It's unfortunate that this is going to get stuck in the country section of the music store, because like it's predecesor "Wrecking Ball" (one of the few undisputed GREAT albums of the 90s), Emmy's new music is beyond any classifications. Is it rock? Is it folk? Is it tribal? Is it country? None of the above, but all at once, really.

After flexing her songwriting muscles again with "The Western Wall" album with Linda Ronstadt (a skill which had more or less remained dormant for over a decade), Emmylou manages to come up with 11 new songs of her own for this release, and they don't pale beside the great tunes she recorded on "Wrecking Ball." In fact, it makes it even more poignant that these words are coming FROM her rather than just THROUGH her like last time around, and on previous 90s outings.

While Daniel Lanois provided a rejuvination in Emmylou's creativity, he's absent her -- stuck somewhere in the studio with U2 far far away, a band that takes a notoriously long time to finish an album. His "Wrecking Ball" partner in crime, Malcolm Burn, takes over instead -- and pushes the sound they were going for last time even further. And while some complain that the Lanois sound is muddy or difficult to wade through, I say "Too bad for you!" Lanois has coaxed some of the best work out of artists as wide ranging as Peter Gabriel, Willie Nelson, Bob Dylan, U2, the Neville Brothers, Robbie Robertson and many others.

Burn, who participated on many of those artists albums, had a few of his own tricks as well. He seems to have learned quite a few things from Lanois and the latter's sometimes-partner Brian Eno. "Bang the Drum Slowly" features a beautiful Eno-esque soundscape. "I Don't Want to Talk About it Now" is a mean wall-of-sound groove featuring looping polyrythms and telephone answering machines. Background vocals from Kate McGarrigle, Julie Miller, Bruce Springsteen and others are layered into the mix to make everything blend together into a harmonious blend rather than isolated parts. The results are magnificent.

The playing of Daryl Johnson, Ethan Johns and Burns is magificent, and accents from Buddy Miller and others only add to a rich mix.

While she might not be selling millions of records any more, I'm glad Emmylou Harris is being brave enough to make the music she wants to make, regardless of commercial appeal.

The only song on this album which could remotely work on radio is the closer "Boy from Tupelo," but even that one presents an audio challenge as the mix isn't quite a straightforward as conventional radio would like.

"Your last chance Texaco, your sweetheart of the rodeo, a Juliet to your Romeo, the border your cross into Mexico . . ." Emmy, you can be all those things to me.

Emmylou Harris's first solo CD in five years is a beautiful, thought-provoking and emotional CD. That said, it is certainly does her and her fans a disservice to call it "country." This CD while appealing to fans of "alternative country" might be better labeled, if you want to put a label on it at all, as "folk rock" appealing to those who like Sarah MacLachlan rather than those who like Faith Hill.

Emmylou wrote or co-wrote 11 of the 12 cuts on this CD and one can't help but think they are at least partially autobiographical. Particularly poignant is "Bang the Drum Slowly" which is about her father and includes the line, "were you deceived by the likes of me" suggesting perhaps that her father didn't exactly support her choice of careers or perhaps to her political views. With "My Baby Needs a Shepherd" she continues on her poignant journey of the soul. The arrangement of the duet with Dave Matthews, "My Antonia" is as good as any she's ever done. The background vocals of "The Boss" (Bruce Springsteen) on "Tragedy" add to its emotional message. Also enjoyable are the background vocals of the understated but oh so beautiful voice of Julie Miller on several of the cuts.

I love this CD and can't stop listening to it nearly a week after its release. In fact, I like it more and more with each listen. It's highly recommended by this long time (25+ years) Emmylou fan.

Emmylou Harris' record Wrecking Ball of 1995 was treated as a sort of watershed moment. Guided by Daniel Lanois into creating an atmospheric, ethereal sound -- much like those he brought to Neville Brothers' Yellow Moon and the two records he produced for Bob Dylan -- Emmylou brought her stellar angelic voice to great songs by Steve Earle, Gillian Welch, Lucinda Williams, and a host of other major figures in the alt-country/folk music. But if the album had a flaw, it's that sometimes Emmylou felt too much like an instrument -- a majestic instrument, yes -- for Lanois' sonic collages. Her albums generally have been her interpretations of other's materials, but still, her own personality generally shone through in her choice of covers, and her re-arrangement of songs, especially on the stellar, indispensible Live at the Ryman collection. If Wrecking Ball was missing something, it was Emmylou's voice to go along with that Voice -- she seemed distant from the heart of the matter.

After assembling a terrific Gram Parsons tribute record, a fine live record with her touring band Spyboy, a second Trio collection with Linda Ronstadt and Dolly Parton, and an underrated record with Rondstadt (Western Wall) that featured one of Emmylou's own best compositions, "Raise the Dead," she's returned not just with her first solo studio album in five years, but one of her first records to feature mostly her own material (there's one Patty Griffin cover) since The Ballad of Sally Rose.

