Pieces of the Sky by Emmylou Harris (Vinyl record album review)

Album name: Pieces of the Sky

Artist name: Emmylou Harris

Year: 1975

Number of discs: one

Label: Reprise Records

Collection: Brenner / Gessner

Who owned it: could have been either of my parents, but I’d guess it was my father’s.

Buy it on Amazon: $44.75

My review

Level of familiarity before listening

I’ve never listened to this record (as far as I know), but I listened to Roses in the Snow (1980) last year and thought it was pretty good.

What I expected

Country and bluegrass.

What it was actually like

This record was close to evenly split between great and not-so-great.

The not-so-great songs were in a boring and slow country style: Too Far Gone, Boulder to Birmingham, Before Believing and Sleepless Nights.

For No One was also a major disappointment because I was pretty intrigued to hear how Harris would treat this Beatles song that I like:

Good Day Sunshine
So this is the sort of corny stuff that Paul was writing while he was not taking acid with the rest of the group. Noted.
For No One
See above. I do like For No One quite a bit better than Good Day Sunshine, but the best part of it is the French horn part.

Unfortunately, this version was not that good (and had no French horn at all), but fortunately, I was able to find this fairly weird version with all the brass you could possibly want. For a somewhat more conventional version by my favorite Beatles-covering duo, check this out.

On the great side, a bunch of songs were in more of a lively, entertaining country style: If I Could Only Win Your Love, with great harmony from Herb Pedersen; The Bottle Let Me Down, a wonderful Merle Haggard song; Coat of Many Colors, one of Dolly Parton’s finest; and Queen of the Silver Dollar, which was written by (checks notes) Shel Silverstein[1].

The best song on the record was the only one in a bluegrass style, Bluebird Wine.

Grade

3/5: interesting, but not for me

References[+]

References

↑1 | I knew that he wrote A Boy Named Sue, but I always assumed that it was a one-time deal and never thought that he had written multiple songs.