Live Report: Magnificent Emmylou Harris triumphs at the 3Arena

Iconic journalist and filmmaker Cameron Crowe, in his recent rather excellent memoir The Uncool, writes about an interview he did with the former member of The Byrds and The Flying Burrito Brothers, the mighty Gram Parsons who was, at the time, putting out his first solo album, GP, with an All-Star backing band. At that time, Country Rock, in no small part because of Gram, had arrived as a respected and exciting new genre of music. In January 1973, a fifteen-year-old Crowe shored up at the home of Parsons’ road manager, Phil Kaufman, deep in the Los Angeles Valley. Fortuitously, that very day, a young Emmylou Harris, who had sung on GP, was due to audition for a spot on the upcoming tour. Parsons told Crowe, “Emmylou has perfect pitch and she knows how to sing the toughest duets in Country music.”

Emmylou arrived, Crowe describing her as shy and exceedingly quiet with “dark folksinger hair and a stoic get-down-to-business expression interrupted only by an Audrey Hepburn smile.” Holding guitars and facing one another, chemistry crackling, Parsons & Harris sang Merle Haggard's ‘White Line Fever’, Bobby Bare’s ‘The Streets of Baltimore’, The Byrds' ‘I’ll Feel a Whole Lot Better’ and oh my God, ‘Love Hurts’, the Boudleaux Bryant hit, first performed by The Everly Brothers, which Parsons and Harris later made their own on 1974's Grievous Angel, one of the most beautiful duets in recording history, yes, it is that damn good. The audition was over, been in Crowe’s words “a masterclass in what Parsons wanted from his solo career, an immaculate sample of authentic aching Country…if I ever fall in love, I thought, I wanted to fall in love like that.”

Emmylou Harris at 3Arena on January 18th, 2026. Copyright Abigail Ring/ hotpress.com

Tonight, the entirely of the 3Arena falls in love with Emmylou all over again as she opens with and raises the gold dust of Jesse Winchester on ‘Songbird’, Delbert McClinton ‘Two More Bottles of Wine’, Gillian Welch on ‘Orphan Girl’ and Don Gibson on ‘Sweet Dreams’; the Red Dirt Boys, her scorching-hot backing band – Phil Maderia, Chris Donoghue, Byran Owings, Eamon McLoughlin and Kevin Key – fanned about her. Into ‘Red Dirt Girl’ – with talk of “me and my best friend Lilian and her blue tick hound dog Gideon” – and man are we trucking! Harris pays tribute to her close pal, the late, great Nanci Griffith on ‘Gulf Coast Highway’ and Johnny Cash’s ‘Help Him, Jesus’ is wickedly good.

Emmylou Harris at 3Arena on January 18th, 2026. Copyright Abigail Ring/ hotpress.com

Between songs, Emmylou chats with us, nonchalantly and intimately, like we are sat on her porch with great tales of Tony Joe White and Albert Lee and marvellous lead in stories to George Jones’ ‘One of These Days’ and Mark Knopfler’s ‘All the Roadrunning.’ Crescendo-building continues on a pair of Parsons’ songs – The Flying Burrito Brothers' ‘Wheels’ and The International Submarine Band’s ‘Luxury Liner’ before the explosive one-two of Boulder to Birmingham and Poco’s ‘Rose of Cimarron.’ Monumental apex is reached on Townes Van Zandt’s and almost constant Harris setlist fixture ‘Pancho & Lefty’ and Chuck Berry’s dancing in the aisles ‘You Never Can Tell’.

Emmylou Harris at 3Arena on January 18th, 2026. Copyright Abigail Ring/ hotpress.com

It's mid-set however, that perhaps the real zenith of Emmylou’s magnificent set is reached, just before a wonderful a cappella version of Appalachian spiritual ‘Bright Morning Stars’. Alone, with the Red Dirt Boys gone for tea, Emmylou communes with us, ‘The Road’, her heartrending tribute to her old compadre and co-conspirator – Gram Parsons - and for five beautiful but all too fleeting minutes, we’re there with them, in that house in early-1970s LA, with a wide-eyed Cameron Crowe watching on, at the cradle of Cosmic American Music.