At first listen, it may sound like Wrecking Ball II: the low groove, the tight percussion, the echo effects on some of Emmylou's voicework. But then you listen to the lyrics. From "Bang the Drum Slowly," an elegy for her father co-written with the great Guy Clark, to the duet with Dave Matthews, "My Antonia," to a superb meditation on life, love, liberty, and Elvis, "Boy from Tupelo" -- where she even winks a little to a mentor from her past by referring to a sweetheart of your rodeo -- this is an album of personal introspection from an artist not quite yet ready to be bronzed as a national treasure, however fitting the accolade might be.

She's nobody's puppet, and she's a fine, fine songwriter in her own right. And in the end, you come down to her voice: sometimes a raspy whisper, sometimes a clarion call. The singer who has been the interpreter of so many others' songs here interprets the sounds and tics of her own heart, and articulates them in a way seldom heard on other's recordings.

In the end, Red Dirt Girl is a record about embracing the wisdom of growing older without turning one's back on the feelings of youth, the charms of femininity, the mystery of love, and the sense of wonder about the world. It's a record that probably even eclipse's Steve Earle's Transcendental Blues as the strongest I've heard this year, and if there's a flaw to it, it's that sometimes the Lanois-like atmosphere doesn't let her lyrics breathe a little bit more -- Emmylou is capable of rocking her heart out (as Live at the Ryman's version of Earle's "Guitar Town" displays), and it's a shame that there aren't a few more chances for her to break loose in this setting. (Though in her cover of Griffin's One Big Love, she does get playful, singing, "Just go on and kiss him if you wanna...") Sometimes the atmosphere and production is a little too manicured, a little too maintained. But that's a small quibble when you're listening to a record like this, a rarity and, more, a joy.

[Oh, and on a more pedestrian, admittedly locker room note -- in a world where a 70something like Sean Connery can be embraced as a sex symbol, why can't we give a 53 year old beauty like Emmylou her due? She only seems to get better with age. I'm 26 years old, and I think she's prettier than 99% of the women on the screen today. So screw the ageist double standards. And buy this record.]

Unlike the purists, I loved the new sound that Emmylou Harris picked up from Daniel Lanois. It just fits. I wont't write a full-fledged summary of the album. You can read some of the longer customer reviews for this. I will unabashedly sell this album, ... .)

Where else can you get such a beautiful country voice? It's here.

Where else can you get songwriting that's evocative and spiritual? It's here.

Where else can you find a sound that's so traditional and yet so alternative? It's here.

Where else can you find a pop artist willing to break new ground, when the rest of the industry is playing it safe? It's here.

Is she really country? Alternative? Pop? I'll let the musicologist figure out what category this album ought to fall in. It's clear that this album (and Wrecking Ball) fall into a class by themselves.

Buy this album.

Good albums are a lot like relationships. There are some good albums that catch your ear on the first listen, you instantly fall in love with several songs, but then fall out of love in a short time. Then there are those albums that you listen to time after time, no song really stands out, but you fall in love with the music and you never lose that love. Emmylou Harris is known for making albums that produce long time love. Her albums are collections of deep songs that pluck the heart strings and are designed for the soul of the listener, not for commercial radio. Her newest album, Red Dirt Soul, is no different.

Red Dirt Soul shows a new side of Harris as she branches out musically and goes places she has never gone before, but the essential elements stay the same. It keeps the qualities that make her albums into old friends, that uniquely gorgeous voice and the profound, thoughtful lyrics. The album runs like a musical autobiography in which Harris opens up her soul and invites every listener to jump inside and feel her heartaches and her joy. The title track is one of those Emmylou Harris songs that lingers in your psyche, the lyrics popping into your head, making the quiet moments surreal. "Michelangelo" is a very simple, artsy song that is the perfect setting for Harris to display her vocal strength as well as her musical passions. Harris continues the artsy feel in the song, "Bang the Drum Slowly" as well as "The Pearl." The feeling in these two songs is very similar to that of "Michelangelo" and the artistic quality nearly becomes cumbersome to the listener. One of the strongest points on the album comes in the form of a duet. Harris teams up with Dave Matthews on "My Antonia." The collaboration results in a touching duet that sticks with a listener. The duet is an excellent effort and the only possible way to improve upon such a masterpiece is to take out some of the production work. A simpler arrangement without the echoes and drum machines could have made the song more moving. The album winds down with "Boy From Tupelo," a sophisticated allusion to the life of Elvis Presley. Overall, the album is filled with mellow, soothing sounds and is sure to become a favorite of the patient listener. The sounds are definitely unlikely to appeal to the fan of the contemporary country that has been polluted by pop sound and overproduced. The music contained in this collection of work shares a common thread with all the music in Emmylou Harris' body of work. It is written for an audience with a willingness and capacity to think past the melody and into the lyrics. Emmylou Harris has given us yet another album that is close to her own heard and is offering us yet another invitation to step in and look around at the walls of her soul.