Dolly Parton, Linda Ronstadt and Emmylou Harris

The three first tried to make an album together in the mid-1970s, but their schedules and the fact that each was signed to a different label kept it from being finished. Parts of those sessions came out on their own records instead: “Mr. Sandman” and “Evangeline” on Harris’s Evangeline, and Parton’s “My Blue Tears” on Ronstadt’s Get Closer (1982). “Light of the Stable,” recorded by the three in 1975 with Neil Young adding harmony, was issued as a single that year. In the same period the singers covered each other’s songs: Harris recorded Parton’s “Coat of Many Colors” and “To Daddy,” Ronstadt her “I Will Always Love You,” and Parton put Harris’s “Boulder to Birmingham” on her 1976 album All I Can Do.

Trio was recorded between January and November 1986 at studios in Los Angeles and Nashville and released by Warner Bros. on 2 March 1987. Its eleven songs mixed old-time and mountain material with newer songs: Jimmie Rodgers’s “Hobo’s Meditation,” Jean Ritchie’s “My Dear Companion,” “Rosewood Casket” in an arrangement by Parton’s mother, Avie Lee Parton, and “Farther Along,” arranged by John Starling and Harris, alongside Alan O’Bryant’s “Those Memories of You,” Parton’s “Wildflowers” and Phil Spector’s “To Know Him Is to Love Him.” Albert Lee, David Lindley, Mark O’Connor, Herb Pedersen and Starling were among the players. The album reached number six on the Billboard 200, sold a million copies in the United States, and produced four country hit singles: “To Know Him Is to Love Him” went to number one, followed by “Telling Me Lies” (number three), “Those Memories of You” (number five) and “Wildflowers” (number six). It won the Grammy for Best Country Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal, was nominated for Album of the Year, and was named Album of the Year by the Academy of Country Music; the Country Music Association named it Vocal Event of the Year in 1988. It entered the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2020.

The songs for Trio II were recorded in 1994, again with Massenburg, with Starling as co-producer, but label disputes and conflicting schedules held the album back. Ronstadt remixed five of its ten tracks without Parton’s voice for her 1995 album Feels Like Home. Once Parton and Harris had left their labels, the three released the album as recorded, on Asylum on 9 February 1999, with childhood photographs of the three singers on the cover. The players included David Grisman on mandolin, Alison Krauss on fiddle, Roy Huskey Jr. on bass and Carl Jackson on guitar, and the songs ranged from the Carter Family’s “Lover’s Return” and Del McCoury’s “I Feel the Blues Movin’ In” to Harley Allen’s “High Sierra,” Parton’s “Do I Ever Cross Your Mind” and Neil Young’s “After the Gold Rush.” It reached number four on the country albums chart, was certified gold, and was nominated for Best Country Album; “After the Gold Rush” won the Grammy for Best Country Collaboration with Vocals. The three made a short promotional tour of television shows but did not tour in concert.

In 2016 Rhino issued The Complete Trio Collection, with remastered versions of both albums and a third disc of twenty alternate takes and unreleased recordings.