Emmylou Harris - Red Dirt Girl

So, not only is she a great selector and interpreter of others' compositions, but Emmylou's also a pretty fine songwriter herself. Red Dirt Girl's another of her latter-day efforts (post-Wrecking Ball); mostly made up of her own songs, it's expansive and modern but still real-feeling, and good (it sounds au courant and relevant while also being clearly grounded in the rootsier traditions that she came out of...I seem to recall hearing or reading somewhere that Harris wasn't really a country chick before she met Gram, so maybe that original background, plus the GP genre-mixing, is showing through in this recent work of hers). It's also interesting how similar the songs are to those which she's chosen to cover in the past (especially on Wrecking Ball) - chicken and egg, but I guess she has an ear for what she likes and what works for her.