Alison Krauss and Union Station introduced bluegrass to fresh listeners throughout the 1990s by mixing the genre with folk elements. Acclaimed as a prodigy from her earliest recordings, Krauss achieved widespread commercial recognition only after the 1995 platinum-certified collection Now That I've Found You reached mainstream audiences. From her 1987 debut Too Late to Cry through that breakthrough compilation, she evolved into a versatile and wide-ranging artist while crafting some of the most distinctive bluegrass of the late 1980s and early 1990s.
Krauss began classical violin instruction at age five before shifting to country and bluegrass phrasing. By eight she entered local talent competitions around her hometown of Champaign, Illinois, and formed her own band two years afterward. In 1983, at twelve, she captured the Illinois State Fiddle Championship and earned the Society for the Preservation of Bluegrass in America’s designation as Most Promising Fiddler in the Midwest. Her first studio appearance came in 1985 on the independent Fiddle Tunes release Different Strokes, recorded with her brother Viktor Krauss, Jim Hoiles, and Bruce Weiss. Later that year, at fourteen, she signed with Rounder Records.
Her debut album Too Late to Cry arrived in 1987, backed by Union Station members guitarist Jeff White, banjoist Alison Brown, and bassist Viktor Krauss; the ensemble then won the Society for the Preservation of Bluegrass in America’s National Band Championship the following year. The 1989 release Two Highways earned a Grammy nomination for Best Bluegrass Recording. The next album, 1990’s I’ve Got That Old Feeling, secured the award and exceeded prior commercial benchmarks for bluegrass recordings, paving the way for greater visibility in the decade ahead. Union Station’s roster had stabilized around mandolinist Adam Steffey, banjoist and guitarist Ron Block, bassist Barry Bales, and guitarist Tim Stafford, who was later succeeded by Dan Tyminski.
Alison Krauss & Union Station issued Every Time You Say Goodbye in 1992, presenting a characteristically varied selection that entered the country charts and placed videos on Country Music Television. I Know Who Holds Tomorrow followed in 1994 and performed even more strongly. The 1995 compilation Now That I’ve Found You: A Collection, however, transformed her profile, reaching number two on the country charts, entering the pop Top Ten, and surpassing one million copies sold, confirming her position as bluegrass’s foremost figure of the era.
Krauss & Union Station responded with So Long, So Wrong in spring 1997 and Forget About It in mid-1999. In 2000 they joined John Hartford, Ralph Stanley, and additional contributors on the multi-platinum soundtrack O Brother, Where Art Thou?, whose accompanying North American tour in summer 2002 further expanded their reach. New Favorite appeared that November and achieved gold status within four months. A live album followed, and Lonely Runs Both Ways arrived in 2004. The 2007 anthology A Hundred Miles or More gathered material from her Rounder catalog, various soundtrack contributions, and five previously unreleased tracks. That same year she issued the multi-platinum Raising Sand, a collaboration with Robert Plant. She reunited with Union Station for the self-produced 2011 album Paper Airplane, engineered by Mike Shipley.
