Spyboy (Clear Vinyl)

Emmylou Harris - Spyboy (Clear Vinyl)

“A good song can survive and shine in different ways in the hands of different musicians,” says Emmylou Harris. “It can have different meanings at different times in your life. A good song can travel with you anywhere.” That philosophy has guided her fifty-year career in country music, during which she has covered countless songs across countless genres and put her own indelible stamp on each one. More specifically, it’s the philosophy that animates both Spyboy, her touring band in the late 1990s, and Spyboy, the 1998 live album that demonstrates how these musicians made her songs shine. Sequencing old songs alongside new ones, the album tests the tensile strength of each one, pushing them into wilder and more psychedelic territory while remaining grounded in earthy country music. It’s completely unique in her catalog, a crucial document of an important chapter in her career, and it’s finally getting reissued after years of being unavailable. “It’s such a special record,” she says. “Well, they all are, but this one is really, really special. That was such a fantastic band and such an amazing time.” 
 
Spyboy grew out of Wrecking Ball, Harris’ groundbreaking 1995 collaboration with producer Daniel Lanois. In 1996 and 1997 together with Buddy Miller, Brady Blade and Daryl Johnson, The band, also named Spyboy, toured America and Europe together, never playing a song the same way twice. Buddy Miller brought along his recording gear and recorded nearly every show on the tour. When their time on the road ended, Miller and Harris sat down together and they culled through hundreds of tracks to choose the ones that best represented the Spyboy ethos of endless possibility. They whittled the original release down to 14 tracks and in 1998 Eminent Records released Spyboy on CD.
A1. My Songbird  A2. Where I Will Be  A3. I Ain't Living Long Like This  A4. Love Hurts  A5. Green Pastures  B1. Deeper Well  B2. Prayer In Open D  B3. Calling My Children Home  B4. Tulsa Queen  B5. Wheels  C1. Born To Run  C2. Boulder To Birmingham  C3. All My Tears  C4. The Maker  D1. Thing About You  D2. All I Left Behind  D3. Every Grain Of Sand  D4. Get Up John  D5. Sweet Old World