Emmylou Harris and Rodney Crowell on Duets, Friendship, Dolly and Gram
At this point, how much are you still learning things from each other and pushing each other, in terms of songwriting?
Crowell: I find myself feeling really good as a vocalist, singing with Emmy. That feeling opens the doorways where I hunt and find things that I might probably wouldn’t do on my own. The last two or three years that Emmy and I have been working together have been very beneficial to me as a singer. I would presume that the flipside of that is that Emmy may feel good about herself as a songwriter.
Harris: I’ve always loved Rodney’s voice from the first time I heard it on a little cassette, way back in 1974, and then when we met and sang together it was just as natural as anything. We used to have fun working up a song – “OK, now you take the lead. OK, let’s do it in a different key and you take the lead,” — and it always sounded great both ways. It’s not a matter of who sings lead; it’s just like a dance. Even though I’m not much of a dancer!
How did you end up hearing that cassette?
Harris: Well, I had been signed to Warner Brothers because of my appearance on Gram Parsons’ two records [Grievous Angel, Sleepless Nights], so I had gotten a contract and they put me with a producer, Brian Ahern, who had a very successful track record producing Anne Murray. I was up in Canada to listen to material and we started in the morning and I didn’t like anything, but I wouldn’t say anything. Brian had the sense to say, “You’ll know right away if you like it. It’s OK if you don’t like it.” There wasn’t anything that really appealed to me, but he had gotten a tape of Rodney through a friend who worked with Anne Murray.
Crowell: Skip Beckwith had just happened to be coming through Nashville. He knew a guitar player that I knew. Somehow they wound up at my house and he says, “You got any songs?” I said, “Here’s five songs on a cassette.”
Harris: But he sent them to Brian to play them for Anne Murray, right?
Crowell: Yeah. [Laughs].
Harris: Because he didn’t know anything about me. . . But Brian, when there was nothing left, said, “I got this cassette.” It was still in the little mailing wrapper and he said, “He comes highly recommended by somebody whose opinion I value,” so we listened for the first time — “Bluebird Wine,” “Song for the Life”. . . We got excited and Brian started trying to contact Rodney. I had to go back to D.C. the next day so Brian arranged for Rodney to meet him there. He came to my little gig at a place called the Childe Harold, which unfortunately is no longer there. We sat in on some things and the next day he played me “Till I Gain Control Again” and I thought, “Man, I have found the mother lode here.” For a long time, I was the first person who heard everything he would write.
And now, 41 years later, how do you still find that spark with each other?
Harris: I just love Rodney’s company, and he also happens to be a great guitar player, great singer, great songwriter, and he’s got a great energy about him that I really feed off of.
Crowell: And vice versa. I’ll put it this way – Emmy’s mother used to say, “You’re like Emmy’s little brother,” and I always took that in the spirit in which she said it, that there’s some kind of sibling sort of friendship that is really easy to pick up where we left off.
How has being on the road together changed through the years?
Harris: We get to bring our dogs now! [Laughs]
Crowell: Yeah, we just didn’t think of it then.