Emmylou Harris may have already announced another final “final” UK concert – headlining The Long Road Festival, at Stanford Hall near Rugby, on August 30 – following what was originally billed as her last ever European and UK tour in May, but she is emphatic as regards her recording future. “Absolutely not,” Harris tells Andy Fyfe in the latest issue of MOJO, on sale now. “There will never be another album from me.”
“I made that decision not to record again some years ago,” she adds, referring in part to her 26th and most recent album, 2011’s Hard Bargain, the biggest-selling of her career. “I don’t know how many records I have out, but I have a huge amount of material that still melts my butter, so to speak, and already it’s hard enough to fit everything I want into an hour and a half set besides bringing some new material into it.”
Even so, Harris recently released a single with singer songwriters Rodney Crowell and Lera Lynn, Go Light A Candle. Filled with a quiet rage and a chink of hope, it was written by Crowell immediately after Donald Trump’s re-election as US President. “I wanted to bang the trash cans and write a good old Steve Earle protest song,” Crowell tells MOJO, “but it seemed like my sensibility took over and said, Let’s go a quieter way with this.”
The song gently wonders how the world has gotten so crazy, and how we’ve all allowed (mostly) men to screw it up so completely.
“Yeah, I am taking the piss out of our gender a little bit. I know there are women who are backing our regime now, as there were in Germany in the '30s, but I’ve mainly poked the bear of our gender, with this greedy bastard man at the centre of it all.”
Crowell, too, is touring the UK around the time of Harris’s final dates, but it’s unlikely they will pair up as their itineraries don’t mesh. Albert Lee, however, might offer fans some hope of Hot Band reunion action in between his own May tour dates: “I played with her a few months ago so, you know, watch this space!”
For Harris, it’s not so much the playing that’s led to put an end to long-distance touring.
“I’ve just turned 79, and the travel can get a bit exhausting,” she explains. “I still don't feel my age, so to speak, but I do know that my energy is not as it was. I’m going to keep performing in the States where I’ve gotten into a routine of going out once a month to fill up the coffers. I still need to make a living.”
And while there may not be any new Emmylou Harris albums, there are plenty in the catalogue to reconsider, most recently Spyboy, an often-overlooked 1998 outing with Buddy Miller, Darryl Johnson and Bradley Blade.
“Buddy discovered these extra tracks that weren’t on the original album, so New West re-released it late last year. The energy in that quartet and the way they reinvented my old material was quite extraordinary.”
Finally, Harris has been working on a memoir, another reason she’s ready to semi-retire from the road.
“I don’t want to be away from my writing room for too long, she says. I’ve been talking about this book for so long, but it’s going at snail’s pace, so I guess I have to get a little more aggressive about the writing. It’s harder than I thought!”
Emmylou Harris tour news and tickets HERE; Rodney Crowell news HERE; and for Albert Lee shows, click HERE.
“I loved very little more in my life than Gram Parsons...”
Haunted by the death of Gram Parsons, Emmylou Harris built a solo career on her own version of Cosmic American Music. As she prepares to play UK shows for the last time, and with the help of key Hot Band alumni, she speaks exclusively to MOJO about her mid-’70s hot streak, culminating 50 years ago with her masterpiece, Luxury Liner. “I was conscious of continuing whatever Gram was trying to do,” she tells Andy Fyfe. Get the latest issue of MOJO to read the interview in full. More information and to order a copy HERE.
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