![]() “Rodney can be very poetic,” says Harris, whose expansive yet fragile vocals brought those words to life. Harris recorded the song for her second album of 1975, Elite Hotel, which also contained a co-write with Crowell on Amarillo. “It stunned me that someone that young could write something that sounds like it was from the ages,” Harris says, still sounding bewildered. Till I Gain Control Again was one of the first pieces the Texan played for her, and it resonated instantly. But the second that Harris heard his songs after meeting in Washington DC late after a gig, she knew that was about to change. In 1975, very few people knew the name Rodney Crowell, now himself a country great and two-time Grammy winner. ![]() That song, and our harmony, is kind of a pinnacle of our duet-singing together.” Parsons died soon after they recorded the song for his 1973 album Grievous Angel (“We probably did it all in one take, live,” Harris recalls), but his short role in her life set off the domino rally of her career. “There is something about the uniqueness of two voices creating a sound that does not come when they are singing solo, and I have always been fascinated by that. “I discovered my own voice singing in harmony with Gram,” says Harris. Their take on Felice and Boudleaux Bryant’s classic Love Hurts became a seminal moment not in just her journey towards Americana, but in assuming her role as the queen of harmony. But Parsons changed all that: recruiting Harris for his touring band, the Fallen Angels, he introduced her to the complex but humanistic language of country. Before they met, Harris was paying her dues on Washington DC’s folk scene and not particularly interested in country music in spite of growing up in Alabama (“I hadn’t matured enough to appreciate it,” she says). To think of Harris is often to think of her brief but incredibly influential partner in song, the cosmic cowboy Gram Parsons: the man frequently credited with helping give birth to alt-country, influencing artists from Ryan Adams to Wilco. “For me, it’s always about the lyrics,” she says as she picks out her favourite tracks from her back catalogue. She has written her own material and become one of America’s finest interpreters of song. ![]() Harris, now 71, has become one of music’s most revered voices, releasing close to 30 albums and collaborating with everyone from Dolly Parton to Bright Eyes across her 50-year career. “Though a lot of this stuff was still in my closet. “It’s all a little overwhelming,” Harris says, looking around. There are riches behind the glass displays, including the blonde Gibson guitar given to her by Gram Parsons and a handwritten note that the teenage Harris sent to the editor of a folk music journal. Emmylou Harris is sitting in the middle of her own exhibit, Songbird’s Flight, at the Country Music Hall of Fame in Nashville, surrounded by artefacts from a fascinating and still-thriving career.
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