Emmylou Harris |
At a time when many veteran artists are finding their careers winding down, Emmylou Harris is busier than ever thanks to a brand new album, a series of concerts for which she acted as curator, and a recent tour with long-time friend and musical compatriot Neil Young.
Long recognized as a key figure that helped bring about the convergence of rock, folk, country and bluegrass, Harris' most recent work has also added a unique pop sensibility to these more traditional genres. But even more important than the new sonic soundscapes that have been presented on recent albums is the emergence of Harris -- long known as exquisite interpreter of other people's music -- as a strong vibrant songwriter in her own right.
Harris was born in Birmingham, Alabama in 1947, and grew up an Army brat first in North Carolina, then later in the suburbs outside Washington, D.C. Her grandfather purchased her first guitar -- an old Kay acoustic -- for her when she was 16, spurring her to practice diligently. After dropping out of college, Harris made her way to the burgeoning folk scene in New York City, where she cut her first album before heading back to the Washington, D.C. area, where she was introduced by Chris Hillman to now-legendary country-rock pioneer Gram Parsons, who invited Harris to sing backup in 1972 to sing on a album he was recording with members of Elvis Presley's band in Los Angeles. A year and one album later, Parson died in the desert of a drug overdose, and Harris launched her career as a solo artist.
The three albums following Parson's death, recorded with Parson' band mates The Hot Band, were steeped in loss, marked by Harris's simple, achingly pure voice and the palpable heartbreak it convincingly conveyed. Over the years, Harris band has included some of the finest guitar players and musicians around, including Albert Lee, Rodney Crowell, Hank DeVito and most recently Buddy Miller. Throughout the 1980s Harris recorded constantly, winning accolades for albums such as Roses in the Snow in 1980, and the popular Trio album she recorded in 1987 with friends and musical partners Dolly Parton and Linda Ronstadt.
But in the early 90s, Harris radically altered the sound of her recording and overall musical direction when she began working with producer Daniel Lanois (U2, Peter Gabriel) and engineer Malcolm Burns on 1995's aptly named Wrecking Ball, which demolished long-held perceptions about Harris as an artist by wrapping the songs of despair and sexuality within an entirely new sound. On this album -- and its Grammy-winning follow-up, 2000's Red Dirt Girl, for which she wrote most of the songs -- Harris' voice, always a singular instrument, takes on a new grittier character that works remarkable well with the evolving thematic elements of her work. After touring extensively in support of that album, Harris the live album Spyboy in 1998, followed by the much-anticipated Trio II with Linda Ronstadt and Dolly Parton. She also completed Western Wall: The Tucson Sessions, the duet album with Linda Ronstadt.
Her newest album, the just-released Stumble Into Grace, continues the trend of self-penned albums and employing an ever-broadening instrumental palette, and includes collaborations with artists ranging from long-time friends Linda Ronstadt, Kate and Anna McGarrigle and Buddy and Julie Miller, to contemporary artists such as Luscious Jackson's Jill Cuniff and Jane Siberry. Never one to rest on her laurels, Harris recently acted as curator for a series of concerts for her record label, Nonesuch Records, at Carnegie Hall, featuring performances by Steve Earle, Patty Griffin, Kate and Anna McGarrigle and Buddy and Julie Miller, capped by a performance by Harris herself.
Just prior to the Carnegie Hall shows, during a series of tour dates with old friend Neil Young, Harris spoke to StarPolish editorial director James K. Willcox about her long career, the new album, and her emergence as songwriter of some distinction.
Industry Changes
STARPOLISH: Stumble into Grace is your 26th album...
EMMYLOU HARRIS: Is it? That's good -- I've been looking for that number!
STARPOLISH:Glad to be of help. Given the amount of time you've been doing this, what do you think has changed more over that period of time -- you or the music industry?
HARRIS: That's a good question. It's hard to be objective about one's own self. I'm sure that there have been a lot of changes, but you feel like you're pretty much the same. I think the industry has changed a lot. For one thing, there are just so many more artists, and if I were starting out today, I don't think I'd have a shot. Definitely I would not be on a major label when I started out. I think one good thing is the proliferation of small, independent labels -- I think that's good and healthy, because record companies have become so big... It used to be that [the people] at the record companies could smell something that was unusual and different, and let an artist develop; you didn't have to have a mega-hit the first time out. The strange thing is that you see somebody who's original and not like anybody else, and [a label] signs them and then immediately tries to make them into something that's already a proven success. Every once in a while somebody breaks on through, but then it takes a while before people believe that's going to happen again. But that's the industry.
STARPOLISH: It seems as if some established artists, such as Joni Mitchell, have become very bitter about the industry -- not music per se, but the music industry. But I get a sense that your outlook is different -- that you've remained a bit more optimistic about the possibility of having a career as you get older and evolve.
