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| Birth Name(s) : Emmylou Harris |
Date of Birth: N/A |
| Status:
Single
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Partner:
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| Profession:
Singer-songwriter, producer, arranger, session musician |
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Full Emmylou Harris Biography
Emmylou Harris (b. April 2, 1947, Birmingham, Alabama) is a country, folk and alternative rock 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 big-name artists.
Harris' subsequent Elite Hotel (1975), Luxury Liner (1977), and Quarter Moon in a Ten Cent Town (1978) were all successful country albums but also had appeal for rock listeners. Country music was experiencing crossover success at the time, and the approach of many country artists was to try to marry their music with smooth, L.A.-style pop, but Harris had more of a rock and roll sensibility and so aimed her music more in that direction.
In 1980, Harris recorded "That Lovin' You Feelin' Again" with Roy Orbison. The duet was a Top 10 hit on both the Country and Adult Contemporary charts. They would win the Grammy Award for Best Country Vocal Performance—Duo or Group
Harris' major-label releases thus far had included few self-penned songs, but in 1985 her songwriting skills were much in evidence with the release of The Ballad of Sally Rose, for which she co-wrote all of the songs. The album was semi-autobiographical in theme, based loosely on her relationship with Parsons. Harris described it as a "country opera". Her co-writer and producer on the album was English songwriter and musician Paul Kennerley, writer of the hit singles "Born to Run" (on Harris' 1981 Cimarron album and "In My Dreams" (on White Shoes) . Kennerley also produced her next album, Thirteen. They were married in 1985 and divorced in 1993.
In 1987, Harris enjoyed the biggest commercial success of her long and varied career when she teamed up with Dolly Parton and Linda Ronstadt for their long-promised and much-anticipated Trio album. (Their original recording sessions for this project had begun 10 years earlier.) The album spent five weeks at #1 on Billboard's Country Albums chart (also quickly reaching the Top 10 on the Pop Albums chart), sold several million copies and produced four Top 10 Country hits, including "To Know Him Is To Love Him", which hit #1. The disc was nominated for the coveted Album Of The Year Grammy award (given to U2 that year for The Joshua Tree) and the three women won the statuette for Best Country Vocal Performance—Duo or Group.
In 1989, she recorded two songs with the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band on their album, Will the Circle Be Unbroken: Volume II. In a snippet of studio chatter included on one of the songs, she talked during the recording session about her beginnings and how music had changed:
Around 1991, she dissolved The Hot Band and formed a new band of acoustic musicians—Sam Bush on fiddle, mandolin and vocals, Roy Huskey, Jr. on bass and vocals, Larry Atamanuik on drums, Al Perkins on banjo, guitar, dobro and vocals, and Jon Randall on guitar, mandolin and vocals—which she named The Nash Ramblers. They recorded a Grammy Award-winning live album in 1992 at the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville, Tennessee, which led to the $8 million restoration of the facility into a premium concert and event venue. It was her last album with Reprise Records.
Harris the took her Wrecking Ball material on the road, releasing the live Spyboy in 1998, backed with a power trio comprising Nashville producer, songwriter and guitarist Buddy Miller and New Orleans musicians, drummer Brady Blade and bassist-vocalist-percussionist Daryl Johnson. In addition to performing songs from Wrecking Ball, the album updated many of Harris' career hits, including "Boulder to Birmingham".
Also in 1998, she appeared prominently on Willie Nelson's moody, instrumentally sparse Teatro album, (produced by Wrecking Ball producer Lanois).
Also in 1999, Harris paid tribute to her former singing partner Gram Parsons by co-executive producing Return of the Grievous Angel: A Tribute to Gram Parsons, an album that gathered together more than a dozen artists. Harris duetted with Beck, Sheryl Crow and The Pretenders on three of the album's tracks.
Also in 2000, Harris joined an all-star group of traditional country, folk and blues artists for the T-Bone Burnett-produced soundtrack to the Coen Brothers film, O Brother, Where Art Thou? A documentary/concert film, Down from the Mountain, featured the artists performing music from the film and other songs at the Ryman Auditorium. Harris and many of the same artists took their show on the road for the Down from the Mountain Tour in 2002.
Harris released Stumble into Grace, her follow-up to Red Dirt Girl in 2003. Like its predecessor, it contained mostly self-penned material. In 2004, Harris led the Sweet Harmony Traveling Revue tour with Gillian Welch and David Rawlings, Buddy Miller and Patty Griffin. They performed singly and together and swapped instruments.Emmylou Harris playing in Ahoy, Rotterdam, The Netherlands in 2006.
1976 (Elite Hotel), 1979 (Blue Kentucky Girl), 1984 ("In My Dreams"), 2005 ("The Connection")
- Grammy for Best Country Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal, |
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