Post by fogcitygal on Jun 30, 2007 1:40:41 GMT -5
Here's a great interview-article from July's month's Bluegrass Unlimited:
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
ALISON KRAUSS WHAT INSPIRES ME
[BLUEGRASS UNLIMITED - JULY 2007 ISSUE]
By Thomas Goldsmith
"Alison Krauss, it's well known, often makes music with the big names of show business. For Dolly Parton and Paul Simon, she played in all-star tribute shows. With former Led Zeppelin singer Robert Plant, she's recorded a duet album and may tour this year. With Australian pop singer John Waite, she remade his '80s hit "Missing You" for a hit single and video. For Alan Jackson, she produced an album that earned several "best of" 2006 honors and a pocketful of Grammy nominations. And she's booked to play a July festival organized by guitar legend Eric Clapton.
So, which musician was she also excited about during an interview in Atlanta? It was Dave Evans. Yep, the hard-core bluegrass banjo picker, singer, and songwriter was on Krauss' mind, all because of the intensity and directness of Evans' music. Passionate music and passionate people were the themes that Krauss, 35, kept revisiting during a talk backstage at Atlanta's gorgeous Fox Theatre. And it's those factors that seem to bind together the kinds of musicians, in and outside bluegrass, who form her sometimes dizzying circle of heroes and collaborators. Evans, with his woeful bluegrass songs and vocals, has inspired Krauss much the same as the rough-voiced rocker Paul Rogers (of the bands Free and Bad Company) did back in her teen years, she said. Hair pulled back and wearing jeans, a grey hoodie, argyle socks, and running shoes, Krauss talked at length about her recent tour with Tony Rice, her excursions into various styles of music and, more than once, about Dave Evans.
"I think Dave Evans and Paul Rogers come from the same place," she laughed. "You know? I remember when I heard Dave Evans the first time in Indiana at a festival and he's up there singing. And I'm like, ‘My goodness!'" (Her voice went to a whisper as she recalled her reaction.) "It gives me the same feeling to watch Paul Rogers and Free as to watch Dave Evans. Or you might want to say vice versa—watching Dave Evans is the same thing as watching Paul Rogers. Ralph Stanley, it's the same thing. Passionate singing, it doesn't really matter which genre of music it comes from. It does the same thing. It brings out, it inspires you in whatever thoughts you're having."
Holding her hands apart and to one side as if she's indicating one batch of music, she says it's not about that for her. "I don't have one thing over here that I like. I like a lot. Passionate music. Passionate people. That's what inspires me."
Krauss has often spoken of her enjoyment of radio rock from the '70s and '80s. Born in 1971, she went through the same musical growing-up process as many of her peers. It just happened that she was also becoming a great fiddler, starting at age five. Coming to bluegrass as a young teenager, she became entranced with the music and persona of the influential guitarist and singer Tony Rice, who was at the center of Krauss' recent tour. The show has drawn large audiences across the country.
Taking Liberties
To offer a little perspective, between her solo albums and her Union Station albums, Krauss has sold millions of records and videos. She's been a familiar, appealing voice and presence on records, radio, awards shows, hit movie soundtracks including O Brother, Where Art Thou? and Cold Mountain. She's won a startling twenty Grammy awards.
Has that stardom become a vehicle to bring larger audiences to favorite artists such as the Cox Family, songwriter John Pennell, and Rice himself? "I don't know if that's true," she said. "I know that those people have shaped my life. When I think of doing this Tony tour, it's a very selfish thing. It's been really, really special to do this. I went to see Tony play at the Belcourt Theater (in Nashville) I guess it was two years ago. And my dad came in to take care of my son so I could go to the concert. And Tony had folks up there playing and singing his songs."Krauss' expansive sense of humor can take form in a funny, comedic voice. Talking about her desire to back up Rice with Union Station, she used a comically whiny tone. " I was like, ‘Why can't we do that? I wanna do that! Do you think he'd do it with us?'"
