At the Ryman cover

At the Ryman

Emmylou Harris

Album · 1992 · Reprise 26664-2

“At the Ryman” was recorded live at Ryman Auditorium in Nashville during three acoustic concerts, 30 April to 2 May 1991, played to an audience of about 200 because of safety concerns about the building. The Ryman, long the home of the Grand Ole Opry, had been mostly vacant and deteriorating since the Opry moved out in March 1974. Emmylou Harris had dissolved her Hot Band around 1991 and formed the Nash Ramblers for the occasion: Sam Bush on mandolin and fiddle, Roy Huskey Jr. on bass, Al Perkins on dobro, banjo and guitar, Jon Randall Stewart on guitar and mandolin, and Larry Atamanuik on drums, with Harris on guitar.

Reprise released the album in January 1992 (26664-2). The program ranges from Bill Monroe and Peter Rowan’s “Walls of Time,” Monroe’s instrumental “Scotland,” and the Robert Yates, Charles Waller and Doyle Lawson song “Calling My Children Home” to Steve Earle’s “Guitar Town,” Bruce Springsteen’s “Mansion on the Hill,” John Fogerty’s “Lodi” and Stephen Foster’s “Hard Times.” The album won the Grammy for Best Country Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal at the ceremony of 24 February 1993.

The concerts and the album are widely given credit for renewed interest in reviving the Ryman as an active venue. Renovation began in September 1993, and the first performance in the restored hall, a broadcast of A Prairie Home Companion, took place on 4 June 1994; the Opry came back for regular performances in January 1999.

Tracklist

  1. 1 Guitar Town - Live 2:57
  2. 2 Half as Much - Live 3:01
  3. 3 Cattle Call - Live 3:12
  4. 4 Guess Things Happen That Way - Live 2:26
  5. 5 Hard Times alt version 2:47
  6. 6 Mansion on the Hill - Live 4:27
  7. 7 Scotland - Live 2:59
  8. 8 Montana Cowboy alt version 2:19
  9. 9 Like Strangers - Live 4:57
  10. 10 Lodi - Live 3:08
  11. 11 Calling My Children Home - Live 3:15
  12. 12 If I Could Be There - Live 3:30
  13. 13 Walls of Time alt version 4:45
  14. 14 Get Up John - Live 4:24
  15. 15 It's a Hard Life Wherever You Go / Abraham, Martin and John - Live 7:05
  16. 16 Smoke Along the Track - Live 4:17
  17. 17 Rollin' and Ramblin' (The Death of Hank Williams) - Live 3:33
  18. 18 The Nash Ramble - Live 3:34

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