Emmylou Harris loves everything one singer has ever made: “I can just close my eyes and pick”
Emmylou Harris is truly the first lady of country.
Bridging the countercultural folk world of Joan Baez and Bob Dylan with the more classical scene later presided over by Dolly Parton, her angelic vocals united the music world. With an eclectic taste encapsulating many genres, Harris was just as much a music fan as a music legend. Neil Young, however, stands out as a clear favourite.
Harris stands as a central figure in a distinct era and scene. After leaving drama school to slum it with the Beatniks, she landed in the Greenwich folk scene that included Dylan, Leonard Cohen and more. But she always had something different. Unlike Joni Mitchell or Baez, Harris was more clean-cut country than her peers.
But it was that distinctive and sweet country vocal that quickly caught attention. Most notably, it caught the attention of Gram Parsons, the country-rock leader behind the Flying Burrito Brothers and The Byrds. It was Parsons who discovered Harris, taking her under his wing and back into the music industry that she’d all but given up on by the early 1970s.
Neil Young, another singer who was deeply inspired by Bob Dylan and the scene he was crafting, buzzed around the same world, merging country, folk, and rock together. One of Young’s bands, Buffalo Springfield, in particular, solidified his place in the Californian counter-cultural scene that Gram Parsons preceded over. It was really only a matter of time until Harris and Young would cross paths.
When they eventually did, Young quickly became one of Harris’ favourite artists. The pair seemed to align when it came to their ethos on music. During her Desert Island Discs interview, where she picked ‘Emperor of Wyoming’ as an essential track, she said, “Music is right up there with food and water. I think it touches them in a place that is very primal.”
It’s a belief that she sees in Young, too. Talking about the musician, Harris said, “Here’s an artist that is one of the great voices, both literally and figuratively, of rock and roll, of American music, of world music, who has never stopped, as he says, following the muse. Everything goes into the music.” While touring together in 2003, Harris added, “Neil Young has always inspired me.”
To have spent over five decades at the top of the rock world is a feat not many artists can achieve. Neil Young has done it not with gimmicks or pop prowess but by continuously writing songs which are deliberate, artistic and authentic. There are few artists that feel as genuine as Neil Youngand that seems to connect with Harris.
But perhaps her greatest compliment was toward the density of Young’s catalogue. Not only has he produced a myriad of albums, but he has done so with a somewhat unwavering commitment to quality. It means, for Harris at least, any single song of his might be considered her favourite.
When picking her top tracks of all time for the BBC, Young seemed like an obvious choice for her. She told the station, “Neil Young has always been an artist that I can just close my eyes and pick any of his records when I want to listen to something.”
As an enduring friendship built of mutual respect and a love for music, the two legends have supported each other’s careers since they met. In 1978, Harris was invited to sing on The Last Waltz, The Band’s final album, alongside Young. Then, in 1995, Young sang on Harris’ album, Wrecking Ball. The pair reunited again in 2003 to tour together, both still proving to be huge fans of one another.
