There's serendipity to my story': Emmylou Harris on Gram Parsons, her garlanded career and her dog rescue centre

"I hadn't seen the light, she says. I was a folk singer who believed you don't ever work with drummers as they wreck everything. It was Gram Parsons, of the Byrds and the Flying Burrito Brothers, who changed her mind. Their musical partnership was brief Parsons died after an accidental drug overdose at the Joshua Tree national park in 1973, aged 26 but his impact on her was profound. He had one foot in country and one in rock and was conversant in both."

"It can be corny! she says. Country music aims straight for the heart and when it misses, it misses really badly. And that's the stuff that makes the most noise and takes up most space. She pauses. But then you hear something like George Jones's Once You've Had the Best, and you hear the simplicity of his phrasing and the earnestness with which he sings. There's a soulfulness to country music that can elude you if you just look at the big picture."

"That soulfulness, along with her crystalline vocals, has been the thread running through Harris's career. Blurring the lines between country, folk and rock, she has been celebrated as a songwriter and a matchless interpreter of other people's songs. After Parsons died, Harris put together a country-rock ensemble called the Hot Band and released a string of solo albums, the first of which was 1975's Pieces of the Sky, where she lamented Parsons' death in the self-written Boulder to Birmingham,"

Emmylou Harris began as a folk singer in the late 1960s and initially rejected country music, avoiding drummers and mainstream country conventions. Gram Parsons introduced her to country-rock, bridging country and rock and profoundly changing her approach. Parsons died in 1973, but Harris honored his influence by forming the Hot Band and launching a solo career. Her first solo album, Pieces of the Sky (1975), included the self-penned Boulder to Birmingham and achieved gold status in the US. Harris's crystalline vocals and emphasis on country soulfulness guided subsequent albums like Roses in the Snow and The Ballad of Sally Rose.

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