Happy 45th Anniversary to Emmylou Harris’ second studio album Pieces of the Sky, originally released in February 1975 (note: the album’s specific release date is not available).
At pivotal times in the history of music, it's taken someone from outside a particular form to discover what was special about it, put that something special back out front, and reconnect the audience to that music's roots. From across the Atlantic, The Rolling Stones reintroduced America to the blues, and Emmylou Harris helped rip country music back down to its studs and rebuild it from the ground up in the mid-1970s.
So much has been written about the outlaw movement and its impact on the Nashville establishment during that era. While Waylon and Willie, among others, definitely broke down doors and changed the way country music looked and sounded, the same can be said for Harris, Dolly Parton, and Linda Ronstadt.
Years before they hit the top of the charts with their collaborative album Trio in 1987, they had each made their mark on country music, but in different ways. Parton broke free from a partnership that kept her from fully realizing her potential and independence. Ronstadt was at the center of the burgeoning folk-rock and country-rock scene on the west coast. Harris transformed herself from a Joan Baez-leaning Greenwich Village folkie to a torchbearer for authenticity in country music—at the same time proving that folk, rock, and country could not only co-exist, but could grace the top of the charts while padding the pockets of the suits on Music Row.
Harris' first solo album Gliding Bird was intended as a folk album, but its track listing of tunes by Bob Dylan, Hank Williams, Fred Neil, Burt Bacharach and Hal David, as well as Harris herself, reflected her taste just as much then as it would throughout her career. That immaculate taste has not only been apparent in her song judgment, but also in her choice of musicians. Everyone from James Burton and Albert Lee to Rodney Crowell and Ricky Skaggs have helped Harris realize her vision of making traditional sounding country from sometimes very nontraditional sources. That began in earnest with her second album, 1975's majestic Pieces of the Sky.
For the album, Harris enlisted Burton on guitar and Glen D. Hardin on piano, both from Elvis' legendary TCB band, drummer Ron Tutt, Little Feat co-founder and pianist Bill Payne, Herb Pederson on acoustic guitar and banjo, Byron Berline and Ricky Skaggs on fiddles, and Ray Pohlman on bass, among others. With the amount of talent assembled, it was one of the most expensive country albums recorded at the time. Production was handled by Canadian Brian Ahern, who introduced Harris to young Texas singer-songwriter Rodney Crowell's songs. Harris would go on to record several Crowell songs over the years as well as recruit him as rhythm guitarist for the Hot Band.
In fact, Pieces of the Sky opens with a Crowell song: the slow building, contagious classic, "Bluebird Wine." By the song's end, Harris lets loose, her voice dancing—at times growling—around the music, slowly rising to a crescendo in a way she rarely exhibited, which makes it all the more powerful and welcome. Bernie Leadon, fresh from the Eagles, but whose country-rock bonafides date back to Dillard and Clark and the Flying Burrito Brothers, provides banjo on the track, and throughout the album lends his backing vocals and mastery of several stringed instruments. Ben Keith of Neil Young's Stray Gators adds his subtle, signature pedal steel on several cuts as well.
All through Pieces of the Sky, Harris mixes traditional country and bluegrass with folk and rock, but they all come out sounding like no one but Emmylou. Songs not only from such country luminaries as Charlie and Ira Louvin ("If I Could Only Win Your Love"—her first top five country hit) and Merle Haggard (a faithful "The Bottle Let Me Down"), but also Felice and Boudleaux Bryant ("Sleepless Nights"), Lennon and McCartney (a heart-stopping version of "For No One"), and newcomers like the fantastic Danny Flowers (a few years before Don Williams and Eric Clapton would record Flowers' song "Tulsa Time," Harris gave a classic performance of his "Before Believing," a line from which gives the album its title).
Ronstadt contributes backing vocals to a fierce take on Shel Silverstein's "Queen of the Silver Dollar" that lets the musicians show off their much celebrated chops with an extended coda. Elsewhere, Harris delivers a sympathetic version of Parton's autobiographical "Coat of Many Colors" (a few years later, Harris would also give a stunning reading of Parton's "To Daddy" on 1978's Quarter Moon in a Ten Cent Town).
The centerpiece of Pieces of the Sky is the devastating "Boulder to Birmingham." Co-written with "Take Me Home, Country Roads" songwriter Bill Danoff, Harris channels all her grief about the loss of Gram Parsons into one of the most poignantly beautiful elegies ever put to tape. Parton agreed, and would cover the song on her album All I Can Do the following year.
Parsons' ghost is never far away from Pieces of the Sky, but this album is undoubtedly Harris stepping out on her own and winning the hearts and minds of the conservative country music traditionalists and the progressive folkies as well—something Parsons never accomplished during his short lifetime.
Though Pieces of the Sky launched Emmylou Harris' career into country stardom, she became a star on her own terms. She did so without ever getting busted by the man, or stomping out the footlights, or coking up, popping pills, or raising hell. She brought authenticity back to Nashville merely with the timeless power of great taste, an angelic voice, and a hot band. Along the way she became one of the most loved, respected, and revered artists in all of music, and remains so to this day.
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