LIVE: Emmylou Harris & Rodney Crowell at Lincoln Center, NYC (8/6/14)
“A lot of you have been following us before you even knew we were Americana,” Emmylou Harris joked last Wednesday night when she and Rodney Crowell played a mesmerizing set for Lincoln Center’s Americanafest. She may as well have said that she and Crowell were making music before they even knew their music was Americana.
These days, “Americana” and “roots” music catch and categorize what might once have been country, country-rock or even folk-rock (that last moniker up for serious debate among hard-line folk musicians/historians). Whichever label one chooses to put on his or her music, it’s undeniable that Harris’ and Crowell’s voices, song choices, and arrangements with the Glory Band evoked imagery of wide open highways stretching for days through flat lands, dusting by gas stations and diners appearing as beacons in the night — or rocky roads winding around even rockier mountains.
The concert drew much of its material from the duo’s recent GRAMMY-winning Americana album, Old Yellow Moon, including songs like “Invitation to the Blues” by Roger Miller and “Dreaming My Dreams With You” by Allen Reynolds, along with the title track.
Harris, known as an exquisite interpreter of songs as well as a formidable songwriter in her own right has worked and performed with singer/songwriter Crowell off-and-on for 40 years, but Old Yellow Moon was their first full album together. Their chemistry and connection with each other as performers and friends onstage was the highlight of a show that was really all highlights, including the beautiful weather for the outdoor show.
In addition to Harris, of course, singing signature songs like “Love Hurts” and “Boulder to Birmingham” for the encore, other notable moments included Harris’ performance of “Red Dirt Girl” back to back with Crowell’s “The Rock of my Soul.” Each song vividly brought to life those hard-luck country characters of the Southland that Crowell and Harris are each so adept at chronicling in their music, as though they’ve lived through them — and at some point, they probably have.
Their performance felt iconic, even compared to the past two times I’ve seen Harris: at Lilith Fair, and performing with Levon Helm at one of his last shows less than a year before he died. I thought I was lucky to catch her on such good nights, but seeing her perform this third time with Crowell, it occurred to me — is it possible for Harris not to give an iconic performance? Probably not, and the same goes for Crowell.
That they are both road warriors should go without saying, and perhaps it sounds a bit cliché, but the two win the descriptor fair and square. They prove it time and time again (as if they had anything left to prove) in such a manner that doesn’t force bravada or bragadaccio, and is breathtaking and astonishing all at once. They don’t need to convince the audience of anything; they just do what they do — not unlike the characters in their songs — and let the rest speak for itself.
And is it jarring or mismatched to see two folk heroes in non-rural New York City, strumming these glorious parables? Not in the least. If anything, it’s healing, not to mention a full-circle journey of sorts for them. Near the end of the show, Harris spoke briefly of her days waiting tables in Manhattan, and playing at venues like Gerde”s Folk City and Max’s Kansas City with Gram Parsons. Crowell’s daughters attended high school in New York, and while he and Harris sang the praises of Nashville and their hometowns, they also quietly, charmingly, muttered that NYC was the greatest city in the world.
On a personal note, I’ve gotta say, on a day when I woke up to the Internet screaming at me that my subway line was being fumigated for bed bugs, it was nice to end the day with Emmylou Harris and Rodney Crowell whispering the praises of the city in my ear.
*****
01) “Grievous Angels”
02) “Wheels”
03) “Pancho & Lefty”
04) “‘Til I Gain Control Again”
05) “If I Needed You”
06) “Invitation to the Blues”
07) “Love Hurts”
08) “Luxury Liner”
09) “Red Dirt Girl”
10) “The Rock of My Soul”
11) “Dreaming My Dreams With You”
12) “Leaving Louisiana in the Broad Daylight”
13) “I Ain’t Livin’ Long Like This”
14) “Old Yellow Moon”
15) “Stars on the Water”
16) “Even Cowgirls Get the Blues”
Encore: “Boulder to Birmingham,” “Love Hurts”
(Cover photo by Kevin Yatarola, via Emmylou Harris’ Facebook.)
