EMMYLOU HARRIS “Emmylou at the Ryman” Reprise...

EMMYLOU HARRIS “Emmylou at the Ryman”

Reprise * * *

For her first album with the Nash Ramblers, the acoustic band she formed in 1990, Harris set up shop last year for a series of live shows in Nashville’s historic Ryman Auditorium, home of the Grand Ole Opry from 1943-74. The result in several ways recalls her touchstone “Last Date” live album of a decade ago. The album could use a bit more emotional heat in places, but, for the most part, Harris does her historic surroundings considerable honor.

The tone of this loosely linked group of songs, none of which Harris has recorded before, is set with the opening Steve Earle’s “Guitar Town,” the tale of Everykid who ever picked up a guitar and dreamed of Music City and stardom. From there, Harris quietly but deftly surveys more than six decades of country music.

Her skill at bridging past and present has never been demonstrated better than in her dovetailing of Stephen Foster’s “Hard Times” with Bruce Springsteen’s “Mansion on the Hill,” two century-apart views of the chasm between the haves and the have-nots.

The Nash Ramblers, both on record and in live shows that preceded these sessions, have proven every bit as dexterous as her justly legendary Hot Band.