Emmylou Harris

Desert Island Discs

BBC

Society & Culture, Music Commentary, Music, Personal Journals

4.4 • 13.7K Ratings

🗓️ 21 December 2003

⏱️ 34 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

This week Sue Lawley's castaway is the country rock singer Emmylou Harris. Born in Alabama in 1947, her musical influences were folk rather than country. Initially, she wanted to be an actress, but, influenced by Joan Baez and Bob Dylan, she turned to singing folk instead and began performing in the bars of Greenwich Village. But, by the age of 24, it seemed as if her singing career was over - she was a single mother and had returned home to live with her mother, only singing in local bars.

It was a chance encounter that led to her being heard by Gram Parsons - formerly of The Byrds and later The Flying Burrito Brothers. They worked together on two albums and invented what has become country rock - a fusion of folk, country and rock music. To date she has won 11 Grammies and in 1992 was inducted into the Grand Old Opry. She now writes her own music. She is three-times divorced and now travels everywhere with her mother.

[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs]

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello, I'm Krestey Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs archive.
0:05.0	For rights reasons, we've had to shorten the music.
0:08.0	The program was originally broadcast in 2003, and the presenter was Sue Lolly. My castaway this week is a musician. Over the past 30 years she's matured from hippie chick through cowboy-booted
0:36.8	country diva to mature Southern Bell and throughout it all her semi-acoustic guitar
0:42.3	strapped around her voice has captured the infinite sadness that all great country singers evoke.
0:48.8	She was born in Birmingham, Alabama, dropped out a drama school, got married, had a child and very grown up at 24 teamed up
0:56.0	with the singer Graham Parsons. Two years and two successful albums later, Parsons was dead,
1:02.1	but she became the custodian of his legacy, developing his
1:05.2	brand of country rock into her own unique contribution. Many awards and successful
1:10.8	collaborations later with Johnny Cash, Dolly Parton and Bob Dylan,
1:14.4	Dilly Parton and Bob Dylan to name only three, she says,
1:16.5	the songs speak of timeless issues.
1:19.5	There's nothing really clever about them.
1:21.3	It's just life laid out on a plate for you. She is Emily
1:25.2	Lou Harris. It has to touch people. Is that what it is for country music? Is it a kind of
1:30.0	license to wallow in emotion, Emily?
1:33.0	Yes, it's a good thing to wallow in the emotions, to visit those emotions.
1:39.0	I mean, what else is there if we don't feel?
1:42.0	Good music, a good song, good words, I think brings you in touch
1:47.4	with things that you were feeling. It connects you with yourself and with
1:52.1	everyone else who is experiencing those things.
1:55.2	It can make you feel that a universality, especially in country music you deal with very
	...

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