Short Biography

Emmylou Harris (born April 2, 1947 in Birmingham, Alabama) is an American country singer-songwriter and musician. In addition to her work as a solo artist and bandleader, both as an interpreter of other composers` works and as a singer-songwriter, she is a sought-after backing vocalist and duet partner, working with numerous other highly successful, well-known artists. Emmylou Harris was the daughter of a career military father, a Marine Corps officer who was reported missing in action in Korea in 1952 and spent ten months as a prisoner of war. Born in Birmingham, Alabama, she spent her childhood in North Carolina and Woodbridge, Virginia, where she graduated from Gar-Field Senior High School as class valedictorian. In high school she also won a drama scholarship to the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, where she began to study music seriously, learning to play the songs of Bob Dylan and Joan Baez on guitar. Leaving college to pursue her musical aspirations, she moved to New York, working as a waitress to support herself while performing folk songs in Greenwich Village coffeehouses. She married fellow songwriter Tom Slocum in 1969 and in the following year recorded her first album, Gliding Bird. Harris and Slocum soon divorced, and Harris and her newborn daughter Hallie moved in with her parents in the Maryland suburbs on the edge of Washington, D.C.

Who's Dated Who content is contributed and edited by our readers. Please report errors or omissions on this page.