Consumer Guide Album

Emmylou Harris: Wrecking Ball [Elektra, 1995]
The reason Harris's instant comeback is an irritation, not a tragedy, is that the inspired collaborator and nonpareil backup singer has no vision of her own for Daniel Lanois to ruin. Her artistic personality has always been coextensive with her miraculously lucid voice, which now that it's fraying with age is ripe for Lanois's one seductive trick: to gauze over every aural detail and call your soft focus soul. I doubt she would have nailed the songs anyway--often she doesn't. But she would have come closer than this. B