“I started out being a fanatical lover of folk
music. Country music, even though I was exposed to it, I just thought that I
couldn’t be bothered with it. I could not hear the subtlety in it, I couldn’t
hear the poetry in it. I was a Joan Baez wannabe. But Gram, he heard something
in my voice. He thought I could sing country music. I started as a harmony
singer, that was his way to kind of sneakily turn me onto this extraordinary
body of music, and in singing country music I really found the place that my
voice was supposed to be. It also made me appreciate the joys of working with a
band, which meant a drummer, which was anathema to folk singers. I can’t
imagine that I would have gotten to the place I am artistically or even
vocally, if it hadn’t been for Gram.”— Emmylou Harris quoted in Joan Anderman,
“Emmylou Harris: Music, the Road and Her Hair,” The New York Times, March
28, 2013
(The photograph shows Emmylou Harris—who, incidentally, turned 66 yesterday--performing
in Ahoy, Rotterdam, The Netherlands, in 2006. Her latest CD, Old Country Moon, a collaboration with
Rodney Crowell, came out late in February.)
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