Emmylou Harris, Rodney Crowell Bring The Past To Present With March CSO Show

By Chuck Sudo in Arts & Entertainment on Feb 18, 2013 6:50PM

Emmylou Harris has always followed her own muse, a trait she learned singing alongside the legendary Gram Parsons over 40 years ago that was reinforced by producer Daniel Lanois with her 1995 career-redefining magnum opus, Wrecking Ball.

Harris’ musical roots are still firmly planted in traditional country and folk. More recent albums like 2008’s All I Intended to Be and 2011’s Hard Bargain showed a reflective, nostalgic Harris trying, with varying degrees of success, to recapture the spirit, if not the sound, of her Hot Band of the 1970s, with which she recorded such seminal country-rock classics as Pieces of the Sky, Luxury Liner and Quarter Moon in a Ten Cent Town.

Harris goes further down the rabbit hole of her musical past with Old Yellow Moon, a collaboration with her old Hot Band guitarist Rodney Crowell that will be released next week on Nonesuch Records. The album, which Harris told Billboard was “a conversation between old friends,” marks the first time the two have collaborated together since Crowell left the Hot Band in 1977. Old Yellow Moon features Crowell originals like “Bluebird Wine” (the first song of his Harris recorded), newer originals and standards from the likes of Roger Miller and Allen Reynolds.

Harris and Crowell take to the road to support Old Yellow Moon with a tour that brings them to Symphony Center March 20 in a WXRT-sponsored show. Opening for them will be the legendary British singer/guitarist Richard Thompson. Tickets are still available at the CSO box office, by phone at 312-294-3000 or online.