Drops: Emmylou Harris' 'Hard Bargain'

It's interesting that Emmylou Harris decided to name her new album "Hard Bargain" (Nonesuch) -- after the Ron Sexsmith song, one of only two here that she didn't write -- since she makes everything look so easy.

This collection is filled with effortless, timeless, beautiful songs, at the intersection of folk, rock and country that Harris has built into a magnificent career.

"The Road" is a pretty retrospective of her time with the great Gram Parsons, with the verses sung in her potent rock voice and the chorus in the lovely heights of her upper register.

It's a testament to her vocal strength that she can make a quick turn from that to the yearning "Home Sweet Home" and the wrenching "My Name Is Emmett Till," where she sings from the point of view of Emmett, a 14-year-old black boy who was killed in Mississippi in 1955 after reportedly speaking to a white woman. The beauty in her delivery makes her lyrics all the more harrowing, as she sings, "The ones who beat and cut me and shot me with a gun threw me in the river like I was trash when they were done."

Harris also rocks out on "New Orleans" and plays around with "Big Black Dog" without any strain. It's her steady hand that drives "Hard Bargain" into the classic territory of her Grammy-winning "Red Dirt Girl."

Emmylou Harris

"Hard Bargain"

THE GRADE A-

BOTTOM LINE A wide range of beautiful