Over the course of 30 years, Emmylou Harris has released more than 20 albums. Collections which have left an indelible and influential mark on American popular culture. Steeped in country, but including folk, bluegrass, pop, zydeco and rock and roll, Emmylou Harris' voice and songs have not only earned her 11 Grammy Awards, but a devoted audience, as well as the admiration of her peers. Some are musicians she musically nurtured who are now well-known in their own right, others are legends she has collaborated with.

In 2004, Emmylou's ground-breaking first five Warner Bros. albums, "Pieces of the Sky," "Elite Hotel", "Luxury Liner," "Quarter Moon in a Ten Cent Town," and "Blue Kentucky Girl" are being reissued in remastered editions with additional songs, liner notes and artwork. And today in Nashville, Tennessee, we will come full circle with Emmylou Harris to talk not only about these legendary five releases, but what led up to them and where they have lead her.

On growing up... (mp3)

Q: Emmylou, since our conversation today will focus on the beginning of your career, and it's going to be heard on the radio, let's begin by talking about the folk music radio show you listened to as a teenager. Where did you live when you listened to it? Do you remember what it was called and what the music was they played that motivated you to get your first guitar?

A: Okay. Well, my father was stationed in Quantico, Virginia. And we were living in Woodbridge, which is about 25 miles south of Washington D.C. But in those days, I mean, you just didn't hop in the car and go off on your own. I pretty much never went into D.C. And my only contact with it was on the radio. And it was actually from American University, WAMU, and -- what was the name of the show? It was Dick Serry (who) was the disk jockey. And I think it was from 7:00 in the evening to midnight. He would play everything, you know, current Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Judy Collins, Tom Rush, Ian and Sylvia. But he would also play The Weavers. He would play Mance Lipscomb and Son House and all the wonderful folk blues that I just -- it touched me. Who knows why a 16, 17-year-old... fairly sheltered life... Marine brat... but there was a resonance to that music that really pulled me in. And that was -- I had this kind of intimate relationship with that radio program. I mean, the radio was on, I would sit on the floor doing my homework. That was my routine.

Q: Even though you weren't studying music in college, you played your first professional gigs while you were going to the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, right?

A: Yeah.

Q: What were those first performances like?

A: Well, they weren't that great. I mean, there was a little bar off campus on Tate Street, called The Red Door. And it was basically where a lot of, you know, the college kids got drunk and made a lot of noise. And somehow I got a gig, I don't know how, for $10 a night and all the beer I could drink. But I've never been a beer drinker, even to this day. I don't like the taste. So I was underpaid, definitely. They would unplug the jukebox and stick a mic there. And I would play Bob Dylan songs, Simon and Garfunkel, anything that I could do with three chords on the guitar that I had taught myself, because I really had nobody to show me anything. Nobody to play music with. I was relatively isolated. But I never really worried about that, really. I suppose, in a sense, it was good. There was nobody to intimidate me and make me feel that I didn't know enough to do what I was doing. And so those were really the first gigs, I guess.

And then for a short while, I hooked up with a guy named Mike Williams, who was a college dropout and - I don't mean... that sounds terrible. It was very cool in those days. You know, rode a motorcycle, played guitar, played 12-string. I guess I met him on campus somewhere. And we started singing some duets together and did some shows around campus. And then our big gig out of town, which was at the upstairs coffeehouse in Virginia Beach, Virginia. And that's where I found a group of really pretty interesting and good songwriters and pickers.

I eventually dropped out of school and moved there, worked as a waitress and sang in the coffeehouses at night, of which there were two. There was the Folk Ghetto in Norfolk and the Upstairs in Virginia Beach. I told myself I was earning money to actually go to a real drama school. I was going to go to the drama program at Boston University. And I actually did get accepted, but by that time I was so infected by the desire, the passion to sing folk music -- to just sing. It never occurred me to that I couldn't just go to New York and my life would begin. Little did I know that, you know, it's a little harder than that. So it was sort of a roundabout path that got me to New York City, where I found you really can't make a living making folk music. At least not then in 1967.

Q: Was it the fact that Bob Dylan had broken out of New York and that Gerde's was there that made you choose New York to be your destination to make it in folk music, versus going to, I don't know, at that point, Nashville or L.A. or somewhere?