The tour featured the vocals of Alison and Union Station guitarist Dan Tyminski performing songs associated with Rice, who's been unable to sing for years because of a throat ailment. Bassist Barry Bales and banjo/guitar ace Ron Block gave the same inspired attention to Rice's songs that they have to Krauss' music since her teen years. Jerry Douglas, who seems to get more expressive on his instrument as years go by, teamed up with Rice for hair-raising musical excursions that referred to and even exceeded their collaborations of the past several decades.
However, Alison, who professes a musical insecurity in spite of all the people who think she's great, recalled thinking that the whole thing might not work. "When it started getting close to rehearsals, then I started getting really afraid. ‘What if he doesn't like it?'" she said. " I was like, ‘What if he's unhappy? What was I thinking that I could sing these songs? I'm an idiot.' I just got really scared. Then we started rehearsing as a band and I started hearing myself sing these tunes that are the epitome of what I love. I thought, ‘I don't want to hear a woman sing this.' When he got there, it all started to get into place. And I started to relax off of what I listened to."
In Atlanta, 5,000 people packed the venerable Fox Theatre for the show, longwindedly called A Very Special Performance By Tony Rice And Alison Krauss & Union Station Featuring Jerry Douglas. Plenty of fans knew Rice's music, but others hollered out requests for more of Union Station's large and well-known repertoire—the band didn't even play "Oh, Atlanta" in Atlanta. But by evening's end, those questions seemed to have flown. The historic and personal intensity of the crew on stage made it clear why Krauss had given over the tour to her mentor's music. Rocking through the two-hour show in high-heeled boots, Krauss sang and fiddled strongly on the folk, singer/songwriter tunes, jazz, and straight-ahead bluegrass that encompassed Rice's long career. Through her many years on stage, Krauss has become an engaging performer and sometimes a very funny one, making the sort of humorous harassment that goes on in bands accessible to a big audience.
In Atlanta, Bales becomes the object of her wit during band introductions. "He likes to get up very early...he puts on a special outfit, grabs a firearm, and sits in the dark and waits," she said, to the initial bewilderment of people in the crowd who didn't know Bales is a hunter. What does the bass player like to hunt in the spring of the year?
"Doves," a straight-faced Bales replied.
"Wonderful, the symbol of the holy spirit," Krauss said. "There's nothing like a dove casserole."
Rice wore a stylish suit along with his long pony-tail, but the rest of the guys leaned toward the sort of blue-jeaned, shirttails-out look that lined right up with the informal, yet intense feel of the music. These folks weren't pushing an album (although a live record may emerge) or even addressing a demographic.
The show reflected Krauss' firm intention to do the music that she and the band feel strongly about. In this case, they made music along with Rice, a player who helped shape Krauss' style and approach to music. Characteristically, Rice took a no-prisoners, freewheeling approach to his guitar work, bringing out even more intense playing from Union Station." I'm under the assumption that it's all right for me to take the liberties that I am taking," Rice said, smiling, after the show.
Emotion In The Music
At this point in her life, Krauss gets to do pretty much what she wants in music, it seems. She's not working under the kind of make-or-break pressure that confronts singing stars who keep a nervous eye on the charts or on record sales. Her integrity and high musical standards have brought her offer after offer to sing, play, and produce records. Although CDs, including the recent "A Hundred Miles Or More" are released under her name alone, she remains a committed member of Union Station and says the next record will be a band project.
"With the band and myself, I'm blown away by the things that have come up," she said. "It's just been an incredible experience, as much as I love music, to get introduced to all these different kinds." In her younger days, Alison and friends (including her musical older brother Viktor) ran headlong through different musical genres. But adulthood hasn't stilled her desire to experience the next great thing, to find just one more great song or singer.
"It even grows more fascinating as I get older—just how passionate and interested I get from hearing what there is," Krauss said. "There's [music] I have to be prepared for. There's other stuff I can ride around and listen to, but there's things I just sit and get ready for. I just can't even deal with it. I love being manipulated like that...by somebody's work. I like that." Sister Rosetta Tharpe, the great gospel singer and guitarist, and an Egyptian female vocalist are just two of the performers who have caught Alison's ear recently. Tharpe she saw on YouTube, while the Egyptian singer's music was a suggestion from Plant, the Zeppelin rocker. She couldn't understand the words, but felt the musical intensity "from a different world," Krauss said. "Robert is so passionate about music," she said. "He is just crazy for it. He was like, ‘Listen to this! Listen to this! Listen to this!'"
