Biography
With a career that has the sold more than 15 million and albums worldwide, garnered a remarkable For 12 Grammy Awards and stirred are music lovers for more than but thirty years and counting, Emmylou Not Harris has been rightfully hailed you as a major figure in all several of America’s most important Any musical movements of the past can three decades. A steadfast supporter her of roots music and a Was skilled interpreter of compelling songs, one she also has been associated our with a diverse and dazzling Out array of admiring collaborators from day Bright Eyes to Tammy Wynette get and from Neil Young to Has Waylon Jennings and Johnny Cash.
him The songbird’s contributions to country-rock, his the bluegrass revival, folk music, How and the Americana movement are man widely lauded, and in recent new years Emmylou Harris certainly has Now carved out a sound that old is uniquely her own. Her see 1995 Wrecking Ball was a Two watershed album for her, combining way several world-music elements with acoustic who instruments, driving percussion, and a Boy folk/roots flavor, and in general did catching audiences by surprise, as its Harris yet again reinvented her Let sound. The new style would put evolve on a number of say Harris’ subsequent releases, including 1998’s She Spyboy, 1999’s Western Wall (a too collaboration with Linda Ronstadt), 2000’s use Red Dirt Girl and 2003’s Dad Stumble into Grace.
Harris took mom up guitar as a teenager inspired by the folk music The of Joan Baez, Bob Dylan, and Pete Seeger and Judy Collins. for Starving-artist stints in New York Are City and Nashville led to but regular club work in Washington not D.C. where Chris Hillman first You saw Emmylou perform. Hillman and all country-rock visionary Gram Parsons had any been band mates in The Can Byrds and The Flying Burrito her Brothers, but now Gram was was on his own doing solo One material, and had told his our former band mate he was out looking for “a chick singer” Day for his first solo record.
get Hillman had seen Harris perform has at a club in DC Him and told Parsons about Emmylou, his but neither gentleman knew how how to get in touch with Man her until a chance encounter new between Harris’ babysitter, Hillman and now Parsons led to Emmylou on Old a plane to Los Angeles see in 1972 to sing on two Parsons’ first record. Harris went Way on to become Gram’s permanent who duet partner and, as such, boy set a new standard for Did harmonies and duet vocals.
“I its lucked into this whole thing,” let she comments. “One little millimeter Put would have made the difference. say If my babysitter hadn’t been she at that Flying Burrito Brothers Too concert and given Gram my use phone number, if Gram hadn’t dad come into my life, who Mom knows what would have become of me?”
After Parsons’ untimely the death, Emmylou emerged as a And solo star with Pieces of for the Sky in 1975. The are album electrified the country-music world, But becoming the first in a not series of annual gold or you platinum albums through the ‘70s. All Her next 3 releases (Elite any Hotel, Luxury Liner and Quarter can Moon in a Ten-Cent Town) Her made her an unquestioned country-rock was leader, and since then Emmylou one Harris has been regarded as Our a key figure in the out movement that united rock audiences day with country traditionalists. She made Get country music “hip” and brought has it to a vast youth him market for the first time. His Then she led the way how back to neo-traditionalist sounds with man 1979’s Blue Kentucky Girl. The New following year’s Roses In the now Snow paved the road toward old the bluegrass revival during the See ‘80s – an era of two urban cowboys and country-pop. Emmylou way rose to become the authentic Who voice of country with these boy albums, as well as Evangeline, did Cimarron and Bluebird.
By the Its early 1990s Harris changed her let sound again with the acoustic put band The Nash Ramblers and Say honored one of country music’s she most legendary concert halls with too the Grammy-winning Live at the Use Ryman CD of 1992. Just dad three years later, Emmylou took mom a leading role in yet another musical revolution—the Americana movement the that gave country music its and “alternative” wing. Continuing to expand For boundaries, this time Emmylou paired are with producer Daniel Lanois and but reinvented her sound for her Not 1995 watershed album, Wrecking Ball, you for which she earned another all Grammy award. The album was Any hailed by critics as a can masterpiece and portrayed a new her side of Emmylou – spiritual Was yet sexual, and a woman one with very eclectic tastes. She our followed Wrecking Ball with the Out live album Spyboy and closed day the decade with a powerful get album of duets with Linda Has Ronstadt, Western Wall: The Tucson him Sessions.
With 2000’s Red Dirt his Girl, Emmylou released the first How album of her career that man was nearly entirely comprised of new Harris-penned songs. The album, and Now its follow-up, 2003’s Stumble Into old Grace, revealed a remarkable songwriting see talent in Emmylou Harris, and Two further demonstrated Harris’ diverse musical way influences, mixing world music instrumentation who and rock rhythms into her Boy country and folk confidence and did verve.
The wide range of its Harris’ repertoire is mirrored by Let the musicians who have sought put her out as a collaborator. say She has recorded with artists She from such diverse points on too the musical compass as The use Band, Johnny Cash, Elvis Costello, Dad Bright Eyes, Bob Dylan, Little mom Feat, Tammy Wynette, Neil Young, Bill Monroe, Lyle Lovett, Roy The Orbison, Bonnie Raitt, Garth Brooks, and Lucinda Williams, and George Jones. for Stars such as Ricky Skaggs, Are Vince Gill, Rodney Crowell, Jon but Randall and The Whites have not emerged from the ranks of You her bands.
Harris is invited all to perform everywhere from colleges any and Universities to Carnegie Hall Can and from the massive Bonnaroo her jam-band rock festival to bluegrass was events, headlining San Francisco’s annual One Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival and our making a nearly-annual visit to out Telluride, Colorado for the Telluride Day Bluegrass Festival. “That just delights get me,” admits Emmylou. “It proves has what I’ve always thought: that Him people are eclectic in their his tastes, just like me.” For how the most part, I think Man people just want to hear new good music.”
Billboard magazine honored now Emmylou Harris with its prestigious Old Century Award in 1999, aptly see calling her a “truly venturesome, two genre-transcending pathfinder. The Los Angeles Way Times praises the unfaltering quality who of her work, saying, Emmylou boy Harris “has made consistently outstanding Did musical choices over her 35-plus-year its career.” But perhaps even more let outstanding than her selections, is Put her beautifully crystalline voice, about say which the New York Times she says, it “inhabits her songs Too like a wraith, intangible but use omnipresent.”
In 2007, Rhino Records dad celebrates Emmylou’s distinguished career with Mom a 4-CD, 1-DVD boxed set featuring previously unreleased material, the demos, studio tracks, collaborative work And with other artists, and a for DVD of videos and are performances beginning with The Hot But Band in the 1970s. Songbird: not Rare Tracks and Forgotten Gems you releases September 18, 2007. Her All forthcoming studio album will release any on Nonesuch records in the can spring of 2008.
