When soulmate and duet partner Gram Parsons died in September 1973, Harris appointed herself keeper of the flame, vowing to build on the momentum that flooded his GP and Grievous Angel albums with such trembling beauty, albeit feeling "like my life had just been whacked off". With Parsons' Hollywood manager Eddie Tickner scoring her a Warners deal, she gingerly corralled Gram's studio hire into the Hot Band (then fast becoming country's own Wrecking Crew), admitting she was awestruck by their abilities. Her salvation, of course, was THAT voice. A crystal blade flashing in the sun.
A folkie at heart—her early heroes were Baez and Judy Collins; she'd even made a misshapen 1969 LP, Gliding Bird—she came untainted by Nashville country code, blessed with an outsider's feel for words, tone and phrasing. With 1975's elegant-pure Pieces Of The Sky, she seemed like a cut-glass decanter in a roomful of chipped tumblers. For the most part, it's sedate, immaculately groomed country, though for every heartsick diamond (self-penned Gram paean "Boulder To Birmingham") there's an underlying sense of dislocation from her covered material, admiring a song's skin rather than slipping inside it. Elite Hotel (1976)—her first Grammy-winner—was less starchy, proving she'd absorbed the passionate economy of traditional country music while allowing herself to bleed into the bones of the love-torn "Together Again" and "Satan's Jewel Crown". With ace guitarist Albert Lee and Emmylou's own protégé, Rodney Crowell, aboard, 1977's Luxury Liner finds the voice even more expressive, sad-sweet with the subtlest ache, drawing out vowels almost as if blowing glass.
Quarter Moon...(1978) is arguably the closest assimilation of Gram's country/soul idyll, the band ripping into "Two More Bottles Of Wine" and "I Ain't Living Long Like This" while Harris threads folk with a pedal-steel pulse on "My Songbird" and draws goosepimples on Willie Nelson duet "One Paper Kid". When Warners tried to nudge her towards the pop spectrum, she responded with her first pure country record in 1979's Blue Kentucky Girl, remarkable for Ricky Skaggs'mandolin and the perfection-blended triple-siren call with Sharon and Cheryl White, "Sorrow In The Wind".
Were it not for Emmylou's extended Indian Summer—from the experimental self-reinvention of '95's Wrecking Ball through 2000's soul-baring career-topper Red Dirt Girl to last year's Stumble Into Grace—this comely batch would have stood as her best work. Ultimately, her trump card was her natural pluralism, a willingness to bring folk, rock and bluegrass flavours to country's head table. In this respect, she probably came closer to distilling Gram's Cosmic American vision than he did.
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A folkie at heart—her early heroes were Baez and Judy Collins; she'd even made a misshapen 1969 LP, Gliding Bird—she came untainted by Nashville country code, blessed with an outsider's feel for words, tone and phrasing. With 1975's elegant-pure Pieces Of The Sky, she seemed like a cut-glass decanter in a roomful of chipped tumblers. For the most part, it's sedate, immaculately groomed country, though for every heartsick diamond (self-penned Gram paean "Boulder To Birmingham") there's an underlying sense of dislocation from her covered material, admiring a song's skin rather than slipping inside it. Elite Hotel (1976)—her first Grammy-winner—was less starchy, proving she'd absorbed the passionate economy of traditional country music while allowing herself to bleed into the bones of the love-torn "Together Again" and "Satan's Jewel Crown". With ace guitarist Albert Lee and Emmylou's own protégé, Rodney Crowell, aboard, 1977's Luxury Liner finds the voice even more expressive, sad-sweet with the subtlest ache, drawing out vowels almost as if blowing glass.
Quarter Moon...(1978) is arguably the closest assimilation of Gram's country/soul idyll, the band ripping into "Two More Bottles Of Wine" and "I Ain't Living Long Like This" while Harris threads folk with a pedal-steel pulse on "My Songbird" and draws goosepimples on Willie Nelson duet "One Paper Kid". When Warners tried to nudge her towards the pop spectrum, she responded with her first pure country record in 1979's Blue Kentucky Girl, remarkable for Ricky Skaggs'mandolin and the perfection-blended triple-siren call with Sharon and Cheryl White, "Sorrow In The Wind".
Were it not for Emmylou's extended Indian Summer—from the experimental self-reinvention of '95's Wrecking Ball through 2000's soul-baring career-topper Red Dirt Girl to last year's Stumble Into Grace—this comely batch would have stood as her best work. Ultimately, her trump card was her natural pluralism, a willingness to bring folk, rock and bluegrass flavours to country's head table. In this respect, she probably came closer to distilling Gram's Cosmic American vision than he did.
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