one of two bebop-styled pieces on Ms. Harris’ latest album, “Evangeline.” On this cut, lead guitarist Frank Reckard’s solo sounded like a cross between Lester Flatt and Wes Montgomery, while Goodwin’s fiddling swung like the best of them.
Her latest single, “I Don’t Have to Crawl,” followed after she described it as “dropping off the charts like an anchor. It might well be off by the time we finish this rendition.” The Rodney Crowell song is probably the best cut on “Evangeline,” and it has much power in the band’s ominous performance.
“Luxury Liner,” a strong song about trucking, was highlighted by a breakdown at the end that featured Fishell, Reckard and Goodwin echoing Jeff Beck’s “Freeway Jam” in their recalling the sounds of the highway.
The main concert ended with a now-familiar Western Swing version of Chuck Berry’s “You Never Can Tell.” Three encores followed, two of them slow songs. One of those, Crowell’s “Till I Gain Control Again,” featured Ms. Harris’ most profound vocal performance of the night.
But the surpriser was a rock’n’roll medley of songs not on any Harris album. Giving some competition to the E Street Band, the musicians kicked their way through Smokey Robinson’s “Shop Around,” the Crystals’ “He’s a Rebel,” a Jerry Lee Lewis tune, and Little Richard’s “Rip It Up.”
This is the band Ms. Harris ought to record with live. They have the kind of rapport her original Hot Band, including Glenn D. Hardin and Crowell, had in the studio but never really pulled off on stage.
Jerry Jeff Walker opened the concert with a pleasant bunch of his hits from the early ’70s. “L.A. Freeway,” “Mr. Bojangles,” and the dusty classic “Desperadoes Waiting for a Train” were his highlights.
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