Last Date

Personnel: Emmylou Harris (vocals, guitar); Barry Tashian (vocals, guitar, banjo); Wayne Goodwin (guitar, mandolin, fiddle, saxophone); Frank Reckard (guitar, background vocals); Steve Fishell (pedal steel guitar, dobro); Mike Bowden (bass); John Ware (drums).
Producer: Brian Ahern.
Reissue producer: Monty Hitchcock, Steve Wilkison.
Recorded live on tour in California in 1982. Previously released on Warner Brothers (9237404). Includes liner notes by Brian Mansfield.
Digitally remastered by Brian Ahern & Doug Sax (The Mastering Lab, Hollywood, California).
For LAST DATE, recorded in a series of California honky-tonks during 1982, Emmylou Harris set out specifically to cast her Hot Band as one of the world's great country outfits. Harris wanted to make an all-covers live album that would capture the spirit of honky-tonk as she saw it, and here she sings a variety of endearing country tunes revolving, not surprisingly, around love.
Among the best are Don Everly's ballad, "So Sad (To Watch Good Love Go Bad)," Carl Perkins' bluegrass number, "Restless," Bruce Springsteen's novelistic "Racing in the Street," and Neil Young's country rocker/car anthem, "Long May You Run." LAST DATE expresses Harris's vision of what country music should sound like; the public responded well to this concept. LAST DATE stayed on the Billboard charts for thirty-two weeks in 1982, peaking at number nine.