I read that this live album was meant to serve as a promotion for the Hot Band, the group Emmylou had brought along to support her. It certainly does that. From the opening track through to the final applause, what you notice first isn’t how much more earnest Harris’s voice sounds after she wears it out a little bit but the rollicking, honky tonking, freewheeling band behind her.

The rhythm section bounces like a pair of country acrobats, the lead guitar runs between every melody line like a hyperactive child doing his best to sit still, the lap steel glides smoothly behind the chords, and every choice they make serves to make the exciting as possible, and it works. Even on the Springsteen-penned ballad Racing in the Street that closes the first side, pared down though it may be, the band still manages to maintain energy while respecting the source material.

And for a second, can we just talk about the fact that Emmylou Harris covers Bruce Springsteen’s Racing in the Street and kills it? Just like she killed the Beatles’ For No One and Simon & Garfunkel’s The Boxer. The woman is a true music lover, and her skills of interpreting the work of others is unparalleled. That, mixed with a sweet voice dripping with honesty, and a band that could have played their way past the Berlin Wall make her legacy one that is well deserved.