Alison Krauss and Union Station, Alison Krauss, Union Station, Jerry Douglas, and Theo Lawrence

Krauss’ earliest musical excursions began playing the violin age five, however bored of the strict classical regimen soon found a proclivity for country and bluegrass. By the age of 10 Krauss had won a number of talent contests around Decatur and Illinois, formed her own band and aged 12 won the Illinois Sate Fiddle Competition. The talented violinist made her recoding debut on a collaborative album with her brother entitled “Different Strokes”.

After signing with Rounder Records aged just 14, Krauss made her debut with “Too Late to Cry” in 1987, recorded with her backing band the Union Station. The Union Station, formed of guitarist Jeff White, banjoist Alison Brown, and bassist Viktor Krauss, later won the Society for the Preservation of Bluegrass in America’s National Band Championship contest. Alison Krauss and the Union Station went on to release “Two Highways” in 1989, and the Grammy Award winning “I’ve Got That Old Feeling” in 1990. The album paved the way for Krauss’ future breakthrough, and gave the bluegrass genre an unprecedented amount of exposure.

The band, now featuring mandolinist Adam Stuffy, banjoist/guitarist Ron Block, bassist Barry Bales and guitarist Dan Tyminski, went on to release “Every Time You Say Goodbye” in 1992, “I Know Who Hold Tomorrow” in 1994, and Krauss’ breakthrough album “Now That I’ve Found You: A Collection” in 1995. Making the musician the figurehead of contemporary American bluegrass and country, the album reached No. 2 on the county charts, entered the Top 10 on the pop charts, and sold over a million copies.

The group subsequently released “So Long, So Wrong” in 1997, “Forget About It” in 1999 and in collaboration with the likes of John Hartford and Ralph Stanley, contributed to the award winning soundtrack for “O Brother, Where Art Thou?” in 2000. After a showcasing tour, Krauss and Union Station returned to the studio and recorded “New Favorite”, which proved another highly-popular album. “Lonely Runs Both Ways” arrived in 2004, followed by “A Hundred Miles or More” in 2007, along with an award-winning collaboration with Robert Plant entitled “Rasing Sand” also in 2007. “Paper Airplane” by Alison Krauss and Union Station was issued in 2011, topping off Krauss' illustrious career, which has aided the bluegrass genre and earned a host of revered awards including a remarkable 27 Grammy Awards – tying the musician with Quincy Jones as the second highest receiver of the award behind Sir Georg Solti.

Alison Krauss is the kind of late starter that could put this current generation of pop stars to shame. Picking up the violin at the age of five, she started studying the classical side of the instrument first before turning to bluegrass soon afterwards. Three years after she picked up the instrument she was already entering and winning talent contests and by the age of ten she was performing with her own band. She spent her early teenage years winning vast amounts of praise for her musicianship, with Vanity Fair calling her a Virtuoso and the Society for the Preservation of Bluegrass in America naming her the "Most Promising Fiddler in the Midwest”.

However, Krauss’ career would soon take her far beyond anything regional. When she was twelve she joined the band of bassist and songwriter John Pennell, an outfit called Silver Rail. However, after another band was discovered of the same name, their moniker was changed to Union Station. In 1985 she released her first solo record, a collection of classic fiddle tunes that didn’t really go anywhere. However, it did land her a record deal with Rounder Records, and with Union Station backing her, and Pennell writing the songs, together they created Krauss’ second album “Too Late To Cry” in 1987.

It was at this point that Krauss and Union Station started to get some mainstream attention, quickly following up “Too Late To Cry” with extensive touring and then 1989’s “Two Highways”. This was Krauss’ first album to be credited to her and Union Station, but Rounder wanted her to alternate between solo records and then records with the band, so the first time that Krauss achieved mainstream success was under her own name with 1990’s “I’ve Got That Old Feeling”. The record was a reasonable commercial success but it was also the first record to net her a Grammy Award for Best Bluegrass Recording.

The 90’s proved to be very kind to Krauss, as her and Union Station took their brand of rootsy bluegrass into the mainstream charts. 1994 saw the release of her first top ten country hit in the form of “Somewhere In The Vicinity Of The Heart”. 1995’s compilation album “Now That I’ve Found You: A Collection” saw her embark into the top twenty of the Billboard 200 for the first time, peaking at number 13. The collection of older releases and covers from her career, one that was already a decade long at this point, would also go double platinum, selling two million copies before the year was out.

Since then, Krauss has gone from strength to strength. She’s won a veritable mountain of Grammy Awards (27 in total), had a further five more of her albums certified Gold, become an omissible live act with Union Station and generally become one of the biggest Bluegrass artists in the world. Not to mention recording and releasing a critically acclaimed and commercially successful album with the one and only Robert Plant as well. She’s something of a legend, and for that, she comes highly recommended.

Equally appealing to fans of jazz, blues, folk