100 Greatest Women, #11: Alison Krauss

100 Greatest Women

#11

Alison Krauss

The history of country music has long included women who have sought the crossover audience, tailoring their music so it will be more palatable to pop and adult contemporary radio formats. Alison Krauss is the only woman in history to successfully pull off the reverse: keeping her music as pure as she chooses and having the crossover audience come to her.

Krauss was a child prodigy who began playing fiddle at the age of five. Though she initially played classic violin music, she switched to bluegrass shortly thereafter, and by the age of eight she was competing in local talent contests. When she was just thirteen years old, she won the Walnut Valley Festival Fiddle Championship, and she was named Most Promising Fiddler in the Midwest by the Society for the Preservation of Bluegrass in America. It was at these festivals that she met all of the future members of Union Station, a band that she joined at the invitation of John Pennell, a bassist she had often performed with since she was 12.

In addition to performing with Union Station, Krauss began to document her talents on record, contributing to the 1985 independent album Different Strokes. Krauss signed with Rounder Records in 1987, and she was sixteen when they released her debut solo album, Too Late to Cry. Union Station backed her on the record, but weren’t credited as lead artists. This changed in 1989, when her second album Two Highways was released under the name Alison Krauss & Union Station, beginning a long history of her recording with the band that continues to this day.

Her contract with Rounder at the time required her to alternate between solo releases and albums with the band, so 1990 brought the solo set I’ve Got That Old Feeling. The album received her best reviews to date by a wide margin, and it earned her the first Grammy of her career, for Best Bluegrass Recording. By this time, Krauss had become a major star in the bluegrass field, and her label saw potential for a wider market, given that her sales were much higher than typical for the genre. They promoted “Steel Rails” to country radio, and it briefly dented the singles chart. Also, a video clip for the title cut was played heavily on Country Music Television.

Her strong run in bluegrass circles was evident by her domination at the International Bluegrass Music Association Awards, where Krauss received several Female Vocalist trophies in the early nineties. She also continued to win Grammy awards, as she was honored for her next Union Station release Every Time You Say Goodbye and her 1994 collaboration with The Cox Family, I Know Who Holds Tomorrow. Krauss’ credibility with the country audience also began to rise, as she was invited to sing with Dolly Parton on record and on stage, to collaborate on a track with Shenandoah, and to contribute to a Keith Whitley tribute album.

This set the stage for her big commercial breakthrough. The Shenandoah track became a top ten country hit, and her cover of Whitley’s “When You Say Nothing at All” went top five. Krauss included both tracks on Now That I’ve Found You: A Collection, which was a greatest hits album of sorts. The album was a shocking success, selling over two million copies. Krauss won Grammys for both the Shenandoah hit and her cover of the Foundations classic “Baby, Now That I’ve Found You”, and she swept the CMA awards in the Fall of 1995, winning four awards: Female Vocalist, Horizon, Single and Vocal Event.

Krauss and Union Station backed Vince Gill on “High Lonesome Sound” the following year, and that won them another Grammy. She was nominated the same night in the Best Female Country Vocal Performance race for “Baby Mine,” her tender contribution to The Best of Country Sing the Best of Disney. Amazingly, Krauss had not adjusted her sound at all, but the mainstream success came anyway.

Critics who wondered if she would pander to her new audience by embracing a crossover sound were silenced when her next album, So Long So Wrong, was devoid of any such compromises. It became a gold record and won her and Union Station another pair of Grammys. In another sign of her credibility in unexpected places, Buffy the Vampire Slayer creator Joss Whedon chose to use the track “It Doesn’t Matter” in the opening episode of his hit show’s second season, and it was later included in the show’s first soundtrack, alongside a crop of alternative rock songs also used on the show.

Krauss released the solo studio album Forget About It in 1999, and it continued her successful ways, selling gold and winning her another Grammy. The videos for the title track and “Maybe” received heavy rotation on CMT, and the opening track “Stay” became her first adult contemporary hit. She won several major awards, including the Grammy and CMA awards for Album of the Year, for her contributions to the massively successful O Brother Where Art Thou soundtrack, which brought renewed attention to her catalog and stimulated sales of her older work.

