Emmylou Harris Net Worth

What Is Emmylou Harris' Net Worth?

Emmylou Harris is an American singer-songwriter who has a net worth of $10 million. Emmylou Harris has won more than a dozen Grammy Awards, and she has been inducted into the Music City Walk Of Fame (2007), Country Music Hall Of Fame (2008), and Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame (2025).

Emmylou left the school early to pursue a music career full-time in New York. While performing in New York, she was introduced to Gram Parsons, with whom she would record a number of her early hit songs and establish her sound. After Parsons passed away, Harris began a successful solo career that has lasted for over 50 years.

Emmylou has released 28 studio albums (22 solo and six collaborative), and the solo albums "Elite Hotel" (1975) and "Luxury Liner" (1976) reached #1 on the Billboard Top Country Albums chart. Her collaborative albums Include "Trio" (1987) and "Trio II" (1999) with Dolly Parton and Linda Ronstadt, "All the Roadrunning" (2006) with Mark Knopfler, and "Old Yellow Moon" (2013) with Rodney Crowell. "Trio" was certified Platinum in the U.S. and reached #1 on the Billboard Top Country Albums chart and Canada's RPM Top Albums/CDs chart. Harris is known for singles such as "If I Could Only Win Your Love" (1975), "Together Again" (1976), "One of These Days" (1976), "Sweet Dreams" (1976), "Two More Bottles of Wine" (1978), "Blue Kentucky Girl" (1979), "Beneath Still Waters" (1979), "Wayfaring Stranger" (1980), "Mister Sandman" (1981), "I'm Movin' On" (1983), and "Heartbreak Hill" (1989).

Early Life

Emmylou Harris was born on April 2, 1947, in Birmingham, Alabama. She is the daughter of Walter and Eugenia Harris (who passed away in 1993 and 2014, respectively), and her father served in World War II and the Korean War as a Marine Corps officer. During the Korean War, he was reported as missing in action after being captured as a prisoner of war, but he was later freed. Emmylou's older brother, Walter Jr., enjoyed listening to country music during his youth. The family lived in Birmingham until Harris finished first grade, then her father was transferred to Cherry Point, North Carolina, followed by Quantico, Virginia. Though Emmylou took piano lessons during her childhood, she didn't enjoy them.

When she was in high school, her family moved to Woodbridge, Virginia. Harris attended Gar-Field Senior High School, where she was a straight-A student, member of the cheerleading squad, and saxophonist in the marching band. As a teenager, Harris won the Miss Woodbridge beauty pageant. In the '60s, she became interested in folk music, and she learned to play the guitar after her grandfather gave her a Kay 1160 Deco Note. Emmylou graduated from high school in 1965 and was the class valedictorian.

She earned a drama scholarship to the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, and she appeared in productions of "The Dancing Donkey" and "The Tempest" there. Harris formed the folk music duo Emerald City with Mike Williams, and they performed at local coffeehouses. Emmylou dropped out of the University of North Carolina in 1967 and began attending Boston University, but she left to pursue a career as a folk singer. She later moved to the Greenwich Village neighborhood of New York City.

Career

While performing on the Greenwich Village music scene, Harris befriended artists such as Dave Bromberg, Jerry Jeff Walker, and Paul Siebel. After getting her first manager, Emmylou signed a deal with Jubilee Records. Her debut album, "Gliding Bird," was released in 1970, shortly before the record label declared bankruptcy. Harris then moved to Nashville, where she was living on Medicaid and food stamps, before moving in with her parents near Washington, D.C. She developed a following in Washington, D.C. clubs, and when she performed the country song "It Wasn't God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels" at The Cellar Door, she caught the attention of the Flying Burrito Brothers. Gram Parsons, a former member of the band, was looking for a harmony singer at the time and later went to see Harris perform. A year later, Parsons asked her to perform on his 1973 album "GP," and she toured with him as a member of his band, the Grievous Angels. Emmylou also performed on Gram's second solo album, "Grievous Angel," which was released in 1974 after Parsons died of a morphine and alcohol overdose. After Gram's death, Emmylou formed a band and signed a record deal with Warner Bros.–Reprise. Her 1975 album "Pieces of the Sky" reached #45 on the Billboard 200 chart and #7 on the Billboard Top Country Albums chart. The Gold album featured the single "If I Could Only Win Your Love," which reached #1 on the Canadian RPM Country Tracks chart, #4 on the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart, and #58 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart.

