Premiere: Phoebe Bridgers, ‘Prayer in Open D’ (from ‘To Emmylou’)
Kevin Bronson on
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Emmylou Harris’ gifts as a songwriter and vocalist have made listeners feel closer to heaven for more than four decades, during which she has released 26 albums and won 13 Grammys. The Country Music Hall of Famer is the subject of a new tribute album, “To Emmylou,” featuring 11 songs by 10 emerging Los Angeles artists.
Appropriately, Phoebe Bridgers appears on the album. The 21-year-old, whose early work suggests the singer-songwriter as an inheritor to Harris’ legacy, takes on the 1993 paean to regret “Prayer in Open D,” articulating its “valley of sorrow in my soul” with chilling clarity. It’s one of the many highlights on the album, which features contributions from Wires in the Wall, Tall Tales and the Silver Lining, the Silver Lake Chorus, Little Red Lung, Sandbox, Ashleigh Flynn, Burning Jet Black, Feronia and Great Outwest (with Lindsay Carter Coates).
Little Red Lung’s Ali Nikou recorded the album’s tracks at his Master Blaster Studios in Beachwood Canyon. “To Emmylou” is out June 3 via Fleeing Ghost (with a performance the following night at the Hi Hat), with part of the proceeds (appropriately, considering the honoree’s long history of activism) benefiting animal rescue charities. Nikou cheerfully points out that all the recording sessions were attended by his two rescue dogs Broccoli and Mr. Scrunzy. And it sounds like the labor of live it is.
||| Stream: “Prayer in Open D”
||| Live: The album-release party for “To Emmylou” is June 4 at the Hi Hat, featuring performances by the Lonely Wild, the Silver Lake Chorus, Burning Jet Black, Wires In The Walls, Feronia, Sandbox, Caftans and Great Outwest with Lindsay Carter Coates.
[…] Buzzbands has premiered a song from the To Emmylou compilation released earlier this summer in tribute to Emmylou Harris. “Appropriately,” writes the site’s Kevin Bronson, “Phoebe Bridgers appears on the album. The 21-year-old, whose early work suggests the singer-songwriter as an inheritor to Harris’ legacy, takes on the 1993 paean to regret ‘Prayer in Open D,’ articulating its ‘valley of sorrow in my soul’ with chilling clarity.” Hear the song right here. […]