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5.0 out of 5 stars
Alison stays true to Her Artistic Vision, Jun 24 2004
Ever since Elvis began his famed recording career with a Rockabilly cover of Bluegrass Bossman Bill Monroe's signature "Blue Moon of Kentucky" Bluegrass has been regarded by *some* as the poor barefoot hayseed step-child of Country Music. Acoustic Guitars and Banjos and Fiddles were overwhelmed and swallowed up by Electric Guitars and Peddle Steel Guitars. A successful Bluegrass album sold maybe 30,000. The "dirty little secret" in Nashville was that the Bluegrass musicians were the ones who could really PLAY, so talented bluegrassers who wanted to make a decent living became Nashville studio musicians. Bluegrass fans, who are often as fanatical about the music as a religious zealot is about their religion, considered such musicians to have "sold out", and so it was that artists like Ricky Skaggs, Bill Keith, Marty Stuart and Vince Gill were considered. Once big fish in the small Bluegrass pond, they were thought by Bluegrass Purists to have compromised their artistic integrity to become Country successes. (Was it ironic that Ricky Skagg's first Country Hit was a "countrified" version of Lester Flatt's "Don't Get Above Your Raisin'?")The purpose of this review isn't to give even a thumbnail history lesson of the evolution of Bluegrass and a comparison to more popular and "mainstream" forms of music, but it is important in having a complete appreciation of this album to recognize the historical rarity of a "popular" or "breakout" Bluegrass artist or band or recording. In the past half-century before Alison Krauss the number of Bluegrass recordings which received any degree of popular airplay could be easily counted on one hand:
Flatt and Scruggs "Foggy Mountain Breakdown" - the music used as the musical theme to "Bonnie and Clyde".
Flatt and Scruggs "The Ballad of Jed Clampett" - the theme to "Beverly Hillbillies"
"Dueling Banjos" - from the soundtrack to "Deliverance"
"Rocky Top" - by the Osborne Brothers
"Fox on the Run" - by the Country Gentlemen Then along came Alison Krauss, with her stunning crystalline voice that caught the attention of the Bluegrass community while she was still a teenager. She recorded several albums which were among the most well-received in the Bluegrass community leading up to 1995 when her label, Rounder, persuaded her to put together a few new recordings with mostly previous releases, some as "guest star" on other CDs to come up with the compilation "Now That I've Found You"(It may have been called "Greatest Hits" for an artist that had HAD a "hit"). That CD stunned everyone, sold 6 million copies and suddenly Alison Krauss was the hottest female voice in Nashville - winning a handful of CMA awards. Under the expectations of THAT success Ms. Krauss and her band, Union Station, went to the studio to record the follow-up album. Many on either side of the "Bluegrass Purist" fence were expecting the next CD to be the "Sell-Out" CD - full of steel guitars and guest duets with Barbra Streisand. What came instead was THIS CD, "So Long So Wrong", an album that celebrates the Bluegrass heritage that these musicians hail from in addition to showcasing the extraordinary contemporary talents of Alison and Union Station. Newcomers to Bluegrass expecting a recording with nothing but Alison's voice were likely put out a little that some GUY was singing the lead vocal on several of these cuts. Alison knew that Dan Tyminsky was an extraordinary vocalist YEARS before Dan was chosen to do the singing voiceover for George Clooney in "O Brother Where Art Thou?" The CD is one of the prominent ones that Alison jokes about in which her lead vocals are predominantly on beautiful but sorrowful ballads like "Deeper Than Crying" and "Find My Way Back to my Heart." These tracks are beautiful and they're NOT "straight bluegrass" for you purists - Ron Block trades in his trusty 5-string for some tasty acoustic guitar work and these are closer to folk or even just "unplugged pop" than to bluegrass. The Dan Tyminski tracks are rollicking rip-roaring bluegrass monsters like "I'll Remember You, Love in my Prayers" and "The Road is a Lover". This CD is one of the very best by Alison Krauss and Union Station, and that is saying something. If you're a fan of Alison, or maybe you just heard something about "those musicians on the O Brother soundtrack" this is a recording you just have to add to your collection.
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~ Alison and Union Statio Krauss
~ Alison and Union Statio Krauss
~ Alison and Union Statio Krauss
~ Alison Krauss
~ Alison Krauss