A: Well, Nashville, at that point, was associated with country music that my peers at the time really looked down on. It was politically incorrect and hokey and didn't have anything to do... it wasn't "pure enough". You know, I put that in quotation marks. And New York was where Sing Out magazine was, where Bob Dylan -- as you say Bob Dylan had been discovered. I just assumed there were all these places where young people could play. I assumed that it was like the Virginia Beach/Norfolk area where there was this community and you could, you know, kind of get by.

And I was right, because I ended up working as a waitress there and doing some gigs. And there was a wonderful community of artists there. Paul Siebel was there at the time, Jerry Jeff Walker, David Bromberg. I think Gary White was there. Townes Van Zandt, that's where I met Townes Van Zandt. He came through town. The first time I ever say him was at Gerde's Folk City. There was a lot of music going on. It wasn't what I thought it was going to be.

Q: Today we're talking about the first five Emmylou Harris albums that came out on Warner Bros. They did have a predecessor, an independent LP you made in New York called "Gliding Bird"/ But after you made that album, you moved to Nashville. And then as a single mom, you wound up back in D.C. where your folks were. Could you just tell us a little bit about that early album and your travels after New York?

A: Well, you know, I signed a contract with Jubilee Records. Which actually was a record company owned -- one of many things owned by probably one of the most notorious, dare I say crooks, of the music business called Morris Levy. I'm probably going to get sued.

Q: No, he's gone now.

A: Actually, I sued him. I'm the only person who's ever successfully sued him. And it was just to get him to stop putting that album out after I made it. Because when the album initially came out, I think it sold about seven copies, of which my mother had, you know, about five of those...! (laughs)

Q: So you cut "Gliding Bird" in New York and then, as I said, you traveled to Nashville and wound up back in D.C. You became part of a real nice musical community there in D.C. And you kind of evolved from being a folk singer to being a band leader. That was also where you met singer/songwriter Gram Parsons, who was a former member of the Byrds and at the time, he was in the Flying Burrito Brothers...

A: Well, he had left the Flying Burrito Brothers. He came to visit them when they played in town.

Q: And is that when you met him? He was visiting the Burritos?

A: Yeah.

Q: Can you tell me about how you came to collaborate with him, you know, work on those two solo albums and then go on the road as a member of the Fallen Angels?

A: Well, I was working in the club scene there. I had a trio. A bass player named Tom Guidera and an excellent acoustic guitar player, Jerry Moule. There was quite a nice little music scene there. Lots of different clubs you could play. I was kind of getting my own audience. I'd hooked up with Bill and Taffy Danhoff -- called themselves Fat City, who went on to collaborate with John Denver and they wrote Take Me Home Country Roads. The Seldom Scene, you know, the wonderful bluegrass group there. There was a lot of great music going on. And you had to work pretty hard, six nights a week, maybe three, four shows a night, to just get by. But at least I was making a living doing music, which I had been unable to do in New York.

Let's see, how do I simplify this?

Q: Books have been written...

A: Yeah. Okay. Well, as I recall, I was doing one of my six-night-a-week gigs at a place called Clyde's in Georgetown. Just kind of like a singles bar thing. And we were in the sort of music room where people -- you know, a few people would come in and out. And The Burrito Brothers, without Gram, were playing at the club the Cellar Door down the street, where more national acts would come. And they just came and poured drink between sets. So one night a couple of the Burritos, I'm pretty sure it was Rick Roberts and another guy came in and heard us play. And we did a few country songs. Mainly tongue-in-cheek. You know, Was It God Who Made Honky-Tonk Angels, et cetera. And I think it was the next night that they brought Chris in and invited me -- they invited me to come and sit in on a couple of songs, so I did, rhythm guitar. And we hung out a little bit. And then they went on to Baltimore, which is about 50 miles away from D.C.

And, it just so happened that Gram came to see them. He had just gotten married and he and his wife Gretchen, were in the area. Came to the show. I always think this is an interesting bit of serendipity. Gram was talking backstage to them after the show and they said, "What are you doing?" He said, "Well, I'm going to do solo record and I want to do some duets with a girl singer. I'm looking for somebody." And they said, "Well, we heard -- this girl seemed like she was pretty good, down in D.C." And they knew my name, but they didn't know how to get in touch with me.

At that time, my daughter, Holly, was, oh, maybe two-years old. And a young girl who babysat for me when I was doing my gigs, (was a) big music fan. She went to every show within a 50-mile radius. And she always got backstage: Tina. And she overheard it. And she said, "Oh, I know how to get in touch with her. I babysit for her daughter." And so the next day, I get this phone call from Gram Parsons, who I didn't -- I vaguely had heard of him. I didn't really know who he was.

