I had the good luck to be at the concert Wednesday evening at Stanford, the first installment of a five-day, five-concert California tour that Emmylou Harris is putting on to benefit the Campaign for a Landmine Free World, cosponsored by the Vietnam Veterans of America Foundation (VVAF).

The show itself was excellent, with Emmy, John Prine, Patty Griffin, Bruce Cockburn, Nanci Griffith, and Steve Earle (in seating order) performing in what Emmy described as the "singer-songwriter thing," meaning they sat in a row and performed sequentially. Mostly, each sang alone accompanying themselves on the guitar. Emmy sang harmony on several songs and sang lead on one of the verses on Nanci's last song.

Nanci seemed to be having a great time and her voice sounded wonderful. She opened her first number by raving about Bruce Cockburn's guitar playing and introducing "Trouble in the Fields" by saying Emmy particularly liked it. She sang a brand new song, dedicated to her goddaughter in Montana, I'm guessing "Midnight in Missoula" as the title. The song includes mentions of Gershwin and Samuel Barber, so it sounds like Nanci's writing continues to be influenced by her classical music interests.

Her other three songs were "Across the Great Divide," "Grafton Street," and "It's a Hard Life," Emmy singing the second verse on the latter with Patty Griffin also singing harmony.

Emmy’s first song was "Raise the Dead," though she gave it a ghostly, Daniel Lanois-type treatment noticeably different from her recorded version with Linda Ronstadt. Her next three songs (she let everyone else do five songs) were new ones, all of them I believe written by her. I really enjoyed hearing her new material.

But if someone were hearing Emmy for the first time Wednesday, they might think she was a female version of Townes Van Zandt on downers. The first new song was a piece with religious overtones that started out talking about dragons flying low, and included lines like, "Sorrow is constant/Joys are brief."

The second was a song she said was her tribute to marriage. It included the narrator looking forward to binding up her mate's fatal wound and hearing the last breath leave his lips. It continued along the lines of, "When they excavate my heart/They’ll find the impression of your face there," or something to that effect. The third was a nostalgic, enigmatic piece which may be called "Michaelangelo." Interesting, even beautiful songs. But none of them the "silly love song" variety!

The biggest hit of the show seemed to be Steve Earle singing his "Goodbye" with Emmy doing harmony (Emmy sings it on "Wrecking Ball.") Steve introduced it by announcing to the crowd he had been "clean" for five years this past September, to the crowd's applause. He said he didn't kick hard drugs because he wanted to, but because "they locked my ass up." He said "Goodbye" was the first song he wrote when he was released from jail to a recovery house, before he was sent back to jail a month later.

Patty Griffin's "Mary" got the second most enthusiastic crowd response. I was not familiar with her work and Bruce Cockburn's, so this was a great introduction. I was somewhat more familiar with John Prine's material, and it was great to hear him and his funny, irreverent songs Wednesday.

VVAF President Bobby Muller gave a brief but very effective presentation before the intermission about the anti-landmine cause. Several of the performers commented directly about the issue as well, although they left most of the details to Muller. Bruce Cockburn played a song of his called "The Mines of Mozambique" and gave the impression of having being actively involved with the issue for a while. Nanci introduced "Hard Life" with her standard line from Martin Luther King that there are no bad babies born into the world. She expanded it to say that the anti-landmine cause was to prevent babies from being blown up when they walk into the forest or the fields.

Bruce C and Steve Earle also had quite a bit to say about the protests in Seattle. Bruce followed his comments with a song which seemed to be about how neocolonialist aggressive and corporate greed where pillaging the world and generally oppressing the poor. Or something to that effect. Also not one in the "silly love song" category.

But it wasn't just an evening of only "protest" songs and general heavyosity. It was good entertainment and delivered a clear message about a worthy cause. And hopefully raised some money for it, too. ----- Bruce Miller