Twelve-time Grammy winner Emmylou Harris has been hailed as a major figure in several of America’s most important musical movements of the past three decades. A steadfast supporter of roots music and a skilled interpreter of compelling songs, she also has been associated with a diverse array of admiring collaborators.

The songbird’s contributions to country-rock, the bluegrass revival, folk music, and the Americana movement are widely lauded, and in recent years Emmylou Harris certainly has carved out a sound that is uniquely her own. Her 1995 Wrecking Ball was a watershed album for her, combining several world-music elements with acoustic instruments, driving percussion, and a folk/roots flavor. The new style would evolve on a number of Harris’ subsequent releases, including 1998’s Spyboy, 1999’s Western Wall (a collaboration with Linda Ronstadt), 2000’s Red Dirt Girl and 2003’s Stumble into Grace.
Harris took up guitar as a teenager inspired by the folk music of Joan Baez, Bob Dylan, Pete Seeger and Judy Collins. Starving-artist stints in Greenwich Village and Nashville led to regular club work in Washington D.C. Country-rock visionary Gram Parsons discovered her there and brought her to Los Angeles to become his duet partner in 1972.

After apprenticing Parsons, she emerged as a solo star with Pieces of the Sky in 1975. The album electrified the country-music world, becoming the first of her eight consecutive gold or platinum records. Her next 3 releases made her an unquestioned country-rock leader. Emmylou’s oday, Emmylou Harris is regarded as a key figure in a movement that united rock audiences with country traditionalists. She made country music “hip” and brought it to a vast youth market for the first time. Then she led the way back to neo-traditionalist sounds with 1979’s Blue Kentucky Girl. The following year’s Roses In the Snow paved the road toward the bluegrass revival.

By the 1990s Harris took a leading role in yet another musical revolution—the Americana movement that gave country music its “alternative” wing. She reinvented her sound with the acoustic band The Nash Ramblers and honored one of country music’s most legendary concert halls with the Grammy-winning Live at the Ryman CD of 1991. She earned another Grammy four years later with Wrecking Ball.

The wide range of her repertoire is mirrored by the musicians who have sought her out as a collaborator. She has recorded with artists from diverse points on the musical compass such as The Band, Johnny Cash, Elvis Costello, Bright Eyes, Bob Dylan, Little Feat, Tammy Wynette, Neil Young, Bill Monroe, Lyle Lovett, Roy Orbison, Bonnie Raitt, Garth Brooks, Lucinda Williams, and George Jones. Stars such as Ricky Skaggs, Vince Gill, Rodney Crowell, Jon Randall and The Whites have emerged from the ranks of her bands.

Billboard magazine honored Emmylou Harris with its prestigious Century Award in 1999. At the time, she was lauded as a “truly venturesome, genre-transcending pathfinder” who being given the award “to acknowledge the uncommon excellence of (her) still-unfolding body of work.”

In 2006, Emmylou and Mark Knopfler released their cd of duets, All The Roadrunning to critical praise and fanfare. Following a tour of select markets, Emmylou and Mark subsequently released a DVD and live CD package, Real Live Roadrunning, capturing the special live performances of the two legends. In the fall of 2007, Emmylou will release Songbird, a career-retrospective, five-disc box set that will feature not only several staples over her lengthy career, but also duets, difficult-to-find or unreleased material, and songs that Emmylou has recorded for films, as well as a DVD of select performances.