“Most of my career,” says Emmylou Harris, “I’ve been a finder of songs, a gatherer of songs, so
this showcases, in part, that side of what I do.”
All I Intended To Be, its simple but evocative title borrowed from the lyric of a Billy Joe Shaver
song, does far more than that. Her first solo album since 2003’s Stumble Into Grace, it is indeed
a catalogue of Harris’s many gifts—as an interpreter, as an eloquent composer herself, as an
inveterate musical explorer who’s been able to discover, rescue, and/or give new life to man
y
a
beautiful but overlooked country, bluegrass or folk tune. But the album also offers a living
portrait of Harris, a recounting of her extraordinary history, through the many musicians and
fellow singers she has collaborated with since the start of her solo career, so many of whom
make appearances on these tracks. The all-star cast includes Dolly Parton, Vince Gill,
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McGarrigle sisters, old friends from the Seldom Scene, Glenn D. Hardin of her legendary Hot
Band, as well as some of the most versatile studio players around. It’s produced by Brian Ahern
and engineered by Donivan Cowart, both of whom collaborated with Harris on such
groundbreaking albums as Elite Hotel, Luxury Liner, and Blue Kentucky Girl.
Harris admits she had to grab studio time in between all of her other projects and
commitments—hitting the road with Neil Young and Elvis Costello, cutting All the Roadrunning
and performing live with Mark Knopfler, assembling her Songbird boxed set of rarities, and
going out with Patty Griffin, Shawn Colvin, and Buddy Miller for their Three Girls and a Buddy
Tour. Yet All I Intended To Be, recorded in Nashville and Los Angeles between October 2005
and March 2008, manages to have a seamless quality. Harris says, “I’d have to credit Brian and
Donivan, their sense of sound, their integrity and their ability to keep all those pieces
together—things that were recorded in Canada, overdubbed in L.A., and brought back to
Nashville, stuff done one guitar and vocal at a time, all the different la