Harris' next two albums, "Elite Hotel" (1975) and "Luxury Liner" (1976), reached #1 on the Top Country Albums chart and were certified Gold in the U.S. and Silver in the U.K. From those albums, she had top 10 hits on the Hot Country Songs chart with "Together Again" (#1), "One of These Days" (#3), "Sweet Dreams" (#1), "(You Never Can Tell) C'est La Vie" (#6), and "Making Believe" (#8). Emmylou released two more Gold albums, "Quarter Moon in a Ten Cent Town" (1978) and "Blue Kentucky Girl" (1979), and they both reached #3 on the Top Country Albums chart. The singles "Two More Bottles of Wine" and "Beneath Still Waters" topped the Hot Country Songs chart, and "To Daddy," "Save the Last Dance for Me," and "Blue Kentucky Girl" reached the top 10 on that chart. In the '80s, Harris released the Gold albums "Roses in the Snow" (1980) and "Evangeline" (1981), and the singles "Wayfaring Stranger," "That Lovin' You Feeling Again" (with Roy Orbison), "Mister Sandman," "If I Needed You" (with Don Williams), "Tennessee Rose," "Born to Run," "(Lost His Love) On Our Last Date," "I'm Movin' On," "In My Dreams," "Pledging My Love," and "Heartbreak Hill" reached the top 10 on the Hot Country Songs chart. Emmylou collaborated with Dolly Parton and Linda Ronstadt on the Platinum album "Trio" (1987) and the Gold album "Trio II" (1999), which reached #1 and #4, respectively, on the Top Country Albums chart; "Trio" also peaked at #6 on the Billboard 200 chart. Harris reunited with Ronstadt for the 1999 album "Western Wall: The Tucson Sessions," which reached #6 on the Top Country Albums chart.

In the 2000s, Emmylou has released the albums "Red Dirt Girl" (2000), "Stumble into Grace" (2003), "All I Intended to Be" (2008), and "Hard Bargain" (2011), which all reached the top 10 on the Top Country Albums chart. She collaborated with Mark Knopfler on the 2006 album "All the Roadrunning" and with Rodney Crowell on the albums "Old Yellow Moon" (2013) and "The Traveling Kind" (2015). "All the Roadrunning" reached the top 10 on the charts in 12 countries, and it was certified Platinum in Norway and Gold in Germany, Switzerland, and the U.K. "Old Yellow Moon" peaked at #4 on the Top Country Albums chart, and "The Traveling Kind" reached #8 on that chart. Harris has also performed on songs by Buck Owens, Charlie Louvin, John Denver, George Jones, Earl Thomas Conley, Southern Pacific, Mary Black, Keni Thomas, Vince Gill, and The Fray.

Brendon Thorne/Getty Images

Personal Life

Emmylou was married to folk artist Tom Slocum from 1969 to 1970, record producer Brian Ahern from 1977 to 1984, and songwriter/record producer Paul Kennerley from 1985 to 1993, and she has said that she is a "really good ex-wife." She has two daughters, Hallie (born 1970) and Meghann (born 1979). Harris follows a vegetarian diet, and she is passionate about animal welfare.

After her dog Bonaparte died in 2004, Emmylou formed the dog rescue Bonaparte's Retreat, which is dedicated to "the neglected and forgotten—senior dogs, large dogs, or dogs in need of imminent medical care or surgery." In 1999, she began organizing Concerts for a Landmine-Free World, an annual benefit tour in support of the Vietnam Veterans of America Foundation. In 2011, Harris became a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences' Commission on the Humanities and Social Sciences. After Emmylou's father died from an aortic rupture in 1993, her mother lived with her for more than 20 years. In a 2000 interview with CBS News, Harris said of her mother, "She's just about my best friend. She has an extraordinary gift of making a home a home without being intrusive."

Awards and Nominations

Harris has won more than a dozen Grammy Awards, and she received the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2018. She has earned four International Bluegrass Music Association Awards: Album of the Year for "O Brother, Where Art Thou?" (2001) and "Down from the Mountain" (2002) and Collaborative Recording of the Year for "Will the Circle Be Unbroken, Volume III" (2003) and "Livin', Lovin', Losin': Songs of the Louvin Brothers" (2004). Emmylou won an Academy of Country Music Award for Album of the Year for "Trio" (shared with Dolly Parton and Linda Ronstadt) in 1987, and in 2011, she received the ACM's Cliffie Stone Pioneer Award. She earned Country Music Association Awards for Female Vocalist of the Year (1980), Vocal Event of the Year for "Trio" (1988), and Album of the Year for "O Brother, Where Art Thou?" (2001), and in 1999, she was honored with the Billboard Century Award at the Billboard Music Awards.

At the Americana Music Honors & Awards, Harris received a Lifetime Achievement Award in 2002, and she and Rodney Crowell won the Album of the Year award for "Old Yellow Moon" in 2013 and were named Duo/Group of the Year in 2013 and 2016. In 2006, Emmylou earned an Online Film & Television Association Award for Best Music, Original Song for "A Love That Will Never Grow Old" from "Brokeback Mountain" (shared with Gustavo Santaolalla and Bernie Taupin), and in 2015, she won a Polar Music Prize. She was inducted into the Grand Ole Opry in 1992 and the Alabama Music Hall of Fame in 2003, and in 2019, she received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame with Dolly Parton and Linda Ronstadt.

Real Estate

In November 1990, Emmylou paid $96,000 for a two-acre property in Nashville, Tennessee. She still owns this property, and today it is worth at least $3-5 million.

Who's Richer?

Emmylou
Harris

Compare!

Linda
Ronstadt