Review Summary: Emmylou's revolution slows down
There’s a certain sense of momentum to Red Dirt Girl, as if the breakthrough of Wrecking Ball had opened up new territory, new avenues and potentialities for Emmylou to explore, and the most logical move for her was to dive into those new avenues with all the grace and panache which she’d shown on all her previous style shifts. While a great part of Wrecking Ball’s success was its atmosphere, shot through with subtle daubs of mood and melancholy, Emmylou had also allowed her voice to become a more organic, integrated element of her ensemble, allowing the music to reflect an integral, unitive sense of purpose that made her music deeper than that which a lead singer/backing band relationship could provide. With the possibilities for her material so broadened, Emmylou’s work on Red Dirt Girl had the potential to be even more true to her own sense of self-expression than her previous album. For the first time in almost 15 years, Emmylou released an album of entirely original material, a bold move given that one of her greatest strengths as a singer has always been her inimitable interpretation of others’ material. To commit to an album of original material at this stage in her career was a bold decision, moreso because the songwriting process is something that doesn’t always come naturally to Harris. In interviews, she likened her own personal process to “bringing a pound of flesh to the album”, a description that indicates both a commitment to the integrity of her art and a testament to the difficulty many songwriters face in bringing their own experiences and voices to their art. And this commitment to making Red Dirt Girl a self-penned release does let Harris’ unique strength as a lyricist and songwriter shine. Whether that strength matches that of her incredible ability as an interpretive artist is, however, debatable.
On paper, the combination of an original set of songs coupled with the more integrative sensibilities and willingness to experiment should be a recipe for an even greater success than Wrecking Ball. And in many ways, the new approach does allow Emmylou’s unique artistry to shine in ways not seen on her previous album. Her songwriting, while conceptually treading all the familiar ground of her genre and her previous work, finds itself, for the first time in her career since her debut, acting as a pure, intimate self-expression. The labor that has gone into her lyrics, while at times overwrought, is revealed in their personal, intricate intimacy, the warmth and humanity that Emmylou has so well expressed using the words of others is given a new sense of personal depth that ends up being Red Dirt Girl’s greatest strength. The greatest example of this depth is found in the sense of detail and atmosphere in the title track, as Emmylou paints a nostalgic snapshot of a childhood friend who loses herself in the despair of being trapped in a small town, a common theme for country music that is nonetheless given an additional poignancy by its personal nature and an original lyrical bent that relies on metaphors and images not typically found in the genre. Emmylou’s imagery draws variously on history, war, gospel, art and immigration through the course of the album, and her lyrics, at their best reveal Emmylou as a powerful poet in her own right, standing with the best of those who she’d drawn on for her previous work, although the result is very occasionally less-than-stellar and she does at times rely on the well-worn cliches of the genre to get her point across. Despite this, Emmylou’s lyrical abilities are at times almost startling in their strength, a testament to the sense of craftsmanship that she brings to her compositions, and one of the great strengths of the album.
It's frustrating then, that the quality of the music itself doesn’t always match that of the lyrics. It’d be ludicrous to knock Emmylou’s talent as a songwriter at this point in her career, but her strength has always lied in interpretation, a fact that’s reflected in the fact that there are only a few select moments on Red Dirt Girl that stand on the level of Wrecking Ball. At her best, as on the title track, My Baby Needs a Shepherd and Bang the Drum Slowly, Emmylou draws on the depth of her lived experiences to create a deeply emotive atmosphere in which the breadth of the lyrics matches the emotional depth carried by her voice. The rest of the material on the album, although consistently strong in its own right, never really reaches that iconic status she made seem so effortless so many times before, a fault that lies less with her lyrical abilities than with the almost fractured relationship between her voice and guitar and the backing music on the album. At least part of the blame rests with the production: where Wrecking Ball’s production relied more on mood and atmospherics, Red Dirt Girl seems to rely on eclecticism and novelty, with funky drum loops, synths, chimes and more all popping out of Burns’ grab back of production tricks over the course of the album. While the effect is often interesting and always original, one gets the sense that Emmylou’s songs are getting held back a bit by the quirky production style. Does the boom-bap drum sample really add anything to Tragedy? The hazed-out guitar noodling in the back of the title track is nice, but would the song be any worse without it? Do all the wood block and chime percussion elements ever come across as more than a gimmick? While there are times that it all meshes, and meshes gloriously, I got the strong sense that many of these songs would have had more of a chance to shine if they had just been left the hell alone.
It’s a tough judgement to make, given that Emmylou’s clearly pouring so much of herself into this material, and given that it’s so consistently well-written, but those lightning-bolt moments that were peppered throughout Wrecking Ball are only occasionally to be seen on Red Dirt Girl. Add to that the grab-bag production choices and Red Dirt Girl ends up being, frustratingly, one of the less-essential albums of Emmylou’s late career. There is a lot to love here, and the production quirks end up being little more than a minor quibble in the end, but Emmylou had shown, both before and since, that she was capable of more. That said, to spend some time with Emmylou’s own personal tales of love, heartache and redemption will hardly be time ill-spent. Just have a little patience.
