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A Texas Ghost Town And Dinner With Linda Ronstadt Mean The World To This Songwriter

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It's difficult for many people to immediately name their favorite place to travel to worldwide. Singer-songwriter Jaimee Harris doesn't hesitate.

"Hands down, my favorite place in the world is Terlingua, Texas," says Harris, who lives in Nashville and released her debut album, Red Rescue, this year. "There is something magical in the landscape, the colors in the sky, the dust swirling around at twilight, the ghosts, the air and the stars.”

It's at least a seven-hour drive from Austin, where Harris once lived, to Terlingua, a mining district and ghost town near the Mexican border and the Rio Grande in West Texas. Terlingua sits outside Big Bend National Park in the state's largest county in area, Brewster, which is home to less than 10,000 people. 

"Since 2015, I’ve been spending the New Year's holiday and any other chance I get in Terlingua," says Harris who lives with her girlfriend, singer-songwriter Mary Gauthier. "The landscape, the air, the dirt under my feet inspire me like nowhere else on this planet. In fact, I don’t even feel like I’m on this planet when I’m in Terlingua."

Harris says she always returns home from Terlingua "with a song and a renewed sense of purpose."

Her trips to Terlingua have brought her close to the families of four musicians: Jimmie Dale Gilmore, Butch Hancock and Bonnie and Eleanor Whitmore.

"We’ve spent nights song-swapping under the stars as one big family," Harris says. "Every New Year’s Day, Butch hosts a Townes Van Zandt hoot at the Starlight Theatre. Musicians from all over Texas and locals step up to the Starlight stage to play a Van Zandt song or tell a Townes joke or story. If you’re a songwriter and you haven’t spent three hours listening to Butch Hancock play at the Starlight, you must make a trip down to Terlingua." 

Harris says she's "fallen deeply in love with the land and the sky" in Terlingua and done a lot of hiking in Santa Elena Canyon. The 1 1/2-mile Santa Elena Canyon Trail gradually descends along the banks of the Rio Grande, offering views of 1,500-foot-tall limestone cliffs, and is suitable for all skill levels.

"My soul longs to be there (in Terlingua) now," Harris says. "With this pandemic, I don’t think we’ll be able make it this year. My heart aches."

Harris was born a long way from Terlingua — in Nacogdoches, a small city more than a 10-hour drive away in East Texas. At a young age, her parents moved about a three-hour drive east to Waco.

"Growing up in Waco certainly had a massive influence on my music," Harris says. "My earliest memories of learning how to sing harmony are from the pews of the First Baptist Church of Waco. There’s just something about those hymns that have stuck with me throughout my life. I also learned how to put together a great set list by leading worship in the Baptist church."

Harris lived in Austion 2009-2109 before moving to Nashville in late 2019. 

"Austin taught me how to put on a great live show," she says. "It also taught me the value of finding a network of women in the industry that you can lean on in times of celebration or struggle. It’s where I learned how to lead a band. The city also informed me about some of our greatest songwriters, including David Halley, David Ball, Eliza Gilkyson and Blaze Foley."

In Austin, Harris watched James McMurtry perform at the Continental Club once or twice per week. "In my opinion, that’s the best 90-minute songwriting class available," she says.

Harris says Nashville is a new experience, but it’s teaching her a lot more about the business side of music. 

"It’s also given me an opportunity to share space with some of the most incredible artists of all time," she says. "Since moving to Nashville, I’ve been spending a lot of time working on songs. I’m working harder on songs than I ever have in my life, and I’ve opened myself up to co-writing."

Throughout her career, Harris has performed in 35 states. She says she would like to play and tour some day in Alaska. 

The coronavirus has wreaked havoc on musicians' live performance schedules. Harris had eagerly anticipated playing this year on the main stage at the Kerrville Folk Festival in Kerrville, Texas, and at the Woody Guthrie Folk festival in Okemah, Oklahoma, but both were canceled.

She says the Kerrville festival helped "build" her career, and the Woody Guthrie festival is a special invitation.

"It’s held in Woody Guthrie’s hometown, and, at that festival in the past, I’ve made some of my best musical friends," Harris says. "There’s only one hotel in Okemah; it’s a small Days Inn just off the highway. So, all the artists stay there. At night, everyone gathers in the parking lot to sing songs until the sun rises. There’s no festival on Earth like it." 

Many other cities where Harris has performed elicit cherished memories. She remembers a 2017 tour with singer-songwriter Jane Ellen Bryant that started in Austin and ended in Luckenbach, Texas.

“I decided to read On the Road when we were, well, on the road,” she recalls. “With the exception of New York, every day I picked up the book, the city in the book lined up with where we were on tour. We even took a weird detour in Elko, Nevada, that lasted five hours. We gambled and ate weird casino steak. I had never heard of Elko or its famous cowboy poetry festival. The next day, I picked up the book: Elko, Nevada. Kinda blew my mind.” 

Harris says “the most mind-blowing experience” on the road probably happened last October after she and Gauthier saw a Linda Ronstadt documentary on a Wednesday and flew to San Francisco the next day to play the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass festival.

“On Sunday morning, Mary and I were in line to board our flight back to Nashville,” Harris says. “Mary got an email inviting us to dinner at Linda Ronstadt’s house that night. We let our bags fly on to Nashville, got out of the line and had dinner at Linda’s house six hours later. It will always be one of the most memorable nights of my life.”

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