The London Observer a couple of months ago did an interview with country singer Emmylou Harris, who I have counted as my favorite singer for as long as I can remember. The interview and the article really catches the significance of this very intelligent, incredibly talented and influential singer.
Angel of the South Observer (UK) 11/02/03
I think this observation is valid and well-due recognition. It was Emmy who made it possible for a Merle Haggard to issue an antiwar song like "That's the News":
It would not be overstating the case to say that Emmylou Harris was set free by country music, period, and that she, in turn, helped free the music of the prejudices and stereotypes that had stalked the most conservative of American popular art forms throughout the progressive Sixties. Though The Eagles may have sold more records with their slick Californian country-rock, and her late, great mentor, Gram Parsons, may now be recognised as the music's progenitor and greatest visionary, Harris can stake her claim to being the woman who single-handedly carried the torch for that vision, touring relentlessly, and releasing well over 20 albums on which she became the greatest living interpreter of country standards, and a great, if fitfully productive, songwriter in her own right. Her voice lends itself to sad songs and, as she put it, 'That pool of melancholy just gets wider and deeper as you get older.'
She also confirms the story, well-know to her fans, about writing a letter to Pete Seeger as a teenager:
'I sure did. See, I just didn't know how to get where I wanted to be. I had lived a sheltered life, I'd never stood on a picket line, or hopped a freight train, so I didn't think I had the credibility to sing the kind of songs that seemed to come from hardship.' Did Seeger write back. 'He did, bless him. He said, "Don't worry about suffering and hardship, girl, it's going to come to you one way or another whether you want it to or not."'
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