(Nonesuch/Warner Music)

First new studio album in five years’ from country’s most famous cult artist

Emmylou Harris’ ties with Dolly Parton and Linda Ronstadt mean her extraordinary musical gifts have long since reached mainstream consciousness, but since her famous collaboration with the late Gram Parsons on the 1973 recording Grevious Angel, Harris has always had outsider appeal, as well. This has been especially true since the expressionistic work she made with Daniel Lanois on 1995’s Wrecking Ball and her subsequent, atmospheric statements that are in direct contradiction to the Faith Hill/Tim McGraw school of country-as-flashy-showbusiness. New album All I Intend To Be is similarly unlikely to attract the Garth Brooks fans, but anyone with a fondness for grey-swept folk music of melancholic beauty will be pleased as punch. And anyone who has long loved Harris’ magnificent voice will be elated to know she sounds as superb as ever on these new recordings, significantly overseen by Brian Ahern, the long-absent producer of most of her ‘70s and ‘80s work. This combination of originals and covers combines collaborations with Kate and Anna McGarrigle (most notably, the life-after-death scenario Sailing Round The Room), entirely self-penned tunes and covers of favourites from the likes of Merle Haggard and Tracy Chapman.

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MATT THROWER

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