Alison Krauss has a lot to celebrate for her 54th birthday—including the release of Arcadia earlier this year, her first new album with Union Station in 14 years.
Krauss & Union Station self-produced the timeless 10-song album, which embraces both the hope and tragedy – the bedrock of bluegrass. While the album was released on March 28, they are currently on tour in support of the project. Krauss will likely spend her birthday on the road. The group is scheduled to play in Idaho tonight. They’ll be in Utah Friday night, Montana on Saturday, and Washington on Sunday.
“A lot of people, they say, ‘Why do you want to do these sad songs?’” Krauss explained. “To me, they’re not sad. They (are songs) of hope and encouragement because there has to be a survivor to tell these stories. And a lot of times, people don’t want to hear a sad story face-to-face, but they will listen to poetry and music. And to me, that’s what this means.”
The group has more than 70 Grammy wins among them.
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Playing with Union Station is “Thrilling”
“It’s thrilling,” banjo player Ron Block told CBS of being back together after 14 years. “Everyone goes out to their musical adventures and things, but when we come back, it is like home.”
Krauss estimated that she has gathered songs for Arcadia over the last 15 years. She has file cabinets of songs and cassette tapes – some as old as 40 years. She said she finds songs she loves and then saves them for the right time. Even with decades of material at her fingertips, Krauss struggled to find the song with which to start her album. Her son, Sam Bergeson, solved the problem for her during the pandemic.
“He comes upstairs, and he goes, ‘Listen to Jeremy’s song, which is this guy Jeremy Lister,’” Krauss said. “He’s one of my favorites. And he played this tune of his. I remember sitting in bed like this and saying, ‘Oh my gosh, that sounds like a first song. And, it was.”
Lister’s “Looks Like the End of the Road” opens Arcadia, and Krauss said the song “broke my heart.”
“Bluegrass, for me, is like the stories of an idyllic life,” she said. “It’s loyalty and survival. It is a wonderful, tight-knit community where people are loyal to each other. And in my mind, all those tunes kind of live in that 1945 time when the war is ending.”
Alison Krauss’ Son Found Opening Track
Krauss was born about 25 years after the era she feels is home for her new music. Born in Decatur, Illinois, on July 23, 1971, the highly acclaimed bluegrass-country singer and musician is known for her masterful fiddle skills and angelic voice. She began playing the fiddle at the age of 5 and signed a record deal with Rounder Records at 14. Rounder released her debut album, “Too Late to Cry”, in 1987. Three years later, her “I’ve Got That Old Feeling”, with Union Station, won much recognition and sparked a heightened interest in roots music. The Grand Ole Opry invited Krauss to join in 1993, and she became its youngest member.
At 54 years old today, Krauss has been an anchor in the bluegrass world for four decades. She released Arcadia on Down the Road Records, which was founded by some of the same people she met at Rounder as a child. She was about 30 years old in 2000 when she found more mainstream success through her work on the “O Brother, Where Art Thou?” soundtrack. Produced by T-Bone Burnett, the album sparked a bluegrass revival and introduced millions of listeners to artists including Krauss, Ralph Stanley, Gillian Welch, and Dan Tyminski.
Seven years later, in 2007, Krauss teamed with rock icon Robert Plant of Led Zeppelin for Raising Sand, solidifying her as a bankable crossover artist.
Alison Krauss Teams with Robert Plant
Krauss became a member of the Bluegrass Hall of Fame in 2021 – the same year she released a second album with Plant, Raising the Roof.
In 2021, she was inducted into the Bluegrass Hall of Fame.
If numbers and stats tell the story – and most creatives would agree that they do not – nothing would be more telling than this:
Krauss has won 27 Grammy Awards – enough to make her one of the most awarded female artists in Grammy history.
“I never had any big dreams about doing something on a huge scale,” she told bluegrasshall.org.
(Photo by Randee St. Nicholas)
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