Emmylou Harris releases her new album this week called "Hard Bargain." In it, Harris wrote the majority of the songs herself, and summed up the experience as "terrifying" in a radio interview last month at the South by Southwest music festival.
"I still don’t know if I have a craft," Harris said. "I just bumble through it and hope for the inspiration."
Harris has had three albums on which she wrote most of her songs. Since 1969, she sang on more than two dozen albums, often singing duets with legends from Willie Nelson to Elvis Costello. The New York Times describes her voice as slender, tangy and determined.
At SXSW, Harris previewed "Hard Bargain" in multiple private and public showcases. She did a radio performance at a hotel ballroom in front of a large audience.
Known for honky-tonk, rockabilly, bluegrass and country-folk during the 1970s and 80s, Harris has transformed her music repeatedly over the years. Born in Alabama and eventually ending up in Nashville, 64-year-old Harris’s career never lets her settle for too long.
“Someone who’s been on the road for 40 years-- that’s me,” Harris told The New York Times. “I have spent a good deal of my life out there, and I have no regrets.
In the early 90’s, country radio didn’t play her album “Cowgirl’s Prayer,” and Harris was slated to became a legend of the pass. Instead of accepting her role as an older-generation performer, Harris decided to change. She hired Daniel Lanois, who was also producing for U2 and Peter Gabriel.
Their album "Wrecking Ball" in 1995 was haunting and weathered; far from the old country trappings.
"Sometimes you just have to go and look completely in a different direction and completely change your environment to break up your logjam," Harris said.
“Hard Bargain” shakes things up once again for Harris. Her albums are generally full of guest vocalists, but this one just has Harris’s voice, along with her band.
Her next few years involve more touring, a duo album with songwriter Rodney Crowell, and other collaborations. She may even write more songs, if life gets inspiring enough.
"You get to a certain age when the life that has preceded you is going to be longer than what is ahead of you. You just accept it-- this is where you are at this point in your life," Harris said to The New York Times. "It wasn’t like there was a theme in my head when I sat down to write. The ideas came out of what was happening in my world."
