Emmylou Harris

Essential Albums

  • Wrecking Ball
    Wrecking Ball
    Wrecking Ball

    On 1995’s Wrecking Ball, Emmylou Harris officially shifted from country music elder statesman—respected, but perhaps not fully given her due—to being a genre-agnostic, widely acclaimed innovator. If not a full-on departure from her previous work, the album did mark an important shift in Harris’ creative process: Wrecking Ball was produced by Daniel Lanois, best known at that point for his work with U2 and Bob Dylan. Together, Harris and Lanois worked to find a sound that incorporated 20th century elements like synths and reverb, and that would feature considerably heavier percussion (provided by U2 drummer Larry Mullen, Jr). And they did so without losing Harris’ folksy, country core. What connects Wrecking Ball with Harris’ previous albums, though, is its collaborative spirit. Steve Earle, Neil Young and Lucinda Williams all appear alongside Harris as she performs songs they wrote, to lovely effect. Young’s contribution is the effective title track, one that lets Harris and Young cut through layers of gentle echoes with characteristically strong harmonies. Other songs come from an equally impressive selection of Harris’ peers, including those both well-known, like Dylan and Jimi Hendrix, as well as cult favourites like David Olney, the McGarrigle sisters and Julie Miller. And her long-time collaborator Rodney Crowell shows up on the loosely twangy “Waltz Across Texas Tonight”, which he co-wrote. The success of Wrecking Ball—a massive critical hit, and a modest commercial one—helped land Harris her seventh Grammy. It also expanded listeners’ perception of the singer-songwriter, perhaps unfairly: After all, Harris had been blending contemporary sounds and songs with classic ones for her entire career. But the added inflection of a new generation of rock helped a wider swath of people respect her vast career—especially those who might have been thrown off by its overarching twang—and broadened the scope of her own creative output in ensuing years. As an argument for Harris’ perpetual relevance and musical dexterity, Wrecking Ball is nearly impossible to knock down.

  • Trio (Remastered)
    Trio (Remastered)
    Trio (Remastered)

    More than simply a supergroup, Trio was a reinvention and a reunion—a record that erased genre boundaries and quashed assumptions as it created a new template for women country artists to collaborate with one another. It is country music at its most traditional, but performed by some of the most recognisable voices in 20th century popular music: Dolly Parton, by then a titan of Music Row (if still an often belittled one); Linda Ronstadt, on the tail end of her titanic ’70s run as a country-pop-rock megastar; and Emmylou Harris, an outlaw and iconoclast who made a country career doing exactly as she pleased. It took more than a decade after the women first sang together to actually make the record—understandable, given the obligations of their individual careers and record deals. But they all stayed the course, addicted to the sound that they made together. “When we heard our voices, it was like injecting some kind of serum into your veins—it was a high like you’ve never felt,” Parton said later. Ronstadt and Harris had bonded early on over their love of Parton, and though all three were roughly the same age, they revered her. “Sometimes we would disagree about who would sing lead, because Emmy and I would always want Dolly to sing lead on everything,” Ronstadt said. Parton doesn’t always take lead, though; instead, the singers take turns out front of the lush harmonies, which in turn rest atop the sweet acoustic sounds of the all-star backing band. The Teddy Bears’ “To Know Him Is To Love Him” gets an entirely new life (with lead guitar by Ry Cooder) via Harris’ rangy warble, while the trio channels Appalachia on “Those Memories of You” and Parton’s composition “Wildflowers”—a modern classic—and early hillbilly music on Jimmie Rodgers’ “Hobo’s Meditation”. Their powers combine for a flawless effort, a canonical album by three superlative artists who have always refused to fall in line—this time, performing hand in hand.

  • Roses In the Snow (Bonus Tracks) [2002 Remaster]
    Roses In the Snow (Bonus Tracks) [2002 Remaster]
    Roses In the Snow (Bonus Tracks) [2002 Remaster]

    Framed as a rebuke to critics who called her not country enough—or who claimed she was stuck in a country-rock “rut”,to use one columnist’s words—Emmylou Harris’ 1980 album Roses in the Snow found the singer diving almost entirely into bluegrass sounds. Though Harris had no genetic or geographic ties to the music, her voice and its almost antique charms proved well-suited to the style, as did her penchant for soaring harmonies. Though there are no billed guests, Roses in the Snow is dizzyingly star-studded, befitting Harris’ considerable status by this point in her career; luckily, those big names are only buried in the credits, not in the mix. Most listeners will likely be able to discern Dolly Parton on the harmonies of “Green Pastures”; less obvious, perhaps, is Willie Nelson as a guest on guitar. And keep an ear open for Johnny Cash’s bass-baritone on “Jordan”, and Linda Ronstadt’s potent alto on “Gold Watch and Chain”. The ensembles gathered for Roses in the Snow included Harris’ Hot Band, as well as what amounts to a who’s-who of bluegrass: Ricky Skaggs—who’d been on all of her albums to that point—makes an appearance, as do Tony Rice, Jerry Douglas and the White Family. Together, they channelled virtuosic playing into deceptively straightforward traditional songs. There’s nothing rough-hewn about this proudly country record; instead, the takes are flawless, capturing the very best in the field playing and singing with poise and feeling. The only aberration from the album’s stated mandate is Harris’ take on Simon and Garfunkel’s “The Boxer”, which seamlessly translates the slick harmonies of the 1960s folk revival into a more robust, decidedly Appalachian sound. If it frustrated bluegrass purists, it thrilled fans, as Harris once more used her relative commercial heft to bend her label to her will, and did so with her trademark gumption.

