Emmylou Harris

Her first marriage was to fellow songwriter Tom Slocum in 1969. The couple had a daughter but the marriage was short lived and ended in divorce.

She married Brian Ahern in 1977 and had a daughter with him. This marriage too ended in divorce.

She tied the knot for the third time in 1985. Her marriage with her third husband Paul Kennerley too was not destined to last forever and the couple divorced in 1993.

She was born in Alabama into a career military family. Her father, Walter Harris, was a decorated military officer who had spent ten months as a prisoner of war in Korea.

She went to the Garfield Senior High School before attending the University of North Carolina on a drama scholarship. During her college years she became serious about music.

She quit studies to pursue her musical aspirations and moved to New York where she started performing folk songs.

In 1971 she joined musician Gram Parsons who was looking for a female vocalist to work with him. She also toured with Parsons’ band, The Fallen Angels, and the duo gave wonderful performances which were loved by the audiences.

She worked with Parsons on the studio album, ‘Grievous Angel’ but Parsons died before the album could be released. The album was released posthumously in 1974. Even though Harris was devastated by Parsons’ death, she vowed to move on in her career.

In 1975, she released the album, ‘Pieces of the Sky’ which launched her career as a solo artist. This album contained the hit songs, ‘If I Could Only Win Your Love’ and ‘Too Far Gone’.

She released her album ‘Quarter Moon in a Ten Cent Town’ in 1978. The album reached No. 3 on the Billboard charts. It featured the song, ‘To Daddy’, written by Dolly Parton and the single ‘Leaving Louisiana in the Broad Daylight’.

She based her 1985 album ‘The Ballad of Sally Rose’ loosely on the relationship she once had with Gram Parsons. It was a concept album telling the story of a singer Sally Rose whose mentor is killed in a road accident.

Although she is a multiple award winning artist who has released several commercially and critically successful albums and singles, her best performing album is ‘Trio’ in which she collaborated with Dolly Parton and Linda Ronstadt. The album was a super hit and sold over four million copies.