Emmylou Harris has been a star since the 1970s.
Photo provided
Hard to be believe that any of veteran performer Emmylou Harris’s music ever could be forgotten.
But that’s essentially what happened to a 1990 live recording of Harris’ concert at he Tennessee Performing Arts Center with her bluegrass-tinged Nashville Ramblers ensemble. The 14-time Grammy-winning artist herself even forgot the performance was recorded.
Now the 23 tunes are part of a recent and fittingly titled album “Ramble in Music City: The Lost Album.”
The 74-year-old Harris, known for everything from folk to country to bluegrass to country-rock, brings those reimagined songs — “Even Cowgirls Get the Blues,” “Amarillo” and “Wayfaring Stranger,” among them — and others with her to a Feb. 2 date at the Brown County Music Center in the smaller Nashville. For years, she has lived in the better-known Nashville.
And she will bring more than just her signature songs with her. At least a couple of her pet pooches normally make the trip.
Harris runs a dog shelter called Bonaparte’s Retreat on her property.
“I think of all the years on the road I wasted without a dog,” Harris said. “They make it so much more pleasant. I’m making up for lost time now, that’s for sure.”
They mean so much to her that when her beloved Bonaparte died in 2002, the prolific songwriter wrote a musical homage, “Not Enough,” to the poodle mix. The dog had traveled with her for a decade.
Harris has traveled many roads to multiple successes in a career spanning nearly half a century.
She is a member of the Country Music Hall of Fame. Plus, in 2018, she was presented the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.
She began making a name for herself with the help of Gram Parsons, who was looking for a female vocalist to collaborate with on his first solo album. Harris toured as a member of Parsons’ band, the Fallen Angels, in 1973, becoming known for vocal harmonies and duets.
Later that year, Parsons and Harris worked on a studio album, “Grievous Angel.”
