The evening before San Francisco’s 2025 Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival the Masonic Auditorium hosted a tribute concert to Emmylou Harris, the only artist to have graced the festival stages for each of its 25 years. During his slot, Steve Earle spoke of seeing Gram Parsons in action in the early 1970s – “There was this girl singing with him, and I’ve been in love ever since like everyone else.” Two of Harris’s songs have previously been chosen as AUK Classic Clips. In December ’23, Tim Martin picked (You Never Can Tell) C’est La Vie. In November ’25 Peter Thompson went for Where Will I Be. Judging by Alasdair Fotheringham’s recent review of Harris’s Farewell European Tour gig in Rotterdam (here)there were few, if any, dry eyes in the house. For me, the Emmylou Harris song most likely to trigger lacrimation is The Road, the opening track of her 2011 album Hard Bargain. My search for a suitable clip led to CMT (Country Music Television) Crossroads, a show that ran for 23 seasons up to 2024. This series aimed to demonstrate “the far-reaching roots of country music by pairing country artists with musicians from other genres”. Episode 42, from the Factory in Franklin, Tennessee, in September 2012, combined the talents of Harris and Mumford & Sons, with Dobro and slide guitar legend Jerry Douglas thrown in for good measure. Between them they have amassed, at the last count, 32 Grammy awards. I have been lucky enough to see them all in concert individually; this CMT Crossroads rendition of The Road allowed me witness their collaborative interpretation.
The Road is a reflection on Harris’s shared journey with Gram Parsons, as was her earlier song Boulder to Birmingham, from her second studio album Pieces of the Sky (1975). Prior to their paths crossing, Parsons had abandoned a Harvard theology semester in favour of founding the International Submarine Band. Short-lived shifts with The Byrds and The Flying Burrito Brothers followed. Meanwhile, Harris had recorded one album, Gliding Bird (1970), and was performing at folk clubs in New York, Washington, D.C., and Virginia Beach. The agent of serendipity responsible for uniting the musicians was Harris’s babysitter. In a 2020 Musicians Hall of Fame interview with Joe Chambers, Harris explained how this came about (here). The Flying Burrito Brothers, some time after Parsons’ departure, went for a post show drink after performing at Washington, D.C.’s Cellar Door club, and by chance walked in while Harris was playing It Wasn’t God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels. Impressed by what they heard, the band asked Harris to sit in with them one night. A few days later, Parsons went to see The Flying Burrito Brothers in Baltimore. In conversation with Chris Hillman after the show Parsons said that he was looking for a female singer. Hillman mentioned the singer they had heard a few days earlier, but didn’t remember her name or have a phone number. Fortunately, one of the venue’s production staff also happened to be Harris’s babysitter and overheard their discussion, so was able to provide both. The musical chemistry between Parsons and Harris was central to his debut solo album, GP (1973), and blossomed on his posthumous sophomore release, Grievous Angel.
In September 1973 Parsons was found dead in Room 8 of The Joshua Tree Inn, beside Twentynine Palms Highway in California. He was just seven weeks shy of being eligible for membership of the “27 Club”. Harris, also aged 26 years at the time, has borne the weight of Parsons’ premature death for over half a century – “But the road we shared together once/Will never be the same”. A few months after the release of Harris’s Hard Bargain album my annual visit to a Golden State bolthole coincided with the 38th anniversary of Parsons’ death. My wife and I drove to the Joshua Tree National Park (JTNP) and pulled into the Cap Rock parking lot. After following the trail to the other side of Cap Rock we spotted the slab of rock painted with “Safe At Home”. We paused for a while and after listening to The Road paid our respects to the originator of Cosmic American Music. A few yards away from us was the spot where Parsons’ road manager, Phil Kaufman, had attempted to cremate the Cowboy Angel’s body having stolen his Louisiana bound coffin from Los Angeles International airport, in accordance with a pact that the pair had made, in country-rock’s most notorious act of attempted body disposal. Our hire car was the only vehicle in the parking lot when we returned to it. On the ground beside the car a white dove strutted out to greet us. I swear on the wings of that song it would not fly away. Three chords and the truth it was the ghost of Gram.
There have been other songs inspired by Gram Parsons. My Man, by the Eagles, was written by his former fellow Flying Burrito Brother Bernie Leadon – “Like a flower, he bloomed ’til that old hickory wind/ Called him home”. Poco’s song Crazy Eyes is the title track of an album released 4 days before Parsons’ death. An early Tom Russell song, circa 1975, Joshua Tree, tells of “A man who drank the fountain/ And left his ashes blowin’/ Cross the sands of Joshua Tree”. In 1999 The Flying Burrito Brothers recorded the rather bizarre Ode to Gram. The Vevo music video for Allison Moorer’s Send Down An Angel (2000) was shot in JTNP and features singer-songwriter Jonny Kaplan, who portrays Parsons emerging from flames wearing a replica of his signature ‘pills and weed’ Nudie suit. Gillian Welch’s I Dream A Highway (2001) contains the line “Now you be Emmylou and I’ll be Gram”. Parsons’ road manager and the night of incineration are the subject of Megafaun’s Kaufman’s Ballad (2009). The story still resonates with a new generation of songwriters; the official music video for First Aid Kit’s Emmylou (2012) sees the Söderberg sisters follow the Cap Rock Trail, and Ruthie Collins visits the Joshua Tree Inn in the official music video for her song Joshua Tree (2019). A fine collection of tributes to be sure, but it’s the emotional intensity of Emmylou Harris’s The Road that hits me the hardest.
“People come, people go
And nothing ever lasts
But I still think about you
Wonder where you are
Can you see me from some place
Up there among the stars?
But down here under heaven
There never was a chart
To guide our way across
This crooked highway of the heart
And if it’s only all about
The journey in the end
On that road I’m glad
I came to know you, my old friend”
The JTNP is a designated International Dark Sky Park. Stargazers soak up its spirituality and as they stand amidst those monzogranite mounds may just catch a shimmer up there in the Milky Way from a High Flyin’ Bird on the last leg of his journey home.