And so to sum it all up, I was working that night. He and Gretchen came down on the train. I picked him up, took them to Clyde's where we were working. It was a rainy night, Monday night. There was maybe three people in the audience. We sat downstairs where they keep the big kegs of beer and worked up a few songs. I can't remember which ones they were, sorry. And did a few songs and he said "I think we sound good. I'm doing a record. I'm going to call you," which I didn't really think was going to happen. I was very jaded and cynical at the age of 25 or 26 at that point. But I did hear from him and his manager off and on during that next year. And about a year later, I got a ticket to come to L.A.

And so I thought, I'm going to get on the plane and go before they change their minds, because at least I'll get to see Los Angeles, get a free meal on the plane (laughs). And so we did the first record... And did a tour. It was my first tour bus. And then we did the second album. And then, of course, you know, Gram died right after the -- shortly after the record was finished. We finished it in August of '73 and he died September 19th, 1973. So that was a -- that was a real blow.

When I look back on it, I should have seen it coming. I knew that Gram had a lot of problems with addictions. He supposedly had kicked drugs and he was drinking a lot. But then when we started singing together and he started really working and getting back his work ethic and -- he really seemed like he was cleaning up. And, so, it was a real shock to me. And I really lost a very, very dear friend and a mentor. I mean, I feel like I had started to really figure out this singing thing. He really taught me how to sing. Singing harmony with him, gave me, I think, a style. And his music gave -- he sort of bequeathed me a vision that I didn't have before. I was just -- I was trying to be Joan Baez or trying to be Judy Collins. You know, just copying everybody. But I really think it was working with Gram that sort of forged whatever it is that "I ."

On Gram Parsons ... (mp3)

Q: Emmylou, it's really fascinating that, although you didn't write a lot of songs during this period, Boulder to Birmingham, the only one you had a hand in composing on your debut, has been a song that you sing to this day.

A: Well, yes. And I believe that the song has -- even though it's about -- it's inspired by a specific event, hopefully, it draws from kind of universal issues that never go away. You know, about loss. So that I think, for me, it resonates in even more current situations. And hopefully, it resonates for the listeners. And it is a song that I don't really ever tire of doing. It's usually a song that I put in as an encore. I don't necessarily do it in every show, but it seems to have worked with all my different bands, all my different groups of musicians, starting with the Hot Band and then going into the acoustic band and then on to my sort of gumbo band, the Spyboy. And even when Buddy and I just play, just the two of us, you know, it seems to work.

Q: That was your first recorded composition on these Warner's records. Over the last few years, "Stumble into Grace," "Red Dirt Girl." You've been composing like crazy. You have a hand in just about every song on those two records. And that's an exception to the rule, except for the "Ballad of Sally Rose," which you also wrote the songs for. Why at this point in your career have you been all of a sudden writing all these songs, when in the early days Boulder to Birmingham, that was the only one you wrote on your debut?

A: Well, you've got to understand that there were just so many songs that I wanted to record. I wanted to explore musical style as much as I wanted to explore whatever my inner poetry was. That the idea of carrying on with what I felt Gram was doing was what was driving me in those early albums. Especially the first, maybe, three records, in which -- and I had Rodney Crowell, I met Rodney Crowell. And of course the Townes Van Zandt songs. And there were all these wonderful old country songs that I had discovered how magnificent and beautiful they were... when I saw the light of country music, of how beautiful it was. And so I had all this catching up to do as far as educating myself and all this music that I loved. You know, the Buck Owens song Together Again ... Sweet Dreams and One of These Days and just listening to George Jones and the Louvin Brothers and all this fantastic stuff. So that was really driving my creative engine. And I had this fantastic group of musicians and this amazing record producer that, you know, it was like finding the coal to put into that engine, stoke that engine. And you know, why waste time with writing when you've got all these -- as Victoria Williams would say, "pre-made-up" songs that were just ready for the plucking. Because even though perhaps some of them had been recorded before, a lot of them were unknown to my peer group. And I was reaching out, in a sense, to people like myself who had spent most of their lives being either completely ignorant of country music or dismissive of it.

So I didn't really feel like anything was missing. And I guess I also thought, at some point I will write. You know, you always thought, well, I wrote this song. And I actually wrote five of the songs or more on "Gliding Bird." So I kind of knew I could write. But I just thought, well, there will be time for that later.