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Local musicians talk about Emmylou

Emmylou Harris has inspired legions of musicians in her 35-year career, bridging gender, genre and generation gaps with her exquisite voice and talent for discovering the heart of the song. Indianapolis has its fair share of Emmylou enthusiasts, and we gave four of them a chance to tell their story.

Gary Wasson has been part of the Indianapolis music scene since the 1980s, including an 11-year stint with old-time country band Sindacato. He currently plays with the Spud Puppies and Fair & Square, and hosts the long-running Sunday night open stage at Barley Island Brewery.

Wasson first became aware of Harris “in the mid-1970s after hearing her on the radio. The first record of hers I bought was Roses in the Snow, a lovely acoustic, almost bluegrass-sounding album.

“I suppose one of the most important ways she has influenced me — in addition to her outstanding records and performances — is that she helps me feel good about singing and recording other people’s songs,” Wasson relates. “Emmylou Harris writes relatively few of the songs she records and performs. She is a fantastic ‘song finder’ as well as songwriter. There is this idea that in order to be taken seriously a performer must write all his or her songs — I have thought that way myself, oddly. I am not a very prolific songwriter, and so I need to find other people’s songs, too. With the example of someone like Emmylou, I have come to feel fine with that.”

Cara Jean Wahlers plays with 19Clark25, fronts Susan the Desperate Seekers and is recording her first solo record. “Emmylou has always been a texture in my history as a musician,” Wahlers says. “As my appreciation of country music deepened, I started hearing her more and more, singing harmonies on the albums my grandfather and father listened to, though it was never explained to me who she was. It wasn’t until I started playing guitar and singing that I actually went out and purchased one of her albums. It knocked me on my ass. I’d never actually had a preference for music before; I grew up playing classically … and it was always assigned to me to be learned, so I never got to pick. Emmylou was the first female musician I ever really fell in love with.”

Folk-pop singer and songwriter Noah East says that as a vocalist and a songwriter, “Emmylou’s influence on me comes in the vein of her voice. I first heard her when I was about 8 years old, and I had never heard someone sing like that. It was so otherworldly and unlike anything I had heard up until that point. I didn’t know that a voice could do that. I was raised on Paul Simon and Rod Stewart. For a woman to be that powerful, yet so beautiful, was something entirely new to me.”

Americana-folk musician Kriss Luckett has been performing for over 20 years. “Emmylou has influenced me of course with her voice and style, but also through her diversity and her steadfast devotion to music. She can play everything from a crooner ballad to singer-songwriter style to rock-edged country, and pull it all off with style and grace. She’s also someone who inspires me from the standpoint that she has remained a constant presence in music for decades, and it seems she’ll be doing it for decades more. That’s not easy, especially for women.”