Emmylou Harris

Emmylou Harris (born April 2, 1947) is an American singer and songwriter. She has released many popular albums and singles over the course of her career, and – as of 2015 – she had won 13 Grammys as well as numerous other awards.

Her work and recordings include work as a solo artist, a bandleader, an interpreter of other composers' works, a singer-songwriter, and a backing vocalist and duet partner. She has worked with numerous leading artists, including Gram Parsons, Bob Dylan, John Denver, Linda Ronstadt, Dolly Parton, Roy Orbison, the Band, Patty Griffin, Mark Knopfler, Delbert McClinton, Guy Clark, Willie Nelson, Bright Eyes, Rodney Crowell, John Prine, Neil Young, Cyndi Lauper, Steve Earle, and Ryan Adams.

Biography

Early years

Harris is from a career military family. Her father, Walter Harris, was a military officer, and her mother, Eugenia, was a wartime military wife. Her father, a member of the Marine Corps, was reported missing in action in Korea in 1952 and spent ten months as a prisoner of war. Born in Birmingham, Alabama, Harris spent her childhood in North Carolina and Woodbridge, Virginia, where she graduated from Gar-Field Senior High School as class valedictorian. She won a drama scholarship to the UNCG School of Music, Theatre and Dance at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, where she began to study music seriously, learning to play the songs of Pete Seeger, Bob Dylan and Joan Baez on guitar. She dropped out of college to pursue her musical aspirations, and moved to New York City, working as a waitress to support herself while performing folk songs in Greenwich Village coffeehouses during the folkie boom. She married fellow songwriter Tom Slocum in 1969 and recorded her first album, Gliding Bird. Harris and Slocum soon divorced, and Harris and her newborn daughter Hallie moved in with her parents in the Maryland suburbs near Washington, D.C.

Duets (Emmylou Harris album)

Duets is a compilation of duets by country music artist Emmylou Harris in partnership with other well-known country and rock artists. Most of the twelve tracks on the album originally appeared as singles or on albums released by her singing partners. Several of the tracks attained positions on the Billboard Hot Country Singles charts: "That Lovin' You Feelin' Again" with Roy Orbison was at #6 in 1980; "If I Needed You" with Don Williams at #3 in 1981; "Wild Montana Skies" with John Denver at #14 in 1983; "Thing About You" with Southern Pacific at #14 in 1985; and "We Believe in Happy Endings" with Earl Thomas Conley at #1 in 1988. Also included is "Love Hurts", an early duet with Gram Parsons from his Grievous Angel album. Duets rose to #24 on the country albums chart in 1990.

Track listing