HARRIS: Well, you know that I've never had that huge chart-topping success and then had to go back -- I've always been riding along. Certainly there have been peaks and valleys, of course, but for the most part I'm like a trench soldier, I've been out there on the bus -- I'm on the bus now! (laughs) And even though there have been periods of drought for me creatively, there has been, especially in the last few years, a lot of rain, the good kind. So I've had a resurgence at a time when a lot of artists are slowing down. So I'm -- at least for the time being -- feeling very creative and feeling like, well, almost like what I felt like when I started out. But it's not like I'm all of a sudden having this huge commercial success, either. So I just think it's been the nature of my fan base, and... who knows? I've been very, very luck, and sometimes I think that huge success -- not that I've ever had it -- seems like it can sometimes work against you.
STARPOLISH: Certainly it can set unrealistic expectations...
HARRIS: I think it does. I will say that being out with Neil Young has been so fantastic. Here's an artist that is one of the great voices, both literally and figuratively, of rock and roll, of American music, of world music, who has never stopped, as he says, following the muse. Everything goes into the music. And he gets an idea and he trusts that idea and he follows it. And he has had the success and made the money to be able to do it, but everything has gone back into the well.
The New Album
STARPOLISH: Let's talk a bit about the new album, Stumble Into Grace. Earlier in your career you became known as an exquisite interpreter of other's people music, but over the last couple of albums you've really born a larger load of the songwriting responsibilities yourself. Was that because you felt more confidant in your abilities, or do you feel you have more to say?
HARRIS: I kind of felt that I had to do it after Wrecking Ball, because Wrecking Ball was such an epiphany and a resurgence of creative energy for me. And I felt so energized by it that I wanted to go back to that sound, to that place. At one point Daniel [Lanois] and I were going to do the record together and probably have Malcolm [Burns] there and regroup that team -- that was kind of the general conversation. Daniel had said to me, "You really need to write the next record." And I knew that you always want the muse to be there, but you kind of have to pay the price, too -- you have to bring something to the table, and I had to bring something beside my skills as an interpreter and as a song collector. And the only thing I had was the fact that I had written some songs in the past, and I felt if I could write some songs for the next album, and that would be enough.
So I started with that premise, but as I cleared the table -- I mean, I made it a priority to write, so I let my band go, and I left management, I got released from the record company -- it just changed me. Even though I did work in that period of time -- I worked on several other records, such as the record with Linda Ronstadt, we worked on the Spyboy record, I did the Teatro record with Daniel and Willie [Nelson], and then I kind of oversaw the Gram [Parson's] record -- I wasn't on that little hamster wheel of just touring constantly. So that gave me some time, and I did actually put some effort into it and my main priority was writing. Malcolm, who ended up producing Red Dirt Girl, was very, very adamant once again, and although he loved the songs I had collected from other people, he said he thought it was important that I didn't abandon the writing.
Emmylou Harris |
STARPOLISH:: When you were writing the songs, did you imagine some of the possible collaborators, or did that come afterwards?
HARRIS: Oh, no -- I never think about that. I'm so focused on what the song is going to be. Only after it's finished do you start thinking about that. And, in fact, as far as Linda [Ronstadt], I had no thought of Linda being on the song; the song was actually the last thing I wrote. I thought the record was finished and the song came unexpectedly. And Linda happened to be recording in the next town in upstate, New York, so that was very serendipitous. We had planned on getting together before the song was written, and when she came over I said, "I wrote this song, and before we go out to dinner do you think that you might try and put a harmony on it?" So it was one of those lovely little moments of grace that happen...
STARPOLISH: Which ties nicely into the album's title. This album seems to deal with some pretty weighty issues, particularly loss and disillusionment, and while that's not new territory for you, I was curious how getting older yourself affected your outlook toward those sorts of themes?
HARRIS: Once again, the decision to write came out of a necessity that I felt, but once you're wearing that writer's hat you tend to pursue an idea because you're thinking, "OK, this is what I've chosen to do, what am I going to write about?" I think that the new territory on this album is that it's social commentary. Normally I just deal with things that are deeply personal to me. As you get older you can do one of two things: if you're so affected by what's going on around you, you either become reclusive and cut yourself off, or you have to become aware, and the songs came from just being more aware about what is going on in the world and having opinions and concerns about it. And so that's where "Time in Babylon" came from, probably just from watching television and going, "I can't believe this." The song was actually started by Jill [Cuniff] and I before 9-11, and we abandoned it because at that point it was almost a satirical thing. We actually finished it right before we were going to war, and I think everybody was just tuned in a different way. So I think the song ended coming up out of that, because we thinking of it as a warning and as a reflection, but I also definitely wanted people to think about it as a hopeful thing, that it's never too late to right the ship.
An Artist's Role
STARPOLISH: I think this touches on the whole issue oftherole of the artist in society, and artists using the platform they have to advance their own political agendas. I know that you've been working on behalf of the Landmine Free World, and have come from a background where political commentary is part of the songwriting process, so I was wondering how you feel about artists voicing opinions on social and political causes?
