POP MUSIC / THOMAS K. ARNOLD : Harris’ Contributions Go Beyond Country-Western

Too often, the importance of Emmylou Harris is overlooked by myopic critics and fans. They tend to see her only as a tremendously successful country singer with a clear, emotive soprano that can melt hearts and fill them with passion at the same time.

This success is well documented on the national country charts, which for more than a decade have been inundated with bittersweet ballads like “Sweet Dreams,” “To Daddy” and “Mister Sandman.”

Harris’ importance also lies in the fact that, throughout her career, she has perpetuated both the songs and the legend of the late Gram Parsons, a seminal figure in the country-rock movement of the late 1960s and early ‘70s.

It was Parsons, after all, who, after joining the Byrds in 1968, convinced the rock band to experiment with country. The result was “Sweetheart of the Rodeo,” the first real country-rock album and the vinyl role model for such future twang-meets-clang heavyweights as the Eagles, Jackson Browne and Linda Ronstadt.

Parsons and Chris Hillman subsequently dropped out of the Byrds to form the Flying Burrito Brothers, another ground-breaking country-rock outfit. By the early 1970s, Parsons was defining, and refining, country-rock even further in the Fallen Angels--this time with Harris, a young singer from Birmingham, Ala., who had captured his heart with her affections and his ears with her voice.

The best-known of the pair’s dozen or so duets, “Return of the Grievous Angel,” was--and remains--a masterpiece, a plaintive country melody with lyrics about a truck driver who has just completed a coast-to-coast run and tells his girlfriend, “20,000 roads I went down, down, down/And they all led me straight back home to you.”

In 1973, Parsons’ untimely death from a heart attack, at the age of 26, left Harris on her own. Ever since, she has continued to record and to sing in concert many of his tunes.

Harris will be in San Diego on Friday for two sold-out shows at Humphrey’s on Shelter Island.

Four promising young San Diego rock bands have made their recording debut on “4 x 4,” a cassette-only “maxi-single” released this week on the local ARK Records label.

The tape, recorded in an eight-track studio in producer Van Orbitson’s Clairemont home, contains four original songs, one from each of the bands. Standouts are “Suicide Tracks,” a fatalistic eulogy to a teen-age suicide victim by New Wave folk-rockers The Landlords, and The Cry’s “Starting Again,” a hauntingly melodic tune about a disintegrating relationship.

Also represented on “4 x 4” are Hair Theatre, with the urgent “Traveling Dream,” and Prisoners of Paradise, with the raucous “Johnny Law.” The maxi-single, which sells for $3.99, is available at Tower Records and other record stores and youth-oriented businesses throughout the county.

Orbitson, 35, said that what drove him to record the compilation tape--and to assemble a group of investors to finance the manufacture and distribution of 400 copies--is his empathy for the plight of rock bands that write and play their own material.

Orbitson’s empathy is understandable: He’s spent the past three years in San Diego, and the five years before that in Los Angeles, trying in vain to make a go of things as a musician.

“I dropped out of that scene to produce because I must have played the Spirit (Club in Bay Park) 23 times with my last band and nothing ever happened,” he said. “Playing clubs is not enough; if you’re an original-music band and you really want to succeed, you need to record. And, once I find a new band, I’m going to do some recording myself.”

BACK IN THE SADDLE: Australia’s Little River Band has regrouped with original lead singer, Glenn Shorrock, and San Diego’s Wayne Nelson on bass and vocals. The band’s “comeback” album, “Monsoon,” has just been released by MCA Records. Nelson’s honeyed tenor is showcased on “Inside Story,” one of the LP’s 10 cuts.

From 1976 to 1982, the Little River Band scored a dozen Top 40 hits, including “Reminiscing,” “Lonesome Loser” and “The Night Owls” (on which Nelson also sang lead). But, with Shorrock’s departure in 1982, the group’s commercial fortunes dimmed.

Two years ago, the Little River Band broke up, and Nelson was soon reduced to singing commercial jingles--including the theme song for the Roger Hedgecock talk show on radio station KSDO-AM (1130).

WHO’S THAT GIRL?: Hanging on one of the walls inside the Belly Up Tavern is a photograph of a little girl wearing a cowboy hat and holding a microphone. Standing behind her is veteran local country picker Jimmy Cribb, who regularly played the Solana Beach nightclub in the late 1970s and early ‘80s with his former band, Tall Cotton.

The identity of the pint-size cowgirl has long been a mystery to Belly Up owner Dave Hodges, but no more. The other day, a sharp-eyed patron unmasked her as a preteen, pre-pop Tiffany.

BITS AND PIECES: Del Mar jazz guitarist Peter Sprague is helping Chick Corea compile a book of the legendary fusion master’s music.