Emmylou Harris

About Emmylou Harris

Emmylou Harris (born April 2, 1947) is an American country, folk, alternative rock, and alternative country musician. In addition to her work as a solo artist and bandleader, both as an interpreter of other composers' works and as a singer-songwriter, she is a sought-after backing vocalist and duet partner, working with numerous other highly successful, well-known artists.

Emmylou Harris was the daughter of a career military father, a Marine Corps officer who was reported missing in action in Korea in 1952 and spent ten months as a prisoner of war. Born in Birmingham, Alabama, she spent her childhood in North Carolina and Woodbridge, Virginia, where she graduated from Gar-Field Senior High School as class valedictorian. In high school she also won a drama scholarship to the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, where she began to study music seriously, learning to play the songs of Bob Dylan and Joan Baez on guitar. Leaving college to pursue her musical aspirations, she moved to New York, working as a waitress to support herself while performing folk songs in Greenwich Village coffeehouses. She married fellow songwriter Tom Slocum in 1969 and in the following year recorded her first album, Gliding Bird, which was released by Jubilee Records. The label was on its last legs financially, and filed for bankruptcy shortly after the record's release. (It was reissued in 1979 on Emus Records, and in 1984, Harris successfully sued Morris Levy for the rights to the album.) The couple soon divorced, and Harris and her newborn daughter Hallie moved in with her parents in Maryland outside Washington, D.C.

Harris soon returned to performing as part of a trio with Gerry Mule and Tom Guidera. One night in 1971 members of the country rock group The Flying Burrito Brothers happened to be in the audience. Former Byrds member Chris Hillman, who had taken over the band after the departure of its founder Gram Parsons, was so impressed by Harris that he briefly considered asking her to join the band. Instead, Hillman ended up recommending her to Parsons, who was looking for a female vocalist to work with on his first solo album, GP. Harris toured as a member of Parsons' band, The Fallen Angels, in 1973. Later that year, Harris returned to the studio with Parsons to record the album Grievous Angel. Parsons died in a motel room near what is now Joshua Tree National Park on September 19, 1973, from an overdose of drugs and alcohol. Parsons's Grievous Angel was released posthumously in 1974 and three more tracks from his last sessions with Harris were included on another posthumous Parsons album, Sleepless Nights, in 1976. One more album with recordings from that period of time had been recorded, and was packaged with the name, Live 1973, but wasn't released until 1982.