The duet record with Plant features songs recommended by producer T-Bone Burnett and musical backup from an acoustic cast including Norman Blake, Pete Seeger, and bass powerhouse Dennis Crouch. But there's also electric guitar on the record. "It's a very different record for me and for Robert," Krauss said. "It was an incredible experience."
The recording with John Waite came about when he was re-recording some of his hits and didn't want simply to clone "Missing You," a major hit of the '80s. He turned to Krauss, referring to her in interviews as his favorite singer. The recording put Alison in a different aural setting from her own records, which emphasize clarity and natural sounds, along with a certain ethereal quality on some tunes. The new version of "Missing You" was mixed by Mike Shipley, engineer and producer to stars such as Faith Hill and AC/DC. Krauss' voice sounds breathy and highly compressed, an approach that can send fans rushing to iTunes to buy tracks.
"It was very interesting to hear myself with that kind of a mix," she said. "I enjoyed hearing it. It came back a very different record from what it left. It came back like, ‘Wow.' It became larger than life; it's a very different feeling it gives you."
So, for someone who still sounds great playing fiery fiddle on "I'm On My Way Back To The Old Home," is it a goal to make records like "Missing You"? "Not consciously," she said. "I really enjoyed getting to do that. I could find it really interesting and valuable and fascinating, but as far as..." She trailed off, but the message seemed to be that a radio-ready pop sound isn't where Krauss is headed.
"A Hundred Miles Or More" contains collaborations with famous folks such as James Taylor, Sting, and Brad Paisley. There are songwriting credits by Bill Anderson, Elvis Costello, and Sting. But the disc also includes the second song Krauss has recorded of Nashvillian Sarah Siskind, a captivating young singer and songwriter. Siskind's lilting "Simple Kind Of Love" caught Alison's ear at a gathering of "kind of a who's who of young, talented, songwriting women of Nashville who are folky." Siskind sang the song (about selfless married love) with her parents, the creative bluegrass/folk duo Mark and Sally Wingate. "I said, ‘Oh, what is that?' Tears were rolling down my face," Krauss remembered. "I got a chance to ask her about it later. I mean I couldn't hold it together when she sang it. I asked her, ‘Is that a true story?' And she said, ‘No, but it's what I wish it was.' And I thought, ‘Me, too.' Everybody does. That's what every girl wants. That's the hope of every little girl, the selfless love of a man, and all he wanted to do was love you well."
The collection CD also includes two songs from the repertoire of country-folk singer Don Williams, a long-time favorite. "Lay Down Beside Me" is a second duet with Waite. "I've always loved that song," Krauss said. "I love it as a duet, too. I love it for a man to sing it, it's a dream for a woman to hear those things."
Again, it's emotion, Krauss said, that ties together the music she loves and chooses to record. That means more than whether a song carries the label roots of traditional music. "What's important to me is the feeling it gives me and if I believe it when I hear it coming out of my mouth," she said. "When I hear the tape of it or CD, does it move me? If it's manipulating me it's working. It has to bother me. It keeps me up at night. Go to bed!" she said, laughing, imitating herself, wide awake because of a song that won't let her go.
Backstage at the Fox, it's time to wrap up. Krauss has already had to wave away a hovering tour manager once. Sound check, the night's show, and a million details are beckoning. Is there one more thing that the fans, the readers of this magazine should hear? "Let me know when Dave Evans is playing," Krauss says, smiling, getting up to go perform. "I've got this thing for Dave Evans. Bring Dave Evans to the Ryman and I'll bring everybody I know."
Coming next month: A look back at how Alison has grown as a musician since she started out as a five-year-old violinist. She's worked hard on her singing, but is she still a great fiddler? Tony Rice and members of Union Station say, "Yes." She's not so sure."
