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Sept. 8, 2007
| Emmylou Harris on Her Work With Gram
Parsons
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"For me," says Emmylou Harris, "it's always about finding a song, one at a
time, that I love and that I can make my own." With her luminous, bell-clear
voice, Harris has been turning up great songs and taking full possession of them
for almost four decades, as documented on Songbird, a new and comprehensive
four-CD, 78-song box set.
Harris, 60, has traveled countless musical paths in that time. An aspiring
folk singer, in 1971 she was recommended to groundbreaking country-rocker Gram Parsons by Chris Hillman, the fellow Byrds alumnus who left the folk-rock band to co-found the Flying Burrito Brothers with Parsons. Singing harmony with
Parsons, alongside the Fallen Angels band, Harris helped create a new merger of
traditional country sounds with a rock 'n' roll spirit; the music Parsons made
before his death in 1973 has left a lasting mark on both country and rock ever
since.
In the 1970s and '80s, Harris recorded a series of unpredictable masterworks,
from the loose-limbed rock of "Elite Hotel" to the crystalline bluegrass of "Roses in the Snow." She also recorded with Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson, and Waylon Jennings; sang with Bob Dylan on his 1975 album "Desire"; and joined the Band for their historic farewell concert, the Last Waltz. The
1987 "Trio" album saw Harris combining forces with Dolly Parton and Linda Ronstadt; it sold several million copies and
was nominated for a Grammy as Album of the Year. "It all followed in some kind
of path, unfolding in front of me," says Harris of her career, "and I just said,
'Well, OK.'"
"Mainstream country radio is poorer for not playing this stuff,
but I also understand the engine of top 40, and it's always going to be there
..."
-- Emmylou Harris She continued to explore different musical forms into the 1990s, taking a
radical new direction with the moody, atmospheric sound of producer Daniel Lanois (Dylan, U2, Peter Gabriel) for 1995's astonishing "Wrecking Ball." The next few years saw Harris concentrating
more on her own songwriting, and remaining musically closer to rock than to
Nashville. Still, in 2002, CMT ranked her No. 5 on its list of the "40 Greatest
Women in Country Music."
Most recently, Harris worked with Elvis Costello and with new sensations Bright Eyes and Ryan Adams; played a featured part singing harmony
in Neil Young's 2006 concert film "Heart of Gold"; and recorded
a duet project with Mark Knopfler, "All the Roadrunning," followed by a joint tour and
live album. On an August afternoon, Emmylou Harris explained the planning,
execution, and revelations of the ambitious "Songbird" set, which is subtitled
"Rare Tracks and Forgotten Gems." The die-hard Atlanta Braves fan also took a
moment to celebrate the unlikely triumph of the St. Louis Cardinals'
pitcher-turned-outfielder Rick Ankiel, and to reflect on the late-season pennant
races. "Every day is exciting right now," says Harris. "Baseball just breaks
your heart, doesn't it?"
MSN Music: Can you describe the process of putting "Songbird"
together? How did you go through this massive amount of material and make these
selections?
Emmylou Harris: It was kind of a two-part project. The first two discs are
songs from my solo albums, so that was a little easier -- I eliminated all the
songs that were on greatest hits packages and other compilations, with just a
few exceptions. A lot of them are the studio tracks I really loved that never
made it into the live performances. So for that part, we had some parameters,
and it worked out to a couple songs from each release, pretty much.
The third and fourth CDs are taken from collaborations, outtakes, soundtracks
-- and I had no idea how much stuff I had done over the years. James (Austin,
the set's co-producer) would FedEx me tapes, and every few days, more stuff he'd
found would show up.
There were some things that I knew ahead of time I wanted to include, like
the demo of "All I Left Behind" -- I thought that was really a little jewel --
and some of the things from the "Legend of Jesse James" project. And also the
tribute records, some of those you can't find anymore, like the Gram Parsons
record (1999's "Return of the Grievous Angel," shepherded by Harris). The
outtakes from "Trio" are just stunning. I made a copy of one of those songs for
my mother, and she was literally the only person who had it.
What were the biggest surprises that turned up?
Read more of this exclusive interview on page 2
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