Review Summary: A handful of gems barely rescue what is an otherwise tepid affair at the beginning of the weakest period of Emmylou Harris’ career
After opening the 80s with Roses in the Snow, the finest record of her career so far, Emmylou Harris took a bit of a safe route by moving away from the Bluegrass she’d been doing so well and retreading her well-worn country material, with varying results. The rock influenced odds-and-ends collection Evangeline was so forgettable it went permanently out of print in less than ten years and Cimarron, which was a mellower collection of outtakes representing a return to her outlaw country origins, fared only slightly better in terms of memorability.
The music on Cimarron is relentlessly pleasant, in many places to the point of being bland. Having smooth ballad after smooth ballad with hardly a tonal shift throughout is already doing a disservice to Emmylou’s voice which, while effortlessly beautiful still doesn’t have the depth of personality she’d show later on Wrecking Ball, and which simply can’t elevate an entire album of polished barroom ballads beyond anything other than easygoing prettiness. While there are exceptions, such as on Cheater’s Waltz, which finds Emmylou reaching higher, both emotionally and vocally than on the rest of the album, her solo performance on Cimarron comes across as merely adequate to the music. To the album’s credit, for being a collection of outtakes released as a full album, it is cohesive, and eminently listenable. But the sheer lack of any sense of bite or grit on here results in an album’s-worth of songs that never really reach for anything beyond background listenability, with the exception of a few shining examples.
Spanish is a Loving Tongue is an early highlight in particular; the warm, mellow atmosphere is spare and stately enough to elevate the otherwise typical instrumentation, and Emmylou’s vocals carry that yearning melancholy that defines the best of her work. Another Lonesome Morning represents a subtle shift towards her Bluegrass stylings, the prominent banjo a welcome, if minor break in tone from the endless balladry, although the effects on the guitar solo verge on corny. Born to Run (not actually a Springsteen cover, to my disappointment) manages to be the highlight of the album, both for having a little more instrumental bite than the other songs on the album and for being the most personality Emmylou displays on the album. The rest, unfortunately, range from serviceable to forgettable, and in sequence with the rest of the album, often dull. If a listener treats Cimmaron as a background album, they won’t find anything to complain about. But with some attention and understanding of what Emmylou was and is capable of, Cimmaron comes across as little more than a contractual obligation, a box to be checked, an unnecessary mediocrity.
