Emmylou Harris: Cimarron : Music Reviews : Rolling Stone

Album Reviews

It's a good thing that Emmylou Harris makes as many albums as she does. Otherwise, their erratic quality would be infuriating. Cimarron is full of dross: cluttered, deadening arrangements of dull songs, with four acoustic guitars strumming along at the same plodding tempo behind Harris' dry, lazy vibrato. The dispirited cover versions of James Taylor's "Millworker" and Little Feat's "Oh Atlanta" on last year's equally spotty Evangeline are matched here by why-bother renditions of Bruce Springsteen's "The Price You Pay" and that old standard, "Tennessee Waltz."

Harris' latest right-hand man, Barry Tashian, lacks the personality of a Rodney Crowell or a Ricky Skaggs, and John Ware's superfluous drumming simply adds to the LP's monotony. Unless she's doing hard rock (which she's never done on record as well as she does live), Harris lacks the voice to drive a large band. She's better off with a smaller, more traditional country ensemble. Only when Skaggs is around, playing fiddle or banjo and harmonizing, does Cimarron betray a glimmer of the artist who made such fine, fresh albums as Blue Kentucky Girl and especially the drummerless Roses in the Snow.

But the gem that almost redeems the dross here is Harris' duet with Don Williams in "If I Needed You" – partly because Williams' band plays with exquisite sparseness, partly because Townes Van Zandt's composition is a classic ballad, but mostly because Williams has the tenderest male voice in all of country music. And when he wraps it lovingly around Emmylou Harris' angelic alto, the mixture is heavenly.