This came out in 2003 – or at least that’s when I got it. Here’s what I said about it back then (with some minor editing):
The grace part is easy to see. After all, with her angelic tone, elegant phrasing and ethereal beauty, Emmylou Harris has been the poster child for grace for decades. It’s the stumbling part I can’t buy — if Harris has made even a minor misstep in her career, I haven’t clocked it.
She sure hasn’t done it with Stumble Into Grace, the third studio album in a creative rebirth that commenced with 1995’s Wrecking Ball and continued on 2000’s Red Dirt Girl. Basically, this disc glides smoothly in their footsteps, with 11 heart-tugglingly introspective, lushly atmospheric tales of heartache penned by infrequent songwriter Harris and performed by a cast of stellar talents that includes Daniel Lanois, Linda Ronstadt, Jane Siberry and the McGarrigle sisters. But even though fans may find Grace’s woozy shimmer, understated artistry and exquisite melancholia familiar, they won’t find them redundant — not on the mournful Here I Am, not on the vaguely Celtic Little Bird, not on the lightly funky Jupiter Rising, and certainly not on the deep, dark blues of Time In Babylon. In other words, even if Emmylou isn’t showing off any new steps on Stumble Into Grace, she’s a long way from wearing out the old ones.
