Emmylou and Lucinda have always had the best bands. Rodney Crowell, Ricky Skaggs, Buddy Miller, Albert Lee, James Burton, Glen D. Hardin, Emory Gordy, Herb Pedersen, Bernie Leadon, Ron Tutt, John Ware, Ben Keith, Byron Berline, Amos Garrett, Bill Payne, Richard Greene, Hank DeVito, Mike Auldridge, Tony Brown, and Tony Rice are amongst the great musicians who have provided Emmylou with musical accompaniment!
Just yesterday I found a copy of Emmylou’s Gliding Bird LP, on Emus Records. It was released in 1979, and contains early pre-Reprise Records recordings. Eight bucks. Right next to it in the bin at Music Millennium was the MoFi pressing of her Quarter Moon In A Ten Cent Town album. NM condition, $15. I of course have an original, but for fifteen bucks I’ll gamble that this is one of the "good" MoFi’s. 😉
I started seeing Lucinda live in small joints throughout L.A. around the time she was recording what became her s/t album on Rough Trade Records (I assume that’s the one stuartk referred to as her "white album"), once in a pizza parlour! Just Gurf on Telecaster, Dr. John on upright bass, and drummer Donald Lindley playing a washboard (the stage was too small to accomodate a drumset).
In the mid-80’s I went to see The Long Ryders at Club Lingerie on Sunset Blvd., and saw a guy I knew standing with a lanky blonde chick. I went over to say "Hey", and he replied "This is Lucinda, she writes songs too." I didn’t yet know it, but Lucinda’s then-husband was The Ryders’ drummer (for you drummers in the audience, he was playing a set of vintage white marine pearl Slingerland Radio Kings. Very cool!). I was also unaware of her two albums, Ramblin’ On My Mind and Happy Woman Blues.
But hearing the Rough Trade album and then seeing her in those intimate performances around L.A. was a life-changing experience, and I of course became an instant fan. I separate musical performers into two groups: entertainers, and artists. Nothing wrong with entertainers, but artists are just a different breed. Lucinda, like Emmylou, is an artist.