CLICK THE PHOTO ABOVE to see a gallery from "All For The Hall." Here, Vince Gill, Emmylou Harris and Ann Wilson perform as the Country Music Hall of Fame presents the 2014 concert benefiting The Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum at Club Nokia at L.A. Live in Los Angeles, CA on Tuesday, March 4, 2014 (Brandon Clark/ABImages)
LOS ANGELES — The living room, Emmylou Harris often reminds. Keep it close to the living room.
By that, Harris means that country music should be spiritual, not technical. It should retain the spirit of friends sharing songs in a home. It should be loose and vibrant, not perfect. It should be more communion than performance.
Tuesday night at Club Nokia, Harris and fellow Country Music Hall of Famer Vince Gill brought the living room to downtown Los Angeles, anchoring a guitar pull not unlike the ones Harris and then-husband Brian Ahern used to host in the 1970s at the Beverly Hills home where they recorded Harris’ early-career masterpieces.
Ann and Nancy Wilson of Heart and Jason Mraz rounded out a lineup that featured guest turns from country newcomer Cam Ochs, singer-songwriter Holly Williams and the night’s host, actress and singer-songwriter Rita Wilson.
Proceeds from this “All For The Hall” fundraising concert were aided by an auction that featured autographed Gibson and Epiphone guitars, Southwest Airlines travel vouchers, CMA Music Festival tickets and even an opportunity to appear in a “Nancy” comic strip.
All money raised goes to preserving the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum’s collection. Early estimates put the evening’s net profit at $100,000.
“Nashville is this amazing town, with this great songwriting community, and it also has this incredible museum,” said Rita Wilson, who has lately been spending time in Nashville, writing songs with notables including Jessi Alexander and Harris’ former Nash Rambler band member, Jon Randall.
Harris has participated in each edition of the traveling “All For The Hall” series, which began at Gill’s suggestion in 2007, held either in New York or Los Angeles.
“It’s an ambassadorship,” she said. “What we take for granted in Nashville — this in-the-round format where people sit and take turns playing songs on guitars — is kind of exotic to people in other places. You strip everything else away, and it has to work in that moment.”
Tuesday evening, it worked in most every moment.
The artists pitched in on each others’ songs, with Gill providing guitar accompaniment on each of Mraz’s songs and the Wilson sisters harmonizing with Harris on the Gillian Welch-penned “Orphan Girl.”
“The stuff that’s authentically American about pure country is really rewarding and inspiring,” said Nancy Wilson, whose sister called Gill a “vocal idol.” “When we sing at home, we’ll sing Emmy, and Lucinda Williams.”
Williams, the granddaughter of pioneering country artist Hank Williams and the daughter of superstar Hank Williams Jr., sang her riveting “Waiting On June,” about her maternal grandparents. Ochs drew applause with her emotional “Burning House,” which caused a smiling Gill to comment, “That’s some good singing, kid.”
The evening’s song choices were sprinkled with California country connections, with Gill delivering a lovely take on Merle Haggard’s “I Can’t Be Myself” and the Wilson sisters covering Gene Clark’s “Through the Morning, Through the Night.”
Before the show, Gill took time to reflect on California’s importance to the country music story, and to the story of his own musical life.
His duo album with steel player Paul Franklin, “Bakersfield,” is a tribute to West Coast country heroes Haggard and Buck Owens, and the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum’s “The Bakersfield Sound” exhibit illuminates many of California’s contributions.
And Gill said Los Angeles was a beacon for him many years ago because of two talents who went on to become some of Nashville’s most revered musical citizens: Harris and Rodney Crowell.
“I moved out here in 1976, chasing Emmy and Rodney,” he said. “I was so moved and captivated by what they were doing that I saw my future.”
Gill couldn’t have seen a future filled with platinum sales and a Hall of Fame plaque. But he saw one filled with ringing guitars, voices singing in harmony and living rooms filled with music. That’s the stuff that works, no matter the decade or the time zone.
Reach Peter Cooper at 615-259-8220 or on Twitter @TNMusicNews.
