The McGarrigle Sisters & Emmylou Harris "Green Green Rocky Road"

Barnes Newberry played this song on a recent episode of My Back Pages," and hearing it took me right back to one of my many awkward fan moments.

I was at the Ryman in Nashville, Tennessee, and I had paid a little extra in my ticket to a Anti-Death Penalty benefit show, so I could go to a post show Meet & Greet with the artists.

Not only had a met Sister Helen Prejean, the nun who wrote "Dead Man Walking" (portrayed in the film by Susan Sarandon), but I had already met Steve Earle.

Indigo Girls and Jackson Browne were also signing autographs, but it was Emmylou Harris that I really wanted to meet.

We were in a backstage area where there were a good 100 or so fans, surrounding each artist, who were each milling about the room, not unlike how Goofy and Donald and Pluto work a crowd at Disneyworld.

I had been in the right place at the right time when Emmylou appeared, and though she was quickly surrounded by the crowd, I was right up front. Unfortunately, I was just to her left, and she started signing autographs, slowing turning to her right, away from me.

And as she turned, this enormous, rock solid Ryman security staffer stayed stuck to her left shoulder. As she turned, he turned, edging me out.

Like a man looking down from a mountain, he cast his eyes down at my somewhat pitiful, squeezed-out fandom and said, softly, "Sorry, Dude."

So I waited, with a lot of time to think.

What should I say to Emmylou Harris?

I was a huge fan. Maybe not her "number one fan" on the planet. But I had seen her in concert the previous summer, and was just knocked out. I had enormous respect for her work, and was sincere in my devotion.

I didn't want to be one of those weird autograph seekers, who just want the paper. They may not even be real fans.

No, I had to say something that let her know I wasn't just a casual fan.

But it also couldn't suggested that I was a psycho fan either. I didn't want to sound rabid or obsessed.

I settled on "Green Green Rocky Road."

The McGarrigle Sisters had put out a CD in the recent past, on which Emmylou guest appeared. And this was one of the songs she sang on.

I figured, if I mentioned this project, it suggested that I was a serious music fan, and was well-aware of things she was working on. But it was recent enough that it wasn't some piece of obscure minutiae.

Confident in my choice, I watched her patiently, politely, generously, give each fan a few moments, and then graciously, gracefully move to the next. Say what you will about Country Music, there is no other genre who's stars are nicer to their fans.

She had almost fully circled around at this point. The crowd had dissipated. It was only Emmylou, the security rock, a few more autograph seeker, and me.

My turn.

I handed her my concert stub to sign and said, "I loved that version of 'Green Green Rocky Road' that you did with the McGarrigle Sisters."

And then she did something unexpected.

She looked up, brightened, and said "Aren't they wonderful!" and as she did this, she reached out to touch my hand.

And I then also did something unexpected.

My knees buckled.

It was just a split-second, but I was, apparently, so overcome in my fandom over the fact that Emmylou Harris was about to touch me, that I lost my balance.

And in that split-second, she pulled her hand back, gave me a flash of a look that said, "What's wrong with this guy," regained her poise, smiled and moved on.

So much for not looking like a crazy fan . . .

Check out the track at Grooveshark.

Hear Emmylou, live this weekend during our coverage of Newport Folk, and check out her album tonight as we play it in its entirety for our Album Of The Week.

Steve Earle "Carrie Brown"

I often wonder what life was like before instant replay.

I mean, in sports, there are infamous cases of officials making calls that were shown to be blatantly wrong on replay.

And beyond sports, tapes and recordings and photographs offer a chance to look back at a moment, and see it in a clearer light without the distractions of your own bias or self-perception.

Sometimes, you can even see a whole new narrative.

I’d gone with a group of friends to Nashville to the historic Ryman Auditorium, for a benefit show put on by a few groups who had come together to oppose the death penalty.

After an afternoon talk by Sister Helen Prejean (the nun who was portrayed by Susan Sarandon in Dead Man Walking), we were treated to an evening with The Indigo Girls, Jackson Browne, Emmylou Harris and Steve Earle.

We bought the upgraded tickets that got us to a Meet & Greet backstage after the show, and that was my chance to talk to Steve Earle.

And as I waited my turn for an autograph, I tried to think of something thoughtful to say.

At the time, I was living in Abingdon, Virginia, working at a radio station there. But just prior to my radio gig, I had been a producer at an NBC affiliate in Bristol.

Bristol is actually two towns---Bristol Virginia and Bristol Tennessee. Two towns, two mayors, two police forces, two everything. And the border runs right through State Street. On the left side of the street it’s Virginia and on the right side it’s Tennessee.

By coincidence, Earle had recently put out his first bluegrass album, with The Del McCoury Band, called “The Mountain,” and it contained a song about a young man who kills the boyfriend of the girl he longs for but can't have. And the song contains this great line:

I walked around in Bristol town a bitter broken man
A heart that pined for Carrie Brown and a pistol in my hand
We met again on State Street poor Billy Wise and me
I shot him in Virginia and he died in Tennessee

Perfect! I’ll tell him I live right there! That’ll open up a dialogue and Steve and I will become friends forever!

So my turn comes around and I hand him my ticket and a Sharpie. And as he’s signing the front, I tell him I’m from Bristol and I think it’s cool that he wrote a song set in my town.

He finishes his signature, looks up and hands me back the ticket and the marker, and says kinda gruff-ly, wearily, “Yeah, I thought Bristol was a pretty good place to set a Hillbilly murder ballad.” And he moves on to the next guy in line.

That's how I remember him---gruff, a little weary from working all day (he was one of the event organizers), and just a notch above tolerant.

My friend Rita snapped a picture of a moment in our exchange, and seeing the photo gave me a whole different perspective.

(I didn't see the photo until several weeks after the incident. This story takes place waaaayyy back in 1999, when we actually had to get film developed, so you didn't know how your pictures came out)

Earle's face is much brighter in the photo than how I remembered it. In fact, the moment it captures suggests that his delivery of the "Hillbilly murder ballad" line was gruff and crusty and a bit drawn out, purely for comic effect, and that cracking the joke made him smile.

Here's the photo.

And it even lends itself to a sillier interpretation.

With the ticket and the Sharpie in his hand, and the bright smile on his face, doesn't it look a little bit like Steve Earle is asking me for MY autograph?

Somewhat surprisingly, I couldn't find the Steve Earle/Del McCoury version of this song. But Youtube is always good for some amateurs taking a crack at a good tune.