Track Listing

1. Shores Of White Sand
2. Hold On
3. Moon Song
4. Broken Man's Lament
5. Gold
6. How She Could Sing The Wildwood Flower
7. All That You Have Is Your Soul
8. Take That Ride
9. Old Five And Dimers Like Me
10. Kern River
11. Not Enough
12. Sailing Round The Room
13. Beyond The Great Divide

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #212 in Music
• Released on: 2008-06-09
• Number of discs: 1

Amazon.co.uk review
Emmylou Harris has always had a way with woe. On All I Intended To Be, she seems more maudlin than ever as she sings her way through songs about loss, heartbreak, even the odd funeral. Of course, this is the kind of material Harris has always been comfortable with, but as her career and years advance gracefully, so her gliding soprano seems to breathe ever more refinement and soul into her material. All I Intended To Be has been produced by Brian Ahern, her former husband and the man behind her first 11 albums--another reason the album sounds so comfortable and accomplished. Joined by a virtuoso set of players including keyboardist Glen Hardin and multi-instrumentalist Stuart Duncan, plus vocalists Vince Gill, Buddy Miller, and Dolly Parton, Harris blends a handpicked selection of cover versions with her own material. Tracy Chapman's "All That You Have Is Your Soul" gets a honeyed reworking, as does Merle Haggard's "Kern River" and Mark Germino's "Broken Man's Lament". Billy Joe Shaver's "Old Five" and "Dimers Like Me" both get respectfully and sublimely covered too. But her own songs - in particular "Sailing Round the Room" and "Gold" - stand up well to these evergreens. An eclectic and profound set, All I Intended To Be is also one of Harris’ best in recent years.--Danny McKenna

Uncut, May 2008
Harris is as proud, painful, and plaintive as ever here, dripping with life and dealing in dire certainties.'
* * * * (stars)

Mojo, May 2008
The eternal rose of Nashville proffers beauty, fragrance and thorns.' * * * * (stars)

Customer Reviews

Very good
I liked this album a lot. It starts off strong and gets better through to the two songs at the end, which for me were the highlights. Beautiful lyrics, beautiful voice, beautiful music, beautifully produced. A melancholy album pretty much through and through I felt, and that would be my only criticism. Nothing pacey and upbeat to help mix it up a bit. Four stars from me.

Just Beautiful
Takes a couple of listenings, but after that it just blows you away. Several standout songs, particularly "How she could sing The Wildwood flower" (which I took to be a reference to an earlier generation of the Carter Family rather than June Cater and Johnny Cash) "Gold" is just beautiful, but particularly the magnificent "Sailing Round the Room". Anybody remember the last poor, or even average, album Emmylou made?

Touching The Sublime
The title : a fanfare, a declaration and a manifesto.

This collection of thirteen new recordings brings us
to some kind of pinnacle in Ms Harris's long career.

She must know this to be true. The evidence is there for us to hear.

After the dry, rasping austerity of 'Red Dirt Girl' (2000);
the warm, reassuring classicism of 'Stumble Into Grace' (2003)
and the uncomfortably eneven collaboration with Mr Knopfler,
'All The Road Running' (2006); 'All I Intended To Be' is a
trancendent epiphany. A true and perfect wonder.

Maturity of voice and musical vision; finely honed interpretive insight
and the ability to create a sense of intense gravitas from the simplest
ingredients are all marks of an artist functioning at the very
height of her remarkable powers.

A track by track deconstruction would seem somehow ignoble given
material of such consumate beauty.

Suffice to say that with the song 'All That You Have Is Your Soul'
the world seems to turn to face the sun. Music to warm the coldest spirit.

Either side of it twelve more wonderful examples of songs to raise
your hopes and break your heart.

Quintessential.

Inimitable.

Sublime.