Thomas Goldsmith is the generations reporter for the News &
Observer in Raleigh, N.C., his hometown.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Can't wait for August...
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
ALISON KRAUSS WHAT INSPIRES ME
[BLUEGRASS UNLIMITED - JULY 2007 ISSUE]
By Thomas Goldsmith
"Alison Krauss, it's well known, often makes music with the big names of show business. For Dolly Parton and Paul Simon, she played in all-star tribute shows. With former Led Zeppelin singer Robert Plant, she's recorded a duet album and may tour this year. With Australian pop singer John Waite, she remade his '80s hit "Missing You" for a hit single and video. For Alan Jackson, she produced an album that earned several "best of" 2006 honors and a pocketful of Grammy nominations. And she's booked to play a July festival organized by guitar legend Eric Clapton.
So, which musician was she also excited about during an interview in Atlanta? It was Dave Evans. Yep, the hard-core bluegrass banjo picker, singer, and songwriter was on Krauss' mind, all because of the intensity and directness of Evans' music. Passionate music and passionate people were the themes that Krauss, 35, kept revisiting during a talk backstage at Atlanta's gorgeous Fox Theatre. And it's those factors that seem to bind together the kinds of musicians, in and outside bluegrass, who form her sometimes dizzying circle of heroes and collaborators. Evans, with his woeful bluegrass songs and vocals, has inspired Krauss much the same as the rough-voiced rocker Paul Rogers (of the bands Free and Bad Company) did back in her teen years, she said. Hair pulled back and wearing jeans, a grey hoodie, argyle socks, and running shoes, Krauss talked at length about her recent tour with Tony Rice, her excursions into various styles of music and, more than once, about Dave Evans.
"I think Dave Evans and Paul Rogers come from the same place," she laughed. "You know? I remember when I heard Dave Evans the first time in Indiana at a festival and he's up there singing. And I'm like, ‘My goodness!'" (Her voice went to a whisper as she recalled her reaction.) "It gives me the same feeling to watch Paul Rogers and Free as to watch Dave Evans. Or you might want to say vice versa—watching Dave Evans is the same thing as watching Paul Rogers. Ralph Stanley, it's the same thing. Passionate singing, it doesn't really matter which genre of music it comes from. It does the same thing. It brings out, it inspires you in whatever thoughts you're having."
Holding her hands apart and to one side as if she's indicating one batch of music, she says it's not about that for her. "I don't have one thing over here that I like. I like a lot. Passionate music. Passionate people. That's what inspires me."
Krauss has often spoken of her enjoyment of radio rock from the '70s and '80s. Born in 1971, she went through the same musical growing-up process as many of her peers. It just happened that she was also becoming a great fiddler, starting at age five. Coming to bluegrass as a young teenager, she became entranced with the music and persona of the influential guitarist and singer Tony Rice, who was at the center of Krauss' recent tour. The show has drawn large audiences across the country.
Taking Liberties
To offer a little perspective, between her solo albums and her Union Station albums, Krauss has sold millions of records and videos. She's been a familiar, appealing voice and presence on records, radio, awards shows, hit movie soundtracks including O Brother, Where Art Thou? and Cold Mountain. She's won a startling twenty Grammy awards.
Has that stardom become a vehicle to bring larger audiences to favorite artists such as the Cox Family, songwriter John Pennell, and Rice himself? "I don't know if that's true," she said. "I know that those people have shaped my life. When I think of doing this Tony tour, it's a very selfish thing. It's been really, really special to do this. I went to see Tony play at the Belcourt Theater (in Nashville) I guess it was two years ago. And my dad came in to take care of my son so I could go to the concert. And Tony had folks up there playing and singing his songs."Krauss' expansive sense of humor can take form in a funny, comedic voice. Talking about her desire to back up Rice with Union Station, she used a comically whiny tone. " I was like, ‘Why can't we do that? I wanna do that! Do you think he'd do it with us?'"
