I never saw Emmylou Harris perform with her Hot Band.  I became a fan of her music in the years after her performances with the Nash Ramblers.  Going into Monday’s performance at the Charlottesville Pavilion, the best band that I’d seen Emmylou perform with was Spyboy (Buddy Miller, Brian Blade, and Tony Hall) at the Warner Theater in D.C. back in 2000.  I didn’t think it could get much better than that.  Boy was I wrong.  Joined by an all-star band on a clear evening that was filled with countless stars, it was Emmylou Harris who shined the brighest and most brilliant.

Rolling through and hour and half set that touched on every musical aspect of Emmylou’s legendary career, long-time fans and new converts alike were treated to an evening of music that stretched from Harris’s early beginnings with Gram Parsons although through to her latest songs from her new album All I Intended to Be.  With her extraordinary band The Red Dirt Boys providing back-up for one of the most extraordinary voices of our time, Emmylou Harris proved once again why she is one of the most celebrated figures in American contemporary roots music.

[Emmylou Harris publicity photo]

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I have to admit that I wasn’t expecting to see Emmylou Harris with a full band but from the moment I sat down in the grass on the Pavilion lawn and noticed the drums and electric guitars sitting on stage, I had a feeling that this was going to be a special evening.  Emmylou Harris, for her part, wasted no time at all in making her first appearance in Charlottesville since peforming at the Paramount Theater back in 2005, as she joined the opening act of Jimmy Gaudreau and Moondi Klein for a beautiful rendition of Townes Van Zandt’s “If I Needed You” just three songs into the duo’s opening set.  This was just the first in a string of highlights that Emmylou Harris would deliver over the course of the coming evening.

Less than thirty minutes later, just as the sun was setting behind the facade of Charlottesville’s Downtown Mall, Emmylou returned to the Pavilion stage to take her rightful place in the spotlight.  Joining her was her incredible touring band made up of some of the best musicians in the business.  She had Chris Donahue on bass and Bryan Owings on drums (both from Buddy Miller’s band), Rickie Simpkins on mandolin and fiddle (who has performed with some of the biggest acoustic stars, most notably as a member of the Tony Rice Unit), multi-instrumentalist Phil Madeira on keyboards, accordion, and guitar (who has recorded with the likes of Elvis Costello, Solomon Burke, Keb Mo, Alison Krauss, and Patty Griffin for starters), and for me, the real clincher was the appearance of Canadian-born singer/songwriter and blues guitarist Colin Linden on lead guitar (who on a smaller stage could have been a headliner in his own right).  An all-star band indeed!

Wasting no time at all, Emmylou and her band dove into her set, opening with “Here I Am” from Stumble into Grace followed by her version of Gillian Welch’s ”Orphan Girl”, which appeared on Emmylou’s critically-acclaimed album Wrecking Ball.  A couple of songs later Harris would provide one of many personal highlights as she performed one of the signature songs she recorded with the late Gram Parsons, the country-rock classic “Return of the Grievous Angel”.

Throughout the evening Emmylou mixed in a number of her new songs from her latest album and for me, this was to my introduction to all of them.  The real stand-out songs among the new material also illustrate another aspect that has made Emmylou Harris such a vital figure in music, and that’s her ability to recognize a great song and a great songwriter.  Harris has made a career out of choosing to cover songs by some of the best in the business and in Jude Johnstone’s “Hold On” and Mark Germino’s “Broken Man’s Lament” she has discovered two gems, that when song by Emmylou become her very own.  The only other artist that comes to mind that had a similar ability to transform someone else’s songs as their own was the late Johnny Cash.

The other amazing aspect of Monday’s Pavilion show was that no matter what direction Emmylou decided to take the music, whether it was to explore the bluegrass roots of the Stanley Brothers (”Green Pastures” and “Bright Morning Star”), the hard country of Buck Owens and Paul Kennerly (”Together Again” and “Born to Run”) or touching on the contemporary soundscapes of Harris’s more recent recordings (”Michelangelo”), her band of Red Dirt Boys were more than up to the task, highlighting the same diversity and dexterity as musicians that Emmylou herself as exhibited as an artist throughout her storied career.

By the time Emmylou and her band hit the set closing, bluegrass gospel number “Get Up John”, the audience and the performers themselves were firing on all cylinders.  And when she returned to the stage before a standing ovation for her encore, Emmylou tipped her hat to both her band and to Charlottesville by recalling one of her performances years ago at the The Mine Shift here in town.  She remembered how “that place could really rock” and then she and her Red Dirt Boys dove into the classic Delbert McClinton number “Two More Bottles of Wine”.  All in all, Emmylou Harris’s performance was easily just as intoxicating.

For those who weren’t keeping track the complete set list for Monday’s performance is included below.  Also, it’s worth mentioning that if you’re an Emmylou Harris fan, she will be appearing on the Charlie Rose Show tonight (06/25/08) as she sits down to talk about her new album All I Intended to Be.  Check your local PBS listings for show times.

Emmylou Harris/Charlottesville Pavilion/06.23.08

Here I Am
Orphan Girl
Love and Happiness
Return of the Grievous Angel
One of These Days
Sailing Around the Room
Hold On
Red Dirt Girl
If I Could Only Win Your Love
Michelangelo
All That I Have Is Your Soul
Broken Man’s Lament
Goodbye
Green Pastures
Born to Run
Lost Onto this World
Shores of White Sand
Take That Ride
Together Again
Leaving Louisiana In the Broad Daylight
Bright Morning Star
Get Up John

E:  Two More Bottles of Wine

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