Emmylou Harris - The Very Best of Emmylou Harris: Heartaches & Highways

Genre country Publisher Rhino External Links Official Website Rhino

Few words in an album title are more likely to guarantee quality than Very Best of Emmylou Harris. Harris has figured in the country-rock scene for almost four decades, worked with dozens of musicians, and contributed immensely to the genre. She's been around long enough to have merited several greatest hits records and even a comprehensive anthology. But the single-disc The Very Best of Emmylou Harris: Heartaches & Highways does a decent job of quickly summing up a long and distinguished career.

Very Best is a winner from the get-go, opening with "Love Hurts," Harris' classic duet with early collaborator Gram Parsons, with whom she worked to polish her craft at the beginning of her career before his untimely death. A few more duets and collaborations are featured on the disc, including "That Lovin' You Feelin Again" featuring Roy Orbison's distinctive warbly voice, and the Phil Spector song "To Know Him Is To Love Him," from the hit record Trio that Harris recorded with Dolly Parton and Linda Ronstandt. The live cut and unlikely Top 10 hit "(Lost His Love) On Our Last Date" appears as does the haunting a cappella song "Calling My Children Home" (also recorded live). The jaunty songs "Born To Run" and "If I Could Only Win Your Love" keep the disc moving and remind listeners that though Harris specializes in moody, heartbreaking songs, she can claim versatility as a strength. Through most of her career, Harris performed songs penned by others ("I am a song junkie," she declares in the liner notes), but recently she has released albums of her own material and been rewarded with two Grammy nominations for efforts. From these albums come the beautiful "Michelangelo" and "Here I Am." "The Connection," recorded for the first time by Harris specifically for this disc, wraps things up.

The liner notes explain the choice behind each of the twenty songs, which represent a track apiece from almost of Harris' albums, and indicate that Harris herself made the selections. They read quickly, lacking the detail that the liner notes for a larger anthology set would get into. Instead, just a few sentences discuss each song, the record it came from, and at what point Harris was in her career when she recorded it, often embellished by a quote from her. As such, it complements the disc as a quick introduction and summary to Harris' immense recorded output, allowing fresh ears to hear her from different points of her life all at once and perhaps select eras to investigate further.