ARTIST

Alison Krauss

Alison Krauss figures to be one of the most influential women in country music over the next generation, a talent the caliber of Dolly Parton or Emmylou Harris before her. A bluegrass superstar by the time she turned 18, Krauss has developed her music and her career at her own pace. She's stayed with an independent record company when every major label in Nashville dreams of signing her, and she's expanded bluegrass's musical vocabulary beyond what many expected it could contain.

Born July 23, 1971, in Champaign, Illinois, Krauss picked up the fiddle early and started winning competitions so fast that she signed to Rounder Records at 14 and released her first album, 1987's Too Late To Cry, about the same time she got her driver's license. Her band Union Station is always considered one of the best in bluegrass; its current lineup includes acoustic bassist Barry Bales, guitar and banjo player Ron Block, mandolinist Adam Steffey, and acoustic guitarist Dan Tyminski. Krauss broke through to the mainstream on the strength of a compilation of her previous work, Now That I've Found You: A Collection, that featured four new songs, including a remake of the Keith Whitley hit "When You Say Nothing At All" that became a Top Three smash for her, and a version of the Foundations' 1968 pop-soul hit "Baby, Now That I've Found You" that was one of the most original covers ever made by a country artist. The album sold more than 2 million copies for the independent Rounder Records label, almost quadrupling the sales of its previously best-selling title. When the Country Music Association Awards came around in the fall of 1995, Krauss swept her categories, winning the Horizon Award and taking honors for single, female vocalist and vocal event ("Somewhere In The Vicinity Of The Heart," recorded with Shenandoah).

An avowed fan of '70s arena-rock, Krauss could've easily forsaken her roots after that for the greener pastures of pop, but 1997's So Long So Wrong emphasized both bluegrass and Union Station's other members, a sure sign that Krauss is more devoted to her music than to her accountant.

Written by Brian Mansfield