Dolly, Linda and Emmylou: Trio Rides Again

What’s better than Dolly Parton, Linda Ronstadt and Emmylou Harris? The three of them together, of course.

On one-off occasions over the last several decades, Dolly Parton, Linda Ronstadt and Emmylou Harris would get together in studios around the country and record the kinds of songs they loved. “Even Cowgirls Get the Blues,” the Chordettes’ “Mr. Sandman,” and even the Phil Spector classic, “To Know Him is to Love Him” (actually the inscription on Spector’s father’s headstone) got the Trio touch, and for years, the two albums that resulted have sat on shelves while technology passed them by.

By 1987, the songbirds had accumulated enough material to issue an album, a sort of all-girl version of the Traveling Wilburys they called Trio. More than a decade later, they revisited the project with Trio II in 1999. The material is decidedly down-home and rustic, hardly the stuff of a Saturday night throwdown, but perfect for the Sunday morning aftermath.

The complete recordings will be issued Sept. 9 by Rhino records on disc and in streaming formats, as well as in an abridged single-disc album. Extras incorporated into the deluxe version include: 11 completely unreleased recordings from the trio spanning both album sessions including “Waltz Across Texas Tonight,” “Pleasant As May,” “Are You Tired of Me,” and the gospel standard “Softly And Tenderly.” Among the unreleased material is also an alternate version of “Do I Ever Cross Your Mind?” featuring Parton on lead vocals and a stunning acapella version of “Calling All My Children Home.”

EM DASH