Emmylou Harris | Red Dirt Girl

Emmylou Harris told MOJO magazine for their December 2000 issue "Writing RED DIRT GIRL I felt propelled. We had the last couple of songs to cut, so I was driving from Nashville to New Orleans when I passed this road sign for Meridian, Mississippi. I started rhyming and this story came out. We have these emotional pools, you know, with things lurking at the bottom that we don't even realize are there."

Naturally, I'd be partial to any song that mentioned my hometown. But the title song from Emmylou's new record, RED DIRT GIRL, is terrific anyway. So is the rest of the CD. I don't know every single album from her thirty-year catalogue, but this has to be one of her best. It may be the best. The first single, "I Don't Want to Talk about It Now," is as accurate a description of romantic obsession as you're ever likely to hear. "My Baby Needs a Shepherd," written to her daughter Hallie, completely delivers on its anxious title. Her version of Patti Griffin's "One Big Love" should be a bona-fide hit. I really feel that any sixteen-year-old girl who heard this on the radio for a few days would go out and buy the CD. That would be great, because theoretically it would open up a whole new world for such a person. Not only Emmylou's catalogue, but on into--of course--Gram Parsons, and from there to the Byrds, and from there to Bob Dylan . . . Maybe even on to something like Harry Smith's Anthology of American Folk Music. Who knows?

Originally posted to SteveForbert.com in January 2001.