Emmylou Harris "The Road"

I got to interview Emmylou Harris once, by phone.

Being an interviewer gives you license to ask questions. It even gives you license to ask questions that you wouldn't ask a total stranger under any other circumstances.

In short, you can ask personal questions---up to a point---without seeming . . . unusual.

Musicians (and actors) have been asked probing questions thousands of times before, and if your question crosses a line, most know how to simply deflect it if it's something they don't want to answer.

Knowing this as an interviewer, I'm aware of the kind of question a particular interviewee has been ask before, and I usually try to avoid asking it if I know they're not going to answer.

Talking to Emmylou . . . I really wanted to ask probing questions about her relationship with Gram Parsons. But geez, Gram died nearly 40 years ago, so if she were going to talk about it in detail, she would have done it somewhere else already.

I mean, she'll talk about him. I asked her an open-ended question about him, to see where she'd take it.

I'm my interview fantasy world, I'd ask her to talk about what her relationship with Gram Parsons was like, and she'd refuse to answer, and instead tell me that everything she has to say, is in the song, "The Road."

And really, telling you everything you want to know through their art, is how pretty much every musician (and actor) would prefer to answer all questions . . .


See the video on Youtube.