Elite Hotel (Remastered)

Emmylou Harris’ major-label debut album, Pieces of the Sky, contained her stirring tribute to her late singing partner Gram Parsons. Elite Hotel, the follow-up album, contains three Parsons tunes — “Sin City,” “Ooh Las Vegas,” “Wheels” — that further celebrate the country-rock pioneer who died so young. Harris again promotes the young Texan songwriter Rodney Crowell with “Amarillo” and “Till I Gain Control Again” and revisits the Beatles’ catalog with “Here, There and Everywhere.” In terms of country-music heavyweights, Harris tackles Buck Owens’ “Together Again” and Hank Williams’ “Jambalaya.” Don Gibson’s country classic, “Sweet Dreams,” popularized by Patsy Cline, is given an empathetic interpretation that proves that while she doesn’t have Cline’s smoky romanticism, Harris has her own engaging fragility. Harris’ talent wasn’t going unnoticed either. She won her first of many GRAMMYs with her 1976 award for Best Country Vocal Performance, Female. Yet, her career was just getting started and she would soon begin exploring even more eclectic material and shift from country to pop to deep country with equal grace.