Emmylou Harris (photo: Jack Spencer)
Emmylou Harris was 16 when she wrote a six-page letter to iconic folk singer Pete Seeger. She wanted to be a folk singer, too, she explained, but worried that her life was too sheltered. She lived at home with her parents, and figured she needed to suffer for her art.
“He wrote me back and told me in a very gentle way not to worry about life experience and suffering, that it would come my way,” Harris said Tuesday, after learning of Seeger’s death at age 94.
Pete Seeger sits on his porch above the Hudson River at Beacon, N.Y., in 2004. (Photo: Jim McKnight/File/Associated Press)
Harris found his response inspiring, and later found it to be correct. She went on to a career that landed her in the Country Music Hall of Fame, and that has exemplified a Seeger-esque insistence that music is about expression, connection and community. She also came to know Seeger, who remembered her letter and said its sincerity knocked him off his feet.
“He was exactly like you thought he’d be from his music,” she said. “He was the godfather of this music, and he oversaw all of it benevolently. Music to him was a means to connect us all, through the joy of singing.”
Seeger was never a Nashville guy, though he recorded his “Rainbow Race” album here in 1971 with musicians including Charlie Daniels, and he came here at Johnny Cash’s request to tape ABC’s “The Johnny Cash Show.” He told author David King Dunaway, “It’s no accident that Music City is Nashville, and that when people like myself try to recapture a sense of American music, we find ourselves just gravitating to southern music.”
Southern musicians also gravitated to Seeger, who was a profound influence on Nashville-affiliated artists including Harris, Kris Kristofferson, Nanci Griffith, The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, Steve Earle and scores of others. Many of Seeger’s admirers met him, spoke with him, stood with him and sang with him. He was accessible, and indelible.
