Emmylou Harris's Last Date had a nobler purpose than scaling the country charts in 1982. Harris envisioned the album as a statement for her Hot Band's preeminence as a live-gig ensemble. To prove that point, she assembled Last Date's 12 tracks from a tour of California honky-tonks, places where Harris imagined a listener might get the essence of country music--which seen through these tracks more closely resembles the later-emerging alternative-country scene than most of the 1990s' commercial "young" country.
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