Apart from enjoying a hugely successful career in her own right, Emmylou Harris has become the singer’s singer, the guest vocalist of choice for a huge array of major artists. In the past she has sung harmony for Gram Parsons, Bob Dylan, Neil Young, Johnny Cash and Bruce Springsteen and more recently has lent her distinctive vocal chords to records as diverse as Daniel Lanois’ Shine, Ryan Adams’ Heartbreaker and the Dixie Chicks’ Home. Everybody, it seems, wants Emmylou Harris to sing with them. So how does she choose?
“I can’t do every invitation I get,” she says. “I just wouldn’t have the time to do it. For the most part, it’s about working with people that I know well. If they ask me to sing on their record, it’s a chance to visit and see some of my friends again. Sometimes it’s a chance to get to know somebody new. But it’s not just me giving of myself- it’s a reciprocal thing. Ultimately, you take something away from it.”
Harris acknowledges that working with artists such as Lucinda Williams and Gillian Welch has, in the past, provided a ready source of new songs for her to record on her own albums.
“I’ve always got my nose to the ground and I know good stuff when I hear it,” she says. “I want it for myself before anyone else gets to hear it so it’s not totally altruistic on my part (laughs).”
On her last record Red Dirt Girl, Harris wrote most of the songs herself – a new departure for someone who has long been known and admired as an interpretive singer. She continues the process on her latest album Stumble Into Grace, which traverses the sonic territory begun on her 1995 opus Wrecking Ball – a record that saw her move away from a traditional country backdrop to more experimental textures. Is it fair to describe this as the third album of a trilogy?
“I don’t have any problem with that description of it,” she says. “It is a natural progression. After Wrecking Ball I definitely wanted to stay in that particular sound-scape. On Red Dirt Girl the grand experiment for me was writing the songs myself rather than the recording process. I had to write again for this one to make sure it wasn’t just a fluke.”
Her old pals Linda Ronstadt and Kate and Anna McGarrigle appear on the album along with Jane Siberry who guests on two songs, ‘I Will Dream’ and ‘Lost Unto This World’.
“I’ve been a fan of hers for a long time,” Harris says. “I happened to see her in New York in February and she gave me a copy of her album Hush. She came down and ended up doing a completely different vocal thing than I had imagined but it was so beautiful. I enjoyed hanging out with her. I just got back from a folk festival in Canada where she and I did a songwriting workshop together.”
One song on the album, ‘Strong Hand’, is dedicated to the late June Carter Cash, wife of the recently deceased Johnny Cash.
“I wrote the song the night I heard she was gravely ill,” Harris explains. “It was very sudden and quite a shock to me. John had been ill on and off for ten years and I don’t think any of us expected June to go before him. It was almost like ‘did they get it the wrong way around?’ I knew her quite well and she made you feel like she was a neighbour who had known you all her life. I had talked with her on the phone quite a bit before she died – it was a real personal loss for me.”
When not recording, touring and appearing on other people’s records Harris listens to the radio – incessantly, it seems.
“There are so many records out – I find it confusing to go into a record store these days so I listen to the radio all the time. I wish that there were local DJs that would play a mix of things so that you’re always surprised hearing things outside of your radar. But that day is gone unless someone comes up with a show where you hear everything from Frank Sinatra to Bill Monroe to punk rock because it really does all make sense.
“I tend to go to the ’60s stations. I don’t know how we survived that decade – it was an extraordinary time with all the turbulence, politically and the music was so schizophrenic. But it was wonderful – there was this incredible bubblegum stuff and some of the best music that was ever made in pop music came out of that.”

Emmylou Harris plays The Gaiety, Dublin on November 23. Stumble Into Grace is out now on Nonesuch Records.