Alison Krauss

The Illinois fiddler and singer who took bluegrass onto the pop charts with Union Station, sang on O Brother, Where Art Thou? and Raising Sand, and has won 27 Grammys.

Origin
Champaign, Illinois, United States
Years active
1987-present
Genres
bluegrass, country, Americana, adult contemporary
Labels
Rounder, Capitol, Decca, Down the Road

A fiddle contest

Alison Krauss grew up in Champaign, Illinois. Her father, Fred, had come to America from Germany at twelve and earned a doctorate in psychology. Her mother, Louise, an illustrator, started her on classical violin at five, and she kept up the lessons until she was eleven. When she was eight her mother saw a notice for a fiddle contest. Krauss learned bluegrass by ear, came fourth in the novice class, and met the fiddler Andrea Zonn there.

From 1981 she played in Marvin Lee Flessner's country dance band, and at thirteen she won the fiddle championship at the Walnut Valley Festival. The Society for the Preservation of Bluegrass in America named her the most promising fiddler in the Midwest, and at one of its festivals she met Dan Tyminski. She made her first record, Different Strokes, with Jim Hoiles and Swamp Weiss, and signed to Rounder. In John Pennell's band Silver Rail she took Zonn's place on fiddle, and Pennell renamed it Union Station. Her solo debut, Too Late to Cry, came out in 1987, when she was sixteen, with the band behind her.

Union Station

The first Union Station album, Two Highways, followed in 1989. I've Got That Old Feeling (1990) was her first record to chart and won a Grammy, and in 1991 Terry Gross had the teenage veteran on Fresh Air. Every Time You Say Goodbye won the Grammy for Best Bluegrass Album in 1992, and in 1993, at twenty-one, she became the youngest member of the Grand Ole Opry. Recording an album with the Cox Family in 1994 began her long partnership with the engineer Gary Paczosa, who later said most of what he does traces back to working with her.

Now That I've Found You, a 1995 collection, reached number 13 on the Billboard 200 and went double platinum, carried by her cover of When You Say Nothing at All, a number 3 country hit. She was named the CMA's new artist that year, and So Long So Wrong won another Grammy in 1997. By then the band had settled around Barry Bales on bass and Ron Block on guitar and banjo, with Tyminski back on guitar and mandolin, and in 1998 Jerry Douglas came in on Dobro. The same year she and Paczosa designed a studio at her home.

O Brother

Her solo album Forget About It appeared in August 1999 and included Hugh Prestwood's Ghost in This House. That spring she had sung at T Bone Burnett's sessions for the Coen brothers' O Brother, Where Art Thou?, leading Down to the River to Pray and joining Gillian Welch on I'll Fly Away. She was pregnant and asked to stay out of the film itself. The soundtrack sold more than eight million copies in the US and won Album of the Year in 2002, and GRAMMY.com later wrote that it crashed the country music party. She also appeared in Down from the Mountain, the concert film that followed.

New Favorite (2001) followed, and Live (2002), recorded at the Louisville Palace, went double platinum and became her most successful album. In 2004 Whiskey Lullaby with Brad Paisley reached number 3 country, she sang the Cold Mountain songs at the Academy Awards, and Lonely Runs Both Ways was released.

Raising Sand and after

Raising Sand (2007), her album with Robert Plant, again produced by Burnett, won all five Grammys it was up for in 2009, including Album of the Year. Paper Airplane (2011) reached number 3 on the Billboard 200, her highest US placing, after a long production that its engineer tied to her migraines. Windy City (2017), a set of covers produced by Buddy Cannon, was her first solo album since 1999. She and Plant made Raise the Roof in 2021.

Arcadia (2025) was Union Station's first album in fourteen years, with Russell Moore singing in place of Tyminski, who had stepped back from touring. Krauss calls herself a song finder rather than a songwriter. She holds the National Medal of Arts and is in the International Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame, and her 27 Grammys made her the most-awarded female artist until Beyoncé passed her in 2021. The Arcadia tour was still on the road in 2026.

Records

Songs

Gillian Welch, Robert Plant, Emmylou Harris, Jerry Douglas, Dan Tyminski

Where to go next

Official

Reference

Discography and data

Writing and criticism

Interviews

Live performance archives

Film and video

Sources

  1. Alison Krauss, Wikipedia
  2. Alison Krauss discography, Wikipedia
  3. Union Station (band), Wikipedia
  4. Gary Paczosa, Tape Op (2015-07)
  5. O Brother, Where Art Thou? at 20, GRAMMY.com (2020-12-06)
  6. Alison Krauss on Arcadia, GRAMMY.com (2025-03-31)
  7. Arcadia (Alison Krauss & Union Station album), Wikipedia