Mojo copyright 1998

Country Album Of The Month

Emmylou Harris & Spyboy - Live - Grapevine

Emmylou in power-trio live performance, enabled by guitarist Buddy Miller and Brady Blade on drums.

Charlotte Greig

SPYBOY WERE a revelation when they played London last year. At 50, Harris could have capitulated to sedate, bluegrass-tinted middle-age. Instead she's reinvented herself with her finest backing group since the original Hot Band. This terrific live album begins demurely enough with her theme tune, My Songbird, but then the tough, supple rhythm section kicks into the swirling funk of Wrecking Ball's Where Will I Be, giving Emmylou's voice and Buddy Miller's guitar a chance to fly. Mesmerising stuff. This band can handle the back catalogue too: there's a lovely version of Prayer In Open D, an absolutely spine chilling a cappella version of Green Pastures, and a rare live take of Boulder to Birmingham. It's the sound of a band reconstructing rock with a passion the young pretenders might well envy.

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