Concerts for a Landmine Free World

1	The Pearl - Emmylou Harris
2	Big Ol' Goofy World - John Prine
3	Cold Dog Soup - Guy Clark with Verlon Thompson
4	This Shirt - Mary Chapin Carpenter
5	Mines of Mozambique - Bruce Cockburn
6	It's a Hard Life - Nanci Griffith
7	Morphine - Gillian Welch & David Rawlings
8	Mary - Patty Griffin
9	Shipwrecked - Kris Kristofferson
10	Wilderness of This World - Terry Allen
11	Christmas in Washington - Steve Earle

Barnes & Noble

In recent years Emmylou Harris has embraced the movement to rid the world's war-torn areas of hidden landmines that continue to take lives and disable people long after the fighting has ended. Concerts for a Landmine Free World is a compilation of live tracks culled from a series of Harris-sponsored concerts held in the U.S. and Canada in 1999-2000. Emmylou opens the album with the beautiful, hymnlike "The Pearl," then gives way to a series of other marquee talents: John Prine, Steve Earle, Mary Chapin Carpenter, Guy Clark, Kris Kristofferson, Patty Griffin, Gillian Welch and David Rawlings, Terry Allen, Nanci Griffith, and Bruce Cockburn. Given the context, memorable songs such as Prine's "Big Ol' Goofy World" and Carpenter's acoustically rendered "This Shirt," with their references to simple, everyday pleasures and the passages of a full life, hit harder than usual. Similarly, Terry Allen, accompanying himself simply on piano, evokes the beauty of the natural world with dramatic immediacy on "Wilderness of This World," a meditation that begins with the spotting of a single shoe left forlorn on the highway. And what better way to close out this topical album than with Steve Earle's "Christmas in Washington"? The song's roll call of heroes who were fearless in support of human dignity and basic civil rights is an anthem that can't be played too often, especially in service to the worthy cause this important CD honors. David McGee

All Music Guide

These live performances are drawn from concert series in 1999 and 2000 that benefited the Campaign for a Landmine Free World organization. There are a bunch of big folk-country-rock-singer/songwriter crossover names here, including Emmylou Harris, John Prine, Bruce Cockburn, Mary Chapin Carpenter, Nanci Griffith, Gillian Welch, Kris Kristofferson, Steve Earle, Terry Allen, and Guy Clark. The vibe is low-key and unplugged, and it's rather like listening to a record compiled from various editions of National Public Radio's "Mountain Stage" series (which is not a criticism). Sometimes the songs are topical, but never more so than in Cockburn's "Mines of Mozambique," which of course relates directly to the inspiration for these concerts. Sometimes, however, the social consciousness is not directly related to the event at hand (Griffith's "It's a Hard Life"), and sometimes indeed this has nothing to do with topical songwriting, as on Prine's comic "Big Ol' Goofy World" (nice to have some lighthearted moments at a benefit album for such a somber issue). You wouldn't say that this represents the best work of any of these artists, but for those who are into these kind of singer/songwriters, it's a pretty solid set of tracks not available on their regular releases. Richie Unterberger