Krauss and Union Station entered the most prolific and successful period of their long career together in the wake of the soundtrack’s success, as their next three albums – two studio releases (New Favorite, Lonely Runs Both Ways) and the two-disc Live won seven Grammys and became top-sellers. By this point, Krauss was already the best-selling bluegrass artist in history by a wide margin, and she was in wide demand as a collaborator. She harmonized with Kenny Rogers on his #1 comeback hit “Buy Me a Rose,” teamed up with James Taylor on the Grammy-winning “How’s the World Treating You,” and won multiple ACM and CMA awards for her duet with Brad Paisley, “Whiskey Lullaby.” Krauss was also invited to sing on the Academy Awards, where she sang multiple songs from the Cold Mountain soundtrack.

She had accumulated so many guest appearances by 2007 that she was able to release a second compilation, A Hundred Miles or More, which combined her non-album material with several new songs, which became her seventh gold album. While some were surprised to see her recording a revival of the classic eighties pop hit “Missing You” with John Waite, she fully demonstrated the breadth of her appeal when she collaborated with Led Zeppelin legend Robert Plant. Their 2007 album Raising Sand was a surprise hit, selling more than a million copies without any support from radio, which led to a popular co-headlining tour this year.

The lead single from the set, “Gone Gone Gone (Done Moved On)” won the Best Pop Collaboration with Vocals Grammy earlier this year. It was Krauss’ twenty-first Grammy win, five more than any other woman in history, three more than any other country act and seventh among all-time winners overall. The wins are a testament to Krauss’ enduring credibility as an artist, one of those rare musicians who has achieved massive success on her own terms, with nary an adjustment for the expectations of others. Her ability to reach a wide audience without relying on radio hits is virtually unprecedented, and is an encouraging sign that great artistry can indeed triumph over crass commercialism, even if those instances are few and far between.

Alison Krauss

Essential Singles

• “When You Say Nothing at All,” 1995
• “Baby Now That I’ve Found You,” 1995
• “Forget About It,” 1999
• “The Lucky One,” 2001
• “I’ll Fly Away,” 2001
• “Whiskey Lullaby,” 2004
• “Restless,” 2004
• “Gone Gone Gone (Done Moved On),” 2007

Essential Albums

• I’ve Got That Old Feeling, 1990
• Every Time You Say Goodbye, 1992
• So Long So Wrong, 1997
• Forget About It, 1999
• Live, 2002
• Lonely Runs Both Ways, 2004
• Raising Sand, 2007

Industry Awards

• ACM Video (“Whiskey Lullaby”), 2005
• ACM Vocal Event (“Whiskey Lullaby”), 2005
• CMA Female Vocalist, 1995
• CMA Horizon Award, 1995
• CMA Single (“When You Say Nothing at All”), 1995
• CMA Album (O Brother Where Art Thou), 2001
• CMA Musical Event (“Whiskey Lullaby”), 2004
• CMA Video (“Whiskey Lullaby”), 2004
• Grammy: Best Bluegrass Recording (I’ve Got That Old Feeling), 1991
• Grammy: Best Bluegrass Album (Every Time You Say Goodbye), 1993
• Grammy: Best Southern, Country or Bluegrass Gospel Album (I Know Who Holds Tomorrow), 1995
• Grammy: Best Female Country Vocal Performance (“Baby Now That I’ve Found You”), 1996
• Grammy: Best Country Collaboration with Vocals (“Somewhere in the Vicinity of the Heart”), 1996
• Grammy: Best Country Collaboration with Vocals (“High Lonesome Sound”), 1997
• Grammy: Best Bluegrass Album (So Long So Wrong), 1998
• Grammy: Best Country Instrumental Performance (“Little Liza Jane”), 1998
• Grammy: Best Country Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocals (“Looking in the Eyes of Love”), 1998
• Grammy: Best Country Collaboration with Vocals (“Same Old Train”), 1999
• Grammy: Album of the Year (O Brother Where Art Thou), 2002
• Grammy: Best Bluegrass Album (New Favorite), 2002
• Grammy: Best Country Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocals (“The Lucky One”), 2002
• Grammy: Best Contemporary Folk Album (This Side), 2003
• Grammy: Best Bluegrass Album (Live), 2004
• Grammy: Best Country Instrumental Performance (“Cluck Old Hen”), 2004
• Grammy: Best Country Collaboration with Vocals (“How’s the World Treating You”), 2005
• Grammy: Best Country Album (Lonely Runs Both Ways), 2006
• Grammy: Best Country Instrumental Performance (“Unionhouse Branch”), 2006
• Grammy: Best Country Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocals (“Restless”), 2006
• Grammy: Best Pop Collaboration with Vocals (“Gone Gone Gone [Done Moved On]”), 2008

==> #10. Wynonna (The Judds)

<== #12. Dixie Chicks

100 Greatest Women: The Complete List