In January of 1978, Emmylou Harris released Quarter Moon in a Ten Cent Town, of the best and yet most overlooked albums in here catalog. The album benefits from two signature Rodney Crowell compositions. Harris would repay Crowell by singing on his debut album released later in the year.
Rolling Stone recently listed the album #21 in its web article 50 Country Albums Every Rock Fan Should Own, writing:
As Gram Parsons' muse and duet partner, Harris was central to country-rock's birth — but that's not why she is listed here. On Quarter Moon and other albums that spanned decades, she inhabited songs with a voice that concentrated tenderness, strength and worldliness into a powerfully fragile moan that left fans and artists of all genres thunderstruck. Her versions here of Delbert McClinton's "Two More Bottles of Wine" and Rodney Crowell's "Leaving Louisiana in the Broad Daylight" and "I Ain't Living Long Like This" rock with a remarkably breezy ache. With exquisite backing from her Hot Band (including guitar legends James Burton and Albert Lee, bluegrass whiz Ricky Skaggs, the Band's Garth Hudson and Rick Danko, et al.), she never settled for folkie earnestness or pretty trilling. A tough-minded wisdom always lurked, especially on Dolly Parton's "To Daddy," which Harris channeled like an O. Henry short story.
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