The Rest Of My Interview With Emmylou Harris

Open up the most recent issue of the Source and you'll find the piece I wrote on country legend Emmylou Harris. Unfortunately space constraints meant that I couldn't fit all of our 25 minute conversation into the print article. Fortunately... I can put the rest of it here for you to read!
Here is what Emmylou had to say about the following topics...
On narrowing down her most favorite collaborations:
"I don't want to sound like a Pollyanna, but they are all special. Every artist is unique and obviously when you work with people who you've idolized it's quite special. Bob Dylan was pretty surprising. It's like, wow! I sang on a Bob Dylan album."
On working with Mark Knopfler:
"Working with Mark Knobfler, that was sorta my reward for all my years of service. I was able to just show up and have a good time. He did all the heavy lifting and even encouraged me to bring some of my own songs in."
On her Trio albums with Linda Ronstadt and Dolly Parton:
"The special thing about the trio is that it grew out of my friendship with Linda. We became fast friends. Blood brothers we called it. The thing that joined us was that Dolly was our favorite girl singer. Neither of us knew her but I heard she was coming to town and invited her to my house. I called Linda and said 'Dolly is coming over.' [When Dolly got there] the first thing we did was get a guitar and sing a harmony and bam... we knew we had to make a record."
On the early experience with The Hot Band:
"Things eventually led to The Hot Band. The time was right and none of us expected the first record to do as well as it did. I guess that's the benefit of low expectations. We got The Hot Band on the road. Basically, the label loaned me the money for that. Eventually I made it back in royalties and was able to go on."
On songwriting:
“When I’m writing I don’t even have a thought about genre. I’m lucky if I get a lyric that works with a melody and then I can go from there. I’m always drawn to the lyrics first.”

On the song "My Name Is Emmett Till":
"If you grew up during the civil rights movement you knew about him. In a sense it was just a retelling of his story imaging it as he would. Not in anger but just talking about it.”

On the song "Darlin' Kate":
“The most specific [song] personally is about Kate McGarrigle. She was someone very special to me. I just threw myself with them and they brought me into their whole crazy musical family. I was a part of her life and death as the family invited me to be a part of her passing. It was truly extraordinary and happened  while I getting ready to cut the record.”
On her animal shelter Bonaparte's Retreat:
“Please have your readers check out Bonaparte’s Retreat. We rescue animals from metro animal control and have been featured on the Today Show. I encourage people to adopt from their local shelters because animals have such a short window of time before they are destroyed.”