Vinyl Magic

 Emmylou Harris, Daniel Lanois and Me…

I don't ever worry about whether I'm being true to my country roots. My country roots were adopted. I never worry about what I can do, or what I should do. I just do what I want to do.

               Emmylou Harris

I really have shaken hands with where my voice is right now. I think it's got a little deeper, it's got some more grooves in it.

               Emmylou Harris

Born in Birmingham, Alabama to a military family, Emmylou Harris moved to Woodbridge, Virginia and graduated as the valedictorian of her high school class. After dropping out of college, she moved to Greenwich Village to participate in the folk scene in the late 1960s. Emmylou recorded her first release Gliding Bird in 1969 before relocating to the suburbs of Maryland in the early 1970s, and playing in local bars like the The Red Fox Inn in Bethesda, Maryland and The Childe Harold in Washington, DC. There, Chris Hillman of The Byrds saw her perform and recommended her to his friend Gram Parsons.

Emmylou became a protege and performing partner of the great Gram Parsons until his untimely demise in 1973, They were together only a year but Gram's influence would last a lifetime. In 1975, Emmylou began recording for Reprise Records, a label started by Frank Sinatra in 1960 and home to Jimi Hendrix, Neil Young, Frank Zappa and many others. Over her long and illustrious career, Emmylou has sold millions of records and garnered thirteen Grammys and counting!

Whether in a club, theater, music hall or, in recent years, headlining The Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival in San Francisco before hundreds of thousands, Emmylou puts on a fabulous show. She is always surrounded by consummate skilled musicians: Rodney Crowell, Ricky Skaggs, Vince Gill, Sam Bush, and Jerry Douglas are just a few of the string virtuosos who have performed in her bands. A fine interpreter of songs, she has also written classics like "Boulder To Birmingham", "Tulsa Queen", "Prayer In Open D", "Waltz Across Texas Tonight", and "Boy From Tupelo."

In 1995, Emmylou released Wrecking Ball, a masterpiece produced by Daniel Lanois, best known for his work with U2, Bob Dylan, and Peter Gabriel. A brilliant album, it was quite a sonic departure for Emmylou as it veered more toward alternative rock than country. This was not your father's Grand Ol' Opry. Fiddles, banjos, and upright basses were replaced by bass pedals, electric mandolins, organ, percussion and lots of atmospherics. Lanois brought along some  interesting musicians (Malcolm Burn, Larry Mullen Jr. of U2, Neil Young, Steve Earle, and Lucinda Williams) who performed a very challenging and diverse playlist.

Emmylou did a very brief tour with Daniel Lanois in support of Wrecking Ball in November 1995, and Erin and I saw her at the Keswick Theater in Glenside, Pennsylvania. A small venue, maybe 1000 seats, Keswick is a converted movie theater. Emmylou came on first with just her acoustic guitar and she beautifully strummed "My Songbird" and "Prayer In Open D" with her crystalline voice soaring. Then her band appeared: Daniel Lanois on electric guitar, Daryl Johnson on electric bass, and Brady Blade on drums. They tore into a blistering cover of Jimi Hendrix's "May This Be Love" which was equal parts distortion, fuzz and wah wah pedals. There was a smattering of boos from some in the crowd who wanted their country music served neat with gingham check, not snarling leather. The response was not quite as heretical as Dylan plugging in at Newport in 1965, and I didn't hear anyone yell "Judas", but it was unsettling to some in the audience. Undaunted, Emmylou and her band played most of her (then) new album and ended with a 10 minute scorching version of Lanois' swamp gospel burner "The Maker." The encore was a soulful version of William Bell's "You Don't Miss Your Water" from the fabled Stax canon of soul. Country meets Memphis near the New Orleans Bayou, it was an amazing band and performance.

After the show, we hung around to get some records signed, and it was bitterly cold, polar vortex cold before it became de rigueur. Emmylou was so kind, she invited us on the bus to provide warmth and comfort. She laughed when I pointed out the original Elite Hotel album cover which was deemed too offensive because her fingers were crossed. Subsequent albums were issued with the fingers air brushed to avoid the appearance of "flipping." She couldn't have been any more gracious, posing for pictures and signing away.

As many times that I have seen Emmylou Harris over the years with other great musicians like Steve Earle, Buddy Miller, Willie Nelson and Jerry Jeff Walker, there was nothing quite as memorable as that Keswick show with Daniel Lanois.

Happy Trails and Sweet Dreams!!