Harris adds star power to help project

It's been a busy year for award-winning singer/songwriter/activist Emmylou Harris.

Not only did she perform "A Prairie Home Companion" but also performed with other celebrities, including Kris Kristofferson, Richie Havens and Joan Baez at Madison Square Garden to celebrate folk icon Pete Seeger's 90th birthday.

She also appeared as a guest with her friends Shawn Colvin and Patty Griffin during a Buddy Miller show, and she, along with Sheryl Crow, Kathy Mattea and Big Kenny Alphin, started up Music Saves Mountains, a project that calls for the removal of mountaintop coal mining.

In addition, she is gearing up to perform with Sam Bush and Jerry Douglas at the Country Jam Concert for the Epilepsy Foundation of Middle and West Tennessee in December.

She is also going to play with Gillian Welch and Dave Rawlings on "Opry at the Ryman" next month, as well as appear on National Geographic Channel's "DogTown."

On top of that, she was elected an honorary member of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences in Cambridge, Mass.

And all of that doesn't include the concert to benefit the Zambia Scholarship Fund Thursday at Kingsbury Hall in Salt Lake City..

The Zambia Scholarship Fund is a nonprofit organization that provides school teachers and scholarships to Zambia, Africa.

All the money from this concert will go directly to Zambia.

"I am so grateful for the opportunity to find out about this," Harris said about the ZSF during a telephone interview from her home in Nashville, Tenn. "This is so wonderful that people in the community will take something like this on. Really, it boils down to people doing stuff for people.

"This is so inspiring, an amazing organization that you all have (in Utah). It's inspiring."

Harris said she occasionally becomes a "little stressed" at all she has to do."But it always works out," she said. "And when you do these benefits and things, you know you're helping out in a small way. It's the people who run the organizations that do the real work, the trench work. All I have to do is show up."

Still, helping the world become a better place is something that Harris takes seriously.

"Anytime you try to make a change is an uphill battle, she said. "It's rewarding and heartbreaking. Anytime you get involved with relieving suffering, all the good that you do is always tempered by what you don't get done. But you can't stop. Once you cross that line, you're not going to ever go back."

At her home in Nashville, Harris has another job — rescuing abandoned dogs.