The tour featured the vocals of Alison and Union Station guitarist Dan Tyminski performing songs associated with Rice, who's been unable to sing for years because of a throat ailment. Bassist Barry Bales and banjo/guitar ace Ron Block gave the same inspired attention to Rice's songs that they have to Krauss' music since her teen years. Jerry Douglas, who seems to get more expressive on his instrument as years go by, teamed up with Rice for hair-raising musical excursions that referred to and even exceeded their collaborations of the past several decades.
However, Alison, who professes a musical insecurity in spite of all the people who think she's great, recalled thinking that the whole thing might not work. "When it started getting close to rehearsals, then I started getting really afraid. ‘What if he doesn't like it?'" she said. " I was like, ‘What if he's unhappy? What was I thinking that I could sing these songs? I'm an idiot.' I just got really scared. Then we started rehearsing as a band and I started hearing myself sing these tunes that are the epitome of what I love. I thought, ‘I don't want to hear a woman sing this.' When he got there, it all started to get into place. And I started to relax off of what I listened to."
In Atlanta, 5,000 people packed the venerable Fox Theatre for the show, longwindedly called A Very Special Performance By Tony Rice And Alison Krauss & Union Station Featuring Jerry Douglas. Plenty of fans knew Rice's music, but others hollered out requests for more of Union Station's large and well-known repertoire—the band didn't even play "Oh, Atlanta" in Atlanta. But by evening's end, those questions seemed to have flown. The historic and personal intensity of the crew on stage made it clear why Krauss had given over the tour to her mentor's music. Rocking through the two-hour show in high-heeled boots, Krauss sang and fiddled strongly on the folk, singer/songwriter tunes, jazz, and straight-ahead bluegrass that encompassed Rice's long career. Through her many years on stage, Krauss has become an engaging performer and sometimes a very funny one, making the sort of humorous harassment that goes on in bands accessible to a big audience.
In Atlanta, Bales becomes the object of her wit during band introductions. "He likes to get up very early...he puts on a special outfit, grabs a firearm, and sits in the dark and waits," she said, to the initial bewilderment of people in the crowd who didn't know Bales is a hunter. What does the bass player like to hunt in the spring of the year?
"Doves," a straight-faced Bales replied.
"Wonderful, the symbol of the holy spirit," Krauss said. "There's nothing like a dove casserole."
Rice wore a stylish suit along with his long pony-tail, but the rest of the guys leaned toward the sort of blue-jeaned, shirttails-out look that lined right up with the informal, yet intense feel of the music. These folks weren't pushing an album (although a live record may emerge) or even addressing a demographic.
The show reflected Krauss' firm intention to do the music that she and the band feel strongly about. In this case, they made music along with Rice, a player who helped shape Krauss' style and approach to music. Characteristically, Rice took a no-prisoners, freewheeling approach to his guitar work, bringing out even more intense playing from Union Station." I'm under the assumption that it's all right for me to take the liberties that I am taking," Rice said, smiling, after the show.
Emotion In The Music
At this point in her life, Krauss gets to do pretty much what she wants in music, it seems. She's not working under the kind of make-or-break pressure that confronts singing stars who keep a nervous eye on the charts or on record sales. Her integrity and high musical standards have brought her offer after offer to sing, play, and produce records. Although CDs, including the recent "A Hundred Miles Or More" are released under her name alone, she remains a committed member of Union Station and says the next record will be a band project.
"With the band and myself, I'm blown away by the things that have come up," she said. "It's just been an incredible experience, as much as I love music, to get introduced to all these different kinds." In her younger days, Alison and friends (including her musical older brother Viktor) ran headlong through different musical genres. But adulthood hasn't stilled her desire to experience the next great thing, to find just one more great song or singer.
"It even grows more fascinating as I get older—just how passionate and interested I get from hearing what there is," Krauss said. "There's [music] I have to be prepared for. There's other stuff I can ride around and listen to, but there's things I just sit and get ready for. I just can't even deal with it. I love being manipulated like that...by somebody's work. I like that." Sister Rosetta Tharpe, the great gospel singer and guitarist, and an Egyptian female vocalist are just two of the performers who have caught Alison's ear recently. Tharpe she saw on YouTube, while the Egyptian singer's music was a suggestion from Plant, the Zeppelin rocker. She couldn't understand the words, but felt the musical intensity "from a different world," Krauss said. "Robert is so passionate about music," she said. "He is just crazy for it. He was like, ‘Listen to this! Listen to this! Listen to this!'"
