StarPolish Interview With Emmylou Harris - Page 3

STARPOLISH: It seems as if some established artists, such as Joni Mitchell, have become very bitter about the industry — not music per se, but the music industry. But I get a sense that your outlook is different — that you've remained a bit more optimistic about the possibility of having a career as you get older and evolve.

HARRIS: Well, you know that I've never had that huge chart-topping success and then had to go back — I've always been riding along. Certainly there have been peaks and valleys, of course, but for the most part I'm like a trench soldier, I've been out there on the bus — I'm on the bus now! (laughs) And even though there have been periods of drought for me creatively, there has been, especially in the last few years, a lot of rain, the good kind. So I've had a resurgence at a time when a lot of artists are slowing down. So I'm — at least for the time being — feeling very creative and feeling like, well, almost like what I felt like when I started out. But it's not like I'm all of a sudden having this huge commercial success, either. So I just think it's been the nature of my fan base, and... who knows? I've been very, very luck, and sometimes I think that huge success — not that I've ever had it — seems like it can sometimes work against you.

STARPOLISH: Certainly it can set unrealistic expectations...

HARRIS: I think it does. I will say that being out with Neil Young has been so fantastic. Here's an artist that is one of the great voices, both literally and figuratively, of rock and roll, of American music, of world music, who has never stopped, as he says, following the muse. Everything goes into the music. And he gets an idea and he trusts that idea and he follows it. And he has had the success and made the money to be able to do it, but everything has gone back into the well.

The New Album

STARPOLISH: Let's talk a bit about the new album, Stumble Into Grace. Earlier in your career you became known as an exquisite interpreter of other's people music, but over the last couple of albums you've really born a larger load of the songwriting responsibilities yourself. Was that because you felt more confidant in your abilities, or do you feel you have more to say?

HARRIS: I kind of felt that I had to do it after Wrecking Ball, because Wrecking Ball was such an epiphany and a resurgence of creative energy for me. And I felt so energized by it that I wanted to go back to that sound, to that place. At one point Daniel [Lanois] and I were going to do the record together and probably have Malcolm [Burns] there and regroup that team — that was kind of the general conversation. Daniel had said to me, "You really need to write the next record." And I knew that you always want the muse to be there, but you kind of have to pay the price, too — you have to bring something to the table, and I had to bring something beside my skills as an interpreter and as a song collector. And the only thing I had was the fact that I had written some songs in the past, and I felt if I could write some songs for the next album, and that would be enough.

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