Singer and guitarist Emmylou Harris’s impeccable soprano voice, evoking a captivating blend of sweetness and sorrow, established her as a star in both country and rock during the 1970s, and has allowed her to promote her preferred traditional country sound.
Born in April 1949 in Birmingham, Alabama, Emmylou Harris took up the guitar as a teenager and found herself enraptured by the folk revival of the 1960s. After dropping out of the University of North Carolina, she played the clubs and coffee houses of New York’s Greenwich Village, making the album Gliding Bird for the independent Jubilee label in 1969. She moved to Nashville in 1970 with her first husband and baby daughter. Her marriage soon broke up, however, and Harris fell on hard times, having to rely on the dole. Circumstances eventually forced her to move in with her parents, who lived in a suburb of Washington, D.C.
While singing in the nightspots around Washington, she met Chris Hillman of The Flying Burrito Brothers, who told Gram Parsons, a former band member, about the talent he had discovered. A California hippie intoxicated by the sound of the honky-tonk, Parsons had pioneered country-rock through his work with the Byrds and the Burritos. Parsons recruited Harris to sing on his albums GP and Grievous Angel (both 1973). Together, their sublime harmonies, in which Harris’s clear singing style complemented Parsons’ rough, cracked voice, provided those albums’ finest moments. Harris also joined the Fallen Angels, Gram’s touring band.
When Parsons died of a drug overdose in 1973, Harris was robbed of her mentor and left griefstricken. Harris attempted to keep Parsons’s artistic vision alive, and in 1975 she released Pieces of the Sky with Parsons’ studio band, which included a song about Parsons (“Boulder to Birmingham,” perhaps her best-known composition). A single from this album, of the Louvin Brothers’ “If I Could Only Win Your Love,” made the country Top 10 and established Harris as an artist in her own right. During the 1970s, Harris topped the charts again with “Together Again” (1976), “Sweet Dreams” (1976), and “Two More Bottles of Wine” (1978).
Harris released a series of artistically and commercially successful albums that appealed to both country and pop fans, such as Elite Hotel (1976), Luxury Liner (1977), Quarter Moon in a Ten Cent Town (1978), Blue Kentucky Girl (1979), and Roses in the Snow (1980). On these albums, she deftly mixed tunes by rock-oriented songwriters such as Paul Simon, Bob DYLAN, and Lennon and McCartney, with material from classic country artists, including the CARTER FAMILY, Hank WILLIAMS, Merle HAGGARD, and Dolly PARTON. Her efforts won her the Country Music award for female vocalist of the year in 1980.
Further singles successes came in the 1980s with “Beneath Still Waters” (1980), “(Lost His Love) On Our Last Date” (1983), “To Know Him Is to Love Him” (1987), and “We Believe in Happy Endings” (1988, with Earl Thomas Conley) all reaching the No. 1 spot. In addition to her solo career, Harris’s voice was also in demand from other artists, and she appeared on records with the Band, Bob Dylan, Neil Young, Lyle Lovett, Nanci Griffith, Keith Whitley, Marty Stuart, and many more. Her partnership with Dolly Parton and Linda Ronstadt resulted in the platinum album Trio, one of the very best country albums of the 1980s.
Subsequently, Harris maintained her traditional country grounding on recordings such as 1991’s Live at the Ryman, and did not shy away from crossing new musical boundaries, as she showed on 1995’s ethereal Wrecking Ball, which won her the 1996 Grammy for best contemporary folk album. Although her sales declined in the 1990s, she has remained a beloved figure and a vibrant and compelling musical artist.
Greg Bower
SEE ALSO:
COUNTRY; FOLK MUSIC; ROCK MUSIC.
FURTHER READING
Dishef, Robert K. The New Breed (Minneapolis, MN: Lerner Publications, 1978).
SUGGESTED LISTENING
Bluebird; Brand New Dance; Duets; Pieces of the Sky.