First things first- happy birthday to Emmylou Harris. For her birthday, I raised my vote here from '8' to a '9'. I will also take exception to the categorization of Emmylou's work here as 'country pop easy listening female voices', which would lump her in with much that is mediocre, though I know you meant well. And, to be fair, there are a lot of slow and medium tempo tunes on here. But with that voice, what's the rush?
Emmylou natal day
As far as I can recall 'Producer's Cut' is/might have been the first surround disc I bought, before I even had a surround system to play it on- just a long-since dead JVC DVDa player that came with a demo compilation and a 'Yes' surround sampler. Details are hazy, but back then I didn't have a screen hooked up to be able to select stereo/surround audio options, nor did I have a center speaker at first, so I guess the idea of high sample rate picqued my interest- everything else was hit-or-miss, like whether I'd even hear any lead vocals if I somehow got in surround mode. Ah, those were the days. Now I can bask surrounded in pristine angelic vocals singing classic material backed by a who's-who of country/rock players. Yay progress, it only took me 15 or so years of system upgrading to get here.
'Producer's Cut' also makes good use of the video features of DVD-audio; every song is accompanied by an easy-on-the-eyes portrait of Emmylou and a list of the players, with optional lyrics and additional photos that can be selected without interrupting the music. There's also an extended interview with producer Brian Ahern, which I just watched through for the first time- it's pretty haphazard in terms of production values but ends up pretty compelling if you stick with it, especially the points of interest he shares regarding individual songs. The Dolby 5.1 soundtrack throws some quick clips of rough mixes around the room to nice effect, and there are some brief interview clips from Emmylou too sharing enthusiasm for surround sound. Turns out that sparse duet with Johnny Cash was a lot more involved to produce than it sounds.
Here's what Allmusic has to say about this collection-
"Rhino Records asked producer
Brian Ahern to select his favorite tracks from the
Emmylou Harris albums he helmed -- he produced her first 11 studio offerings for Reprise Records. That's quite a daunting task when you consider that some of those recordings were
Elite Hotel,
Luxury Liner,
Quarter Moon in a Ten Cent Town, and
Pieces of the Sky, just to name a few. But
Ahern rose to the task and put together a solid, aesthetically perfect set here, highlighting many different aspects of
Harris' career at the time: from her trademark, utterly pure singing voice, to her song selection, to the sound of her band and the studio she recorded in, this is a top-notch set from start to finish and serves as an excellent introduction to her early work for the newcomer."
Anyone know how to correct info on Allmusic? Under 'releases', they have this as a CD. AFAIK it was only released as DVD-audio, which isn't mentioned. Otherwise, I agree with them.
