Neil Young’s warning sounded almost weightless in their hands. On Trio II, Emmylou Harris, Dolly Parton, and Linda Ronstadt reshaped “After the Gold Rush,” a song Young first released in 1970, into a Grammy-winning country collaboration. The power is not in force, but in how the voices refuse to crowd one another: Dolly’s mountain brightness, Linda’s velvet strength, and Emmylou’s high, airy blend hovering like a held breath above the arrangement. It feels less like a cover than a room where three different musical lives meet, softening the song’s warning until it becomes something closer to prayer.
Introduction “On Trio II, Emmylou Harris, Dolly Parton, and Linda Ronstadt turned “After the Gold Rush” into a hushed country vision, letting harmony carry the weight of Neil Young’s strange…