Alison Krauss

Alison Krauss was born on July 23, 1971 in Decatur, Illinois, but she was raised in Champaign, Illinois. Her parents encouraged Alison and her brother, Viktor, to play musical instruments at a young age. When she was five, Alison began by studying classical violin, but once she was exposed to bluegrass music a short time later, Alison fell in love with fiddling. Alison started entering local talent contests at age 8, and two years later, she had her own band. At 12 years of age, she won the Illinois State Fiddle Championship, and the Society for the Preservation of Bluegrass in America voted her the Most Promising Fiddler in the Midwest. When Alison was 14, she was already recording. She played on a record made by her brother called Different Strokes in 1985, and that same year, she signed with Rounder Records. Her debut came in 1987, with the critically acclaimed Too Late to Cry, which featured Alison's back-up band, Union Station. As part of her contract with Rounder, Alison followed that "solo" album with one by Alison Krauss & Union Station, Two Highways (1989).

Lonely Runs Both Ways was released in 2004, and eventually became another Alison Krauss & Union Station gold certified album. Ron Block described Lonely Runs Both Ways as "pretty much... what we've always done" in terms of song selection and the style in which those songs were recorded. Krauss, on the other hand, believes the group "was probably the most unprepared we've ever been" for the album and that songs were chosen as needed rather than planned beforehand.

Krauss generally sings as a soprano in a breathy yet penetrating style using little to no vibrato: her clear vocals have been described as "angelic". She has said her musical influences include J. D. Crowe, Ricky Skaggs, and Tony Rice. Many of her songs are described as sad, and are often about love, especially lost love. Krauss herself has said of her song selection that she looks for "tunes that can relate to" and "if they make you feel like crap, you oughta do 'em." Though she has a close involvement with her group and a long career in music, she rarely performs music she has written herself.

Krauss has said she used to dislike working in the studio where she had to play the same song repeatedly, but has come to like studio work roughly the same as live stage performances. Her own favorite concert experiences include watching three Foreigner concerts during a single tour, a Dolly Parton concert, and a Larry Sparks concert. She appeared on Austin City Limits in 1992 and opened the show in 1995 with Union Station. The New Favorite tour, after AKUS' album of the same name, was planned to start September 12, 2001 in Cincinnati, Ohio, but was pushed back to September 28 in Savannah, Georgia following the September 11 terrorist attacks. Krauss also took part in the Down from the Mountain tour in 2002, which featured many artists from the O Brother, Where Art Thou soundtrack and was named after a documentary on the making of said soundtrack.