These came out in 2004 – or at least that’s when I got them. Here’s what I said about them back then (with some minor editing):
THE SKINNY: If you don’t know about Emmylou Harris, I really don’t know where to start.
She has the voice of an angel. She’s an ex-hippie folksinger who found her way into alt-country thanks to her mentor, the late great Gram Persons. After his death, she carried on making his Cosmic American Music on a host of impeccable, eclectic albums that tilled the common ground between ’60s pop and classic country. The first five of her solo discs have just been expanded, remastered and reissued — and if you don’t know about Emmylou, this is the place to start.
THE OLDIES: 1975 ’s Pieces Of The Sky finds her tackling everyone from the Hag (Bottle Let Me Down) to The Beatles (For No One) will equal success, but the standout is her moving Parsons elegy From Boulder to Birmingham; on Elite Hotel from later that year, she revisits Gram with covers of his Sin City, Wheels and Ooh Las Vegas; 1976’s Luxury Liner is a wild ride that includes both the rockabilly title track, Chuck Berry’s bouncy C’est La Vie and Townes Van Zandt’s tragic Pancho And Lefty; Quarter Moon from ’78 brought her hits in the rocking Two More Bottles of Wine and Dolly Parton’s To Daddy; and 79’s Blue Kentucky Girl marked her return to stone country with Willie Nelson’s honky-tonkin’ Sister’s Coming Home and Parsons’ sombre Hickory Wind.
THE GOODIES: Each set has a pair of previously unreleased tracks and a 16-page colour booklet with (luxury) liner notes and lyrics.