The duet record with Plant features songs recommended by producer T-Bone Burnett and musical backup from an acoustic cast including Norman Blake, Pete Seeger, and bass powerhouse Dennis Crouch. But there's also electric guitar on the record. "It's a very different record for me and for Robert," Krauss said. "It was an incredible experience."
The recording with John Waite came about when he was re-recording some of his hits and didn't want simply to clone "Missing You," a major hit of the '80s. He turned to Krauss, referring to her in interviews as his favorite singer. The recording put Alison in a different aural setting from her own records, which emphasize clarity and natural sounds, along with a certain ethereal quality on some tunes. The new version of "Missing You" was mixed by Mike Shipley, engineer and producer to stars such as Faith Hill and AC/DC. Krauss' voice sounds breathy and highly compressed, an approach that can send fans rushing to iTunes to buy tracks.
"It was very interesting to hear myself with that kind of a mix," she said. "I enjoyed hearing it. It came back a very different record from what it left. It came back like, ‘Wow.' It became larger than life; it's a very different feeling it gives you."
So, for someone who still sounds great playing fiery fiddle on "I'm On My Way Back To The Old Home," is it a goal to make records like "Missing You"? "Not consciously," she said. "I really enjoyed getting to do that. I could find it really interesting and valuable and fascinating, but as far as..." She trailed off, but the message seemed to be that a radio-ready pop sound isn't where Krauss is headed.
"A Hundred Miles Or More" contains collaborations with famous folks such as James Taylor, Sting, and Brad Paisley. There are songwriting credits by Bill Anderson, Elvis Costello, and Sting. But the disc also includes the second song Krauss has recorded of Nashvillian Sarah Siskind, a captivating young singer and songwriter. Siskind's lilting "Simple Kind Of Love" caught Alison's ear at a gathering of "kind of a who's who of young, talented, songwriting women of Nashville who are folky." Siskind sang the song (about selfless married love) with her parents, the creative bluegrass/folk duo Mark and Sally Wingate. "I said, ‘Oh, what is that?' Tears were rolling down my face," Krauss remembered. "I got a chance to ask her about it later. I mean I couldn't hold it together when she sang it. I asked her, ‘Is that a true story?' And she said, ‘No, but it's what I wish it was.' And I thought, ‘Me, too.' Everybody does. That's what every girl wants. That's the hope of every little girl, the selfless love of a man, and all he wanted to do was love you well."
The collection CD also includes two songs from the repertoire of country-folk singer Don Williams, a long-time favorite. "Lay Down Beside Me" is a second duet with Waite. "I've always loved that song," Krauss said. "I love it as a duet, too. I love it for a man to sing it, it's a dream for a woman to hear those things."
Again, it's emotion, Krauss said, that ties together the music she loves and chooses to record. That means more than whether a song carries the label roots of traditional music. "What's important to me is the feeling it gives me and if I believe it when I hear it coming out of my mouth," she said. "When I hear the tape of it or CD, does it move me? If it's manipulating me it's working. It has to bother me. It keeps me up at night. Go to bed!" she said, laughing, imitating herself, wide awake because of a song that won't let her go.
Backstage at the Fox, it's time to wrap up. Krauss has already had to wave away a hovering tour manager once. Sound check, the night's show, and a million details are beckoning. Is there one more thing that the fans, the readers of this magazine should hear? "Let me know when Dave Evans is playing," Krauss says, smiling, getting up to go perform. "I've got this thing for Dave Evans. Bring Dave Evans to the Ryman and I'll bring everybody I know."
Coming next month: A look back at how Alison has grown as a musician since she started out as a five-year-old violinist. She's worked hard on her singing, but is she still a great fiddler? Tony Rice and members of Union Station say, "Yes." She's not so sure."
Thomas Goldsmith is the generations reporter for the News &
Observer in Raleigh, N.C., his hometown.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Can't wait for August...