HARRIS: I've always been very reticent about that, particularly in the first part of my career, even though I came out of the 60s and the early 70s and Vietnam. But I was very ambivalent about it, because I come from a military background where I have a great deal of respect for the military. My father was a prisoner of war in Korea, and it was a very ambivalent time because we were told one thing and it turned out it was not true. So you go through that cynical period. But I do consider myself a patriot, and I love this country and what we stand for, and what we can be. But that doesn't mean... it's like loving a child and letting it do anything it wants -- you can't do that. To be a true patriot, one must be ready to dissent at any given moment, and to be ever careful and ever vigilant to make sure that we are the best that we can be. But I always did feel a little self-conscious. I never supported a politician because I thought, "I don't really know all the issues." The landmine issue was different because that was totally non-political -- it was [like], "Don't Litter."(laughs) Except it's not trash that can just be picked up, it's something that will completely shut down a country, so it was beyond politics, and it was a way to use my celebrity for a good cause that has no down side, to me, at all. So it wasn't really taking a chance.
STARPOLISH: The music industry loves to put artists into neat packages, yet your music is very hard to so clearly define. Does that desire to categorize artists affect you?
HARRIS: Well, I'm not played on the radio anyway, except on mainstream radio I'd be an oldie on a country oldie stations. I am played on [satellite radio stations] Sirius and XM, and on Americana stations where they still exist. So the only problem is where to put the record in the record stores. And that was a little problem when Wrecking Ball first came out, where there was this thing where "country" was a bad word. That bothers me a bit, because I bought into it, too. It was like saying, "Well, I was country but I never inhaled." (laughs) And yet country is so important to me: that's what gave me my focus, and my direction. I embraced it, I loved it -- I still love it, at least my definition of it and what I listen to. I mean George Jones still makes me weep. And yet I find so much of what they're calling country now offensive in its mediocrity and its complete lack of redeeming qualities other than its blandness. It's uniformly without any kind of creative... anything. And it's like this whole amazing form of music has been hijacked.
But, hey, there's no point whining and complaining about it. I still believe this music is available and if there are people who can hear it, they'll find it. It's inspiring other artists who are making more unusual and interesting music that might not be on country stations, but it will survive in some form or other. Good music will never be lost -- I really believe that. So it's just where do you put my records? I'm still in the country bins, and I probably always will be, and maybe that's rightly so, and I should be considered a country artist, and Wrecking Ball should be considered a country record. Because if you have to be categorized, it's like saying, "Where were you born?" Well, I was born in Birmingham, Alabama, and no matter how many crazy things they do down there in Alabama -- and they are really going nuts down there right now -- I will always be an Alabama girl, because that's where I was born. So what kind of artist am I? I'm a country artist, because that's what I embraced in the beginning. I made my choice and I never let it limit me -- I don't think any artist should let himself or herself be limited by what other people's idea of a genre is. But if you have to be labeled, then label me country.
Inspiration
STARPOLISH: Given your stature in the business, do you feela responsibility to expose other artists who you admire, but whom might not get noticed otherwise? And who inspires you?
HARRIS: It's a joy to be able to turn people onto artists that I particularly like and who have inspired me. I love doing that; it's like sharing the wealth. When I first heard Patty Griffin, for example, I just couldn't believe her, and that's all I wanted to talk about. I'm still telling people about the McGarrigle sisters, I think they're national treasures and I think more people should know about them.
STARPOLISH: I hadn't known about Buddy or Julie Miller before hearing them in your band, and I've seen them three times now.
HARRIS: Yeah, Buddy's going to become a star in spite of himself (laughs). Buddy and Julie have a wonderful record. I mean that's one of the perks of having people listen and write about what you say -- to be able to spread the word about the good stuff.
As far as what inspires me right now, I mean Neil Young has always inspired me and being out with him is just extraordinary.
Emmylou Harris |
STARPOLISH: Is this the first time you've toured with him?
HARRIS: Yes, it's the first time ever touring with him. I've done some singing on a couple of his records, and he very graciously sang on Wrecking Ball and on the record with Linda, The Western Wall: [The Tucson Sessions], so I've hung with him and [his wife] Pegi. But to just be apart of that entourage... it's just a great thing to have on your resume (laughs).
STARPOLISH: It's hard to imagine you needing resume builders at this point.
HARRIS: No, but just thinking about it -- wow, I was able to go out and do that! His music means so much to me. If I'm ever at a loss at something to listen to, I can just reach for any record of his and put it on and find something I that I had missed, that I had overlooked...
STARPOLISH: EvenTrans?(laughing)
HARRIS: Well, Trans is a little difficult (laughs). I'm going to get to that one. I'm moving toward it. There will be a time in my life when I get to it. But you know what? That's part of whatever it takes for him to be Neil. I trust him.