  • Luxury Liner (Remastered)
    Luxury Liner (Remastered)
    Luxury Liner (Remastered)

    Paradoxically, Harris helped push country music forward in the 1970s by taking it backwards. Her music embraced the pristine sounds and starkly haunting sentiments of centuries-old Appalachian tunes, gospel standards and cowboy balladry. She applied these values (via her shiver-inducing, crystalline voice) brilliantly on 1977's Luxury Liner. Arguably her first full-realized album, Harris found the link between such diverse songs as the Louvin Brothers' poignant "When I Stop Dreaming" and Townes Van Zandt's latter-day outlaw ode "Pancho and Lefty." She kicks up her heels on her readings of Chuck Berry's "(You Never Can Tell) C'est La Vie" and the Gram Parsons-penned title track, making down-home rock sound as timeless as a mountain tune. Emmylou's soon-to-be legendary group The Hot Band plays lean, clean and scorching throughout. Luxury Liner is a milestone in Harris' artistic pilgrimage, an inspiring mix of old-time musicality and contemporary creative ambition.

  • Elite Hotel (Remastered)
    Elite Hotel (Remastered)
    Elite Hotel (Remastered)

    With Elite Hotel, Emmylou Harris established herself as a powerhouse country-rock act, channelling the gritty power of her late musical collaborator Gram Parsons. Her version of his Flying Burrito Brothers tune “Sin City” sounds even more sorrowful with her tearful vocals, while she recalls the fun (but risky!) side to the town on the partied-out “Ooh Las Vegas”. The string-swept “Together Again”, with its sweet and easy shuffle, takes things back to country’s roots with a subtly powerful performance.

  • Pieces of the Sky (Remastered)
    Pieces of the Sky (Remastered)
    Pieces of the Sky (Remastered)

    By the time Emmylou Harris released her major-label debut in 1975, the silver-voiced soprano was already a veteran of both the Greenwich Village folk scene and the Laurel Canyon country-rock cadre. Polished and confident, Pieces of the Sky showcases that experience—along with Harris’ well-earned range. While men in Nashville were getting praised for challenging the Music Row establishment, Harris was making personal, heartfelt, idiosyncratic music that was both decidedly country and deeply new—all the while receiving a fraction of the outsider cred. Many of the throughlines of Harris’ career are established on Pieces of the Sky. The first track, “Bluebird Wine”, is a rollicking number by Rodney Crowell, who would become a linchpin of Harris’ Hot Band and her lifelong collaborator. It was recorded by Brian Ahern in the mobile studio that he’d created called the Enactron Truck, where Harris would record many of her best-known albums (the pair later married). Elsewhere on Pieces of the Sky, Harris covers Dolly Parton’s “Coat of Many Colors” and duets with Linda Ronstadt on “Queen of the Silver Dollar”—two more artists who would become central to Harris’ work in the years ahead. Meanwhile, Harris’ singular skill as a collaborative vocalist gets spotlighted on Pieces of the Sky, which finds her singing in rich harmony alongside Herb Pedersen on the Louvin Brothers’ “If I Could Only Win Your Love”, and with the Eagles’ Bernie Leadon on Merle Haggard’s “The Bottle Let Me Down”—two tracks that prove her country bona fides, both via Harris’ song choices, and her two-step-ready arrangements. The most enduring track on Pieces of the Sky, though, might be the only one that Harris co-wrote: “Boulder to Birmingham”, her tribute to her then-recently deceased musical muse and partner Gram Parsons. The song, for all its built-in tragedy and pathos, has a hymn-like quality that begs a sing-along. It wasn’t released as a single, but remains one of the singer’s most beloved signatures, an intensely felt lament sure to resonate with anyone who has experienced loss.

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About Emmylou Harris

With her angelic voice and emotionally incisive songwriting, Emmylou Harris has been a guiding influence on alt-country for decades. Born in 1947, the Birmingham, Alabama, native spent time in Greenwich Village’s legendary folk-music scene before linking up for collaborations with the cosmic country star Gram Parsons, including on the 1974 album Grievous Angel. In the wake of Parsons’ death, Harris launched a solo career that balanced originals (“Boulder to Birmingham”, a touching remembrance of Parsons) and transformative covers (a 1978 take on Delbert McClinton’s “Two More Bottles of Wine”). She topped the U.S. country charts with 1975’s Elite Hotel and 1976’s Luxury Liner and experienced mainstream success with Trio, a 1987 collaboration with Dolly Parton and Linda Ronstadt. As the decades progressed, Harris settled into an Americana groove that suited her musical acumen, highlighted by the 2013 and 2015 Rodney Crowell duets albums Old Yellow Moon and The Traveling Kind; the latter honoured country legends such as Kris Kristofferson and Roger Miller.

HOMETOWN
Birmingham, AL, United States
BORN
2 April 1947
GENRE
Country

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