thing about it. As Harris's housewifely metaphor suggests, it's really a modest project, three mutual admirers getting together to cook up a mess of favorite songs. In one permutation or another, they've done this for years on their solo albums. What Ronstadt doesn't know about country harmony, Harris and Parton do: each sang with partners early in her career, Parton with Porter Wagoner, Harris with Gram Parsons. And each voice has qualities to complement the others: Harris's is sweet and throaty, Parton's is tense and astringent, Ronstadt's is hot. Possible result: the most heart-wrenching three-part country harmonies since the Osborne Brothers. Actual result: a nonevent.

One problem is that their voices are too distinctive. In most three-part harmonies, there's one part that sounds pretty dumb, droning around the same few notes to fill in holes left by the other two voices. Such a part, when sung by an ear-catching singer, is distracting. The most mannered of the trio is Parton; the most satisfying of these songs are therefore the ones on which she carries the melody, like the bluegrass song "Those Memories of You" and the country weeper "Making Plans." When Harris or Ronstadt has the melody, Parton can be an annoying spectral presence in the mix.

But the problems aren't merely conceptual. Many of the harmonies on the album are just plain out of tune: not lemon sucking sour, but iffy enough to repel the ear. On "Making Plans," Ronstadt seems to be having trouble with a part pitched too low for her. On other songs, like the painful "I've Had Enough," the culprit is harder to find – though this arty dirge, by Kate McGarrigle, would have customers reaching for their tone arms even if it were sung in tune. And to get away with one more version of "To Know Him Is to Love Him," "Hobo's Meditation," "My Dear Companion," "Rosewood Casket" or "Farther Along," you've got to either make it definitive or put some spin on it; this trio does neither. So why bother? Maybe just because they liked these songs and got to sing them with consistently fresh and inspiring accompaniment – Mark O'Connor's overdubbed fiddle-viola duet on "Making Plans," Ry Cooder's electric guitar on "To Know Him Is to Love Him," Albert Lee's acoustic guitar throughout. Parton, Harris and Ronstadt probably had more fun making this album than anybody else will have listening to it. (RS 499)