The Very Best of Emmylou Harris: Heartaches and Highways

Emmylou Harris

Product Details

• Audio CD (July 19, 2005)
• Original Release Date: July 19, 2005
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Rhino / Wea
• ASIN: B0009NR7YU
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (26 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #3,910 in Music (See Bestsellers in Music)

  Popular in these categories: (What's this?)

  #24 in	Music > Indie Music > Country > Alt-Country & Americana
  #100 in	Music > Country > Alt-Country & Americana

Editorial Reviews

From Amazon.co.uk
Less than two years after the death of her mentor, Gram Parsons, Emmylou Harris recorded her first album for Reprise. Pieces of the Sky inaugurated a suite of four mid-'70s albums and a surprising number of hits: her sound was clearly traditional, but also tastefully up-to-date with folk-rock and singer/songwriter styles, and her crystalline, febrile vocals took standards such as "Love Hurts" and "If I Could Only Win Your Love" back up the charts. This compilation brings together her biggest hits, and shows why Harris is important and why she continues to make adventurous country music. Through unfailingly tasteful song selection, brilliant occasional songwriting, and her cool, velvety soprano, Harris extended Gram Parsons's vision of "cosmic American music" and made it her own. --Roy Kasten

Product Description
Masterful at rock, country, folk, bluegrass, and more, Emmylou Harris is one of the most distinctive and visionary voices in contemporary music. The artist's lucid, achingly gorgeous vocals and a string of celebrated albums-many featuring her acclaimed "Hot Band"-have earned Harris eleven Grammys and made this alt-country/roots-rock innovator a legend in her own time.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

49 of 50 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The first collection to cover nearly every album, July 24, 2005

By	Allen Chapman (STAFFORD SPRINGS, CT USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This is a great collection, although there are many "hits" or other type of collections out there for Emmylou, this is the first one that pulls at least one track from just about every one of her solo albums starting with her duet with Gram Parsons up thru her most recent album from 2003. She is also the one who picked the songs for this set. You do get the hits, but you also get songs that Emmylou says are just ones she likes. If you're new to the music of Emmylou Harris this album is a great place to start. You will probably find that you'll want to get all of her other albums as well. As great as these songs and this album is this is only the tip of the iceberg. Nonetheless, this is a great collection.

64 of 70 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Heaven on a CD, August 3, 2005

By	Michael Kear (Enid, Oklahoma) - See all my reviews

C. S. Lewis tells the story in his book "The Great Divorce" of a man who, as a ghost, takes a bus ride through both hell and heaven. One of things he discovers on his trip is that if your final destination is hell you will find that this present world was only a part of hell. However if your final destination was heaven, you will discover that this present world was a part of heaven the whole time.

I know that my destination is heaven. How do I know this? Two words: Emmylou Harris.

There are angels who sing to us in this present world - which is only a suburb of heaven. Linda Ronstadt, Charlotte Church, Loreena McKennitt, Natalie Merchant, and Emmylou Harris make up my angel band.

From beginning to end this album is great! There's not one song on it that won't have you singing along. From the truly haunting "Love Hurts" duet with Gram Parsons to the country tune "Making Believe" to Townes Van Zandt's classic "Pancho and Lefty," this album is aptly subtitled: "The Very Best of Emmylou Harris."

In the midst of the "Urban Cowboy" 1980s Emmylou Harris made bluegrass cool. Her "Roses in the Snow" album has been one of my personal "top five favorite albums of all time" for a quarter century. "Wayfaring Stranger" is perhaps my favorite cut from that album, and is included here as well, featuring the talent of Ricky Scaggs.

"Born to Run" will have you tapping your foot (if not just outright dancing!) There's a duet with Roy Orbison and a trio with Linda Ronstadt and Dolly Parton. "Orphan Girl," "Beneath Still Waters," and "Michelangelo" are quite memorable ballads.

Emmylou has always been on the edge. Making great, heartfelt music with meaning, even when the trends were going in other directions. This album is worth every penny you spend on it.

Dr. Mike Kear

17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Small sample of an awesome body of work, October 8, 2005

By	Pieter "Toypom" (Johannesburg) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER)

With her voluminous output, any Emmylou Harris compilation must of necessity be incomplete. There is rarely a dud on any of her many albums so the selection process can never be an easy one.

This album opens with her famous duet with the legendary Gram Parsons and is followed by her own composition and tribute to him, Boulder To Birmingham, a song with beautiful imagery. Then comes the lovely ballad Making Believe which was only of her early great hits.

Hits or not, every track is a gem, like Pancho And Lefty, Beneath Still Waters and the uptempo If I Could Only Win Your Love. Another great duet is the one with Roy Orbison, while To Know Him Is To Love Him is drawn from one of her collaborations with Dolly Parton and Linda Ronstadt.

Her lovely gospel style is represented here by Green Pastures, Orphan Girl and the achingly beautiful Calling My Children Home. The change of direction away from country into atmospheric rock took place in the 1990s with the album Wrecking Ball whence Orphan Girl and subsequently the breathtaking Michelangelo from Red Dirt Girl and Here I Am from Stumble Into Grace.

My personal favourites on an album of masterpieces include Beneath Still Waters, Together Again, Boulder To Birmingham and the aforementioned three songs from her post country period.
Emmylou Harris breathed new life into country from the mid 1970s and has since gone from strength to strength artistically. Hers is the most authentic, heartfelt female voice of the last three decades.

Heartaches and Highways is a superb introduction to this consummate artist that has contributed so much and I highly recommend it to the novice. Her devoted fans will have most of the original albums anyway.