Mark Knopfler & Emmylou Harris - "All the Roadrunning" (Warner Bros.)

Featured Album of the Week 5/1/2006

BUY THIS CD: All the Road Running

Well, anytime you combine two XPN favorites like MARK KNOPFLER and EMMYLOU HARRIS, there's bound to be more than a little bit of interest. Almost seven years in the making, these two distinctive singers and songwriters have produced a very solid album.

Recorded in fits and starts whenever the two found time to get together over the years, this is a project that Knopfler had always hoped would come to fruition. As expected, their voices sound great together. Knopfler wrote ten of the twelve tracks by himself, and Emmylou chipped in with two. The folky, largely acoustic instrumentation is tasteful and very well played. Knopfler seems to have a pretty good handle on what Harris' strengths are as a singer and - while many of the tunes are unmistakably Knopfler-esque - he is certainly a fan of her always lovely,understated voice. He pretty successfully made sure that these songs matched the very best parts of his - and her - vocal stylings.

The upbeat tunes like "This Is Us" and "Red Staggerwing" seem to work best overall, however a few of the ballads (including the soaring title track and "Beyond My Wildest Dreams", to name a couple) flirt with the transcendent label. Overall, while there's certainly no new ground being broken here, All The Roadrunning is a very lovely collaberation.

Written by Dan Reed

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