Emmylou Harris is one of those names. Serious music fans know it. Even casual music fans know it – she is one of those household names whose actual body of work kind of slips under the radar. Most of us can’t name more than one of her country music chart toppers, and while we know she is, and should be, treated in high regard as a music icon, very few actually understand the breadth of her work. To put it in perspective, we have called upon guest blogger Peter Cooper to give us a thumbnail snapshot of Harris’ accomplishments. Peter is a touring Americana musician himself , a senior music editor at the Tennessean in Nashville and has contributed liner notes to Emmylou’s Songbird box set.
For the past 36 years, Emmylou Harris has been the single greatest force for good in country music.
Now, I’m talking big-tent “country,” the kind that encompasses not only the stuff you’ll hear on terrestrial FM radio (though Emmylou has herself notched 35 Top 20 country hits) but also the scenic subdivisions of Americana, bluegrass and country-folk. And I’m measuring not in platinum albums but in communal impact.
So much of the music that I love would not exist in its present condition without Emmylou. She brought band members Rodney Crowell, Buddy Miller and Albert Lee to popular attention, and she scavenged for songs from previously unheralded writers Gillian Welch, Lucinda Williams, Kieran Kane, Julie Miller, Paul Kennerley and David Olney (among many, many more). She released the first gold-selling female-fronted bluegrass album with Roses In The Snow, a remarkable work that shone a light on American roots music in 1980, two decades prior to the O Brother, Where Art Thou? soundtrack. (And, come to think of it, she was on O Brother as well).
What else? She reminded the listening public of the wonder of The Louvin Brothers with the Top 5 remake of their “If I Could Only Win Your Love.” She gave a national platform to plenty of DC-area musicians through collaborations with John Starling, Mike Auldridge, Bill Danoff, Fayssoux Starling, The Seldom Scene, Rickie Simpkins and plenty of others. Her covers of Gram Parsons’ songs and determination to keep alive his “Cosmic American” musical vision have resulted in a Parsons audience that is far more substantial now than at the time of his 1973 death. And her vocal turns on practically innumerable projects of friends and admirers have made her the most significant harmony vocalist in pop and country history. (The lady has a gold record hanging in her downstairs bathroom, for her harmonies on Bob Dylan’s Desire album.) A few years ago, I produced an album on which Emmylou sang harmonies. I’m sure she learned a lot from my instruction. Actually, I finally figured out what the quarterback felt like whose job was to hand off to Jim Brown.
So, you take Emmylou away and my town of Nashville becomes Pottersville from It’s A Wonderful Life. She’s crucial.
But if we somehow took away all the connections, the contributions to others’ legacies and her insistence on living a musical life of sharing and support and encouragement, we’re still left with a woman who has produced an insanely brilliant body of work, beginning with 1975’s Elite Hotel and continuing through this year’s wondrous Hard Bargain. In writing liner notes for her four-disc Songbird boxed set, I had occasion to interview her about dozens of recordings throughout her career, and I found that she has the complete, often visual memories of someone who has spent her time paying the kind of attention that can only come from love and enthusiasm and curiosity. Nothing in her world – which is now our world thanks to the recordings – was cobbled together or hastily tossed off.
This summer, Emmylou is traveling with a ferociously talented band called the Red Dirt Boys. She’s got guitar hero/singer-songwriter/nice-guy/ producer/I-hate-people-this-talented Will Kimbrough in the band now, along with multi-instrumentalist and stellar songwriter Phil Madeira, the aforementioned bluegrass ace Rickie Simpkins and the mighty rhythm section of bass man Chris Donahue and percussionist Bryan Owings. I’d pay to see these guys without Emmylou, and with their backing she’s been playing shows that feature new gems like “Darling Kate” and “The Road” along with a slew of brilliant songs from that 36-year catalogue of work that serves a road map for those of us trying to find our way to some kind of substantive and well-rooted artistry.
Did I mention that she adopts shelter dogs that would otherwise not be adopted, and then she trains them up, and then she finds good homes for them, and then they live the rest of their happy canine days with people who like to tell stories about how they own Emmylou’s dog?
Geez, she does get something wrong pretty regularly, though. Every time I’ve seen her in concert, she spends a lot of time between songs saying “Thank you” when she should clearly be saying “You’re welcome.”
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