‘I was an imitator; you have to start that way.’ – Emmylou Harris

Finding your voice is never as simple as opening your mouth and hoping you hit the right notes. Rarely do artists arrive fully formed, with something to say and a distinctive voice to carry them into the public consciousness. The history of music is littered with the sound of people hoping to find success by emulating others, many straight up stealing ideas in a desperate form of mimicry.

Work produced during this youthful development stage is referred to as juvenilia. If you make it to the other side of this time of experimentation and exploration then you might just have what it takes to become something original. Of course, once you become a success there is a level of embarrassment associated with this early work and indeed Emmylou Harris’s discography begins with Gliding Bird, an album she is so averse to that she no longer even classifies it as her debut. She actually sued a record company who tried to reissue the album after she became famous.

“I was trying to keep it a secret. I hope somebody in authority will be able to buy the masters and burn them. Everybody involved with that record hated everybody else and I was in the middle trying to keep the peace. It was a disaster.”

The album can be bought on second hand vinyl and some of these copies have been recorded and uploaded onto YouTube (in the internet age you can’t hide your past even if you wanted to).

So let’s take a listen and find out exactly what went wrong with Gliding Bird. Are there any positives to be found in this album? Was Emmylou right to disown this record?