MUSIC

Verizon Wireless Theater presents Emmylou Harris.

With a career that has sold more than 15 million albums worldwide, garnered a remarkable 12 Grammy Awards and stirred music lovers for more than thirty years and counting, Emmylou Harris has been rightfully hailed as a major figure in several of America’s most important musical movements of the past three decades. A steadfast supporter of roots music and a skilled interpreter of compelling songs, she also has been associated with a diverse and dazzling array of admiring collaborators from Bright Eyes to Tammy Wynette and from Neil Young to Waylon Jennings and Johnny Cash.

The songbird’s contributions to country-rock, the bluegrass revival, folk music, and the Americana movement are widely lauded, and in recent years Emmylou Harris certainly has carved out a sound that is uniquely her own. Her 1995 Wrecking Ball was a watershed album for her, combining several world-music elements with acoustic instruments, driving percussion, and a folk/roots flavor, and in general catching audiences by surprise, as Harris yet again reinvented her sound. The new style would evolve on a number of Harris’ subsequent releases, including 1998’s Spyboy, 1999’s Western Wall (a collaboration with Linda Ronstadt), 2000’s Red Dirt Girl and 2003’s Stumble into Grace.