Alison Krauss helped bring bluegrass to a new audience in the '90s. Blending
bluegrass with folk,
Alison Krauss was instantly acclaimed from the start of her career, but it wasn't
until her platinum-selling 1995 compilation Now That I've Found You that she
became a mainstream star. Between her 1987 debut Too Late to Cry and Now That
I've Found You, she matured from a child prodigy to a versatile, ambitious, and
diverse musician and, in the process, made some of the freshest bluegrass of the
late '80s and early '90s.
When she was five years old,
Alison Krauss began playing the violin, taking classical lessons. She soon tired of
the regiments of classical playing and began performing country and bluegrass
licks. At the age of eight, she began entering talent contests in and around her
native Champaign, IL. Two years later, she had her own band. In 1983, when she
was 12 years old, she won the Illinois State Fiddle Championship and the Society
for the Preservation of Bluegrass in America named her the Most Promising
Fiddler in the Midwest. In 1985,
Alison Krauss made her recording debut on an album, playing on a record made by her
brother
Viktor, Jim Hoiles, and Bruce Weiss. The album was called Different Strokes
and appeared on the independent Fiddle Tunes label. Later that year, she signed
to Rounder Records. She was 14 years old at the time.
Too Late to Cry,
Alison Krauss' debut album, appeared in 1987 to very positive reviews. The album
was recorded with
Alison Krauss' backup band,
the Union Station, which featured guitarist
Jeff White, banjoist
Alison Brown, and bassist
Viktor Krauss; the following year, the group won the Society for the
Preservation of Bluegrass in America's National Band Championship contest. In
1989,
Alison Krauss and
Union Station released Two Highways, which was nominated for the Grammy
Award for Best Bluegrass Recording. Although the album didn't win the award, her
next album, 1990's I've Got That Old Feeling, did. The success of I've Got That
Old Feeling was unprecedented for bluegrass acts in the '80s and it laid the
groundwork for
Alison Krauss' breakthrough in the '90s. By this time,
the Union Station's lineup had more or less settled. It now featured
mandolinist
Adam Steffey, banjoist/guitarist
Ron Block, bassist
Barry Bales, and guitarist
Tim Stafford;
Stafford later left the group and was replaced by
Dan Tyminski.
In 1992,
Alison Krauss & Union Station released Every Time You Say Goodbye, which
featured a typically eclectic array of material: everything from "Orange Blossom
Special" to
the Beatles' "I Will" and
Shawn Colvin's "I Don't Know Why" were covered. The album appeared in the
country charts and
Alison Krauss' videos were shown on Country Music Television. I Know Who Holds
Tomorrow was released in 1994 and was even more successful. But it was the 1995
compilation Now That I've Found You: A Collection that made
Alison Krauss a star. The album reached number two on the country charts and --
even more remarkably -- went into the pop Top Ten and sold over a million
copies. Its success confirmed her status as bluegrass' leading light in the
'90s.
Alison Krauss & Union Station followed the unexpected success of Now That I've
Found You with So Long, So Wrong in the spring 1997. Forget About It followed in
mid-1999. A year later,
Alison Krauss & Union Station joined the likes of
John Hartford,
Ralph Stanley, and others for the multi-million-selling soundtrack O
Brother, Where Art Thou?. A North American tour showcasing some of the album's
stellar musicians followed in summer 2002, allowing
Alison Krauss and her band's popularity to soar. New Favorite appeared in November
and went gold within four months. A live album followed soon after, and in 2004,
Alison Krauss released Lonely Runs Both Ways. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Music
Guide
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