BY CLEA SIMON
Emmylou Harris plays well with others. And if that kindergarten praise sounds strange applied to an 11-time Grammy winner who has long since graduated into legendary status, it just might be the compliment she would choose. The country diva’s breathtakingly æthereal voice was first introduced to inspiration-starved listeners when she became the protégée-partner of the late, great Gram Parsons in the early ’70s, and every step of her 30-plus-year career — most notably away from that classic country-rock sound and into her own folk-tinged originals — has been marked by innovative pairings, recently as diverse as Linda Ronstadt (on 1999’s Western Wall) and Daniel Lanois (whose work on 1995’s Wrecking Ball was more in the nature of a partner than a mere producer).
"I’ve always collaborated with other people," Harris explained when I reached her by phone. "I’ve always enjoyed the sound of different voices singing together."
About to embark on the "Sweet Harmony Traveling Revue" when we talked, Harris seemed to be looking forward to more group activity. With Patty Griffin, Buddy and Julie Miller, Gillian Welch, and David Rawlings aboard, the tour (which comes to FleetBoston Pavilion next Friday) offers a range of roots, country, and alt-country sounds from a community of artists who have either known one another or performed together over the years. "I’ve sung on Patti’s records and she’s sung on mine. The same goes for Buddy, we’re so joined at the hip. Dave and I have sung in countless shows in countless living rooms. [Welch and Harris also sang on the O Brother, Where Art Thou? soundtrack together.] It’s almost like a working vacation. I don’t think we’re going to have to bend into uncomfortable shapes at all."
The tour, which will feature various combinations of the artists singing on each other’s songs, does sound like a bit of a break for Harris, who has been touring with her own band almost continuously in support of last year’s Stumble into Grace (Nonesuch). Although the Stumble into Grace tour has been Harris’s show, the cool, beautiful album is itself a team effort, though not as much as she’d intended.
"When we started Stumble into Grace, when it was just the ‘Next Record,’ I thought it would be more of a collaboration." In particular, Harris had been hoping to work more closely with Kate and Anna McGarrigle, with whom she’d written "All I Left Behind," which ended up on Western Wall. "I specifically wanted to write with them. When I first decided to write, to put the energy and time into writing, the first people I called were Kate and Anna. I love their writing, I love their harmonies, and I really enjoy their company as people, so it was a win-win situation. We’d talked about it when we were doing the ‘Down from the Mountain’ tour together, they came out for a couple of days."
But the project, as artistic projects will, took a different turn. "As it turned out, I wrote more songs then I thought I was going to write. So it morphed into something else." The trio did complete three songs together: a beautiful version of "Plaisir d’Amour" and the originals "Pretty Bird" (which borrows a lilting Peruvian melody) and the ruminative "I Will Dream." In addition, the McGarrigles provide vocal back-up on various tracks, as do Ronstadt and Jane Siberry, among others.
That Harris chose to make this disc more her own project shouldn’t be surprising for an artist of her stature. But though her singing voice still seems to float effortlessly, she has long said that her composing voice is not so easily summoned. "Is it difficult? Oh yes," she laughs. Although she had established herself as a songwriter with 1985’s autobiographical The Ballad of Sally Rose, she has not worn that cap lightly. "Songwriting is agonizing and difficult." And working with others doesn’t necessarily make it any easier. "It’s just that you’ve got company. Misery loves company!"
Plus, she notes, the hard work of revision can be eased with another pair of knowledgeable ears. "Certainly it helps to have somebody to come up with that wonderful phase when you know you’re stuck. You can toss things out and you trust each other enough to say, ‘Um, no I don’t really think that works.’ That helps; it saves a lot of time."
Harris ended up collaborating on all but four of the 11 tracks on Stumble into Grace. Only one of the solo compositions — the almost straight-ahead declamatory "Strong Hand," a tribute to June Carter Cash and the relationship she forged with Johnny Cash that displays touches of the Cash couple’s mountain gospel roots — came easily. "Every once in a while, the gods just drop one in your lap. That one was a gift, and it just came to me when I thought the record was finished." In the context of the disc’s other subtle, tuneful tracks, the stark, "Strong Hand" sounds almost naked, all heart. "I didn’t set out to write a song about her. Maybe June had a hand in it."
At the other end of the spectrum is the cool — almost chilling — "Time in Babylon." Pushing Harris nearly over a contemporary edge, this modern-day morality tale keeps her voice reined in, subservient to a shimmering beat, with the emphasis on her strong lower register, until her still-glorious upper tones are freed by a gospel-like chorus. She credits Luscious Jackson’s Jill Cunniff, whom she met through Lanois, for the music. "She came up with this amazing melody. In a million years I would never come up with something like that, so it really pushes the envelope for you as an artist and as a writer."
The moral tone, however, was pure Harris. "I had some lyrics. We’d started that song for 2000’s Red Dirt Girl, but we didn’t really know what that song was about, I don’t think. Then, after 9/11, the lyrics seemed to be about something a little more serious." The lyrics, which tell of a disillusioned ’60s activist, sound a call to action, to "lead us to a higher and a holy ground." Harris calls this a political rather than a spiritual turn. "It’s a general wake-up call to everyone, including myself. Let’s get our priorities in order. I think we’re living in a very dangerous time, and I’m not even speaking about the war."
She asks that I include a line urging readers to vote, then continues, "As you get older . . . I’m not so much interested in songs about romance. I’m kind of consumed with songs about death and mortality and spirituality." Her one collaboration with Lanois on this album, "Lost unto This World," is filled with these themes, reciting over simple waves of music the tales of murdered and mistreated women throughout the world. "I was tortured in the desert/I was raped out in the plain," Harris sings, her voice mournful amid the typically lush Lanois backing. "O you among the living/Will you remember me at all/Will you write my name out/With a single finger scrawl."
She’s bearing witness, but gently, and with great beauty. Still, it’s a powerful statement and one that Harris had to be in her 50s, she says, before she could attempt. Earlier in her career, she points out, "I would never have done a song that had anything political in it, it just wasn’t in my range of vision."
If these songs sound diverse, particularly side by side on one album, that’s because Harris has moved beyond genre. Since stepping out (with Lanois’s help) on Wrecking Ball, she’s cleared any country — or even Americana — classification. And on Stumble into Grace, she’s once again working with Lanois’s successor, Malcolm Burn, who helped with Wrecking Ball and produced the 2000 Grammy winner Red Dirt Girl. As on that album, Burns’s light touch keeps her varied approaches discrete. "The songs take on more of the front and center," she agrees.
This is the contemporary Harris, one seemingly belied by the recent high-profile performances on O Brother and the "Down from the Mountain" tour, which appeared to bring her back into the country, or at least alt-country, and folk-music mold. The difference, notes the artist, is once again a matter of collaboration. "Those weren’t my projects. I was just asked to go along for the ride, and it was a real joy. Except for forays into very strict parameters [she names projects like 1979’s Blue Kentucky Girl] where we set out to make a really straight country record, I’ve always been most comfortable starting from a center, from a point of departure. I love country music, I want to make country music, but I’m still learning. So I’m going to bring in a lot of other influences, and just break the rules only because I don’t know what they are."
Emmylou Harris joins Patty Griffin, Buddy and Julie Miller, Gillian Welch, and David Rawlings on the "Sweet Harmony Traveling Revue" that arrives next Friday, August 20, at the FleetBoston Pavilion; call (617) 728-1600.
Issue Date: August 13 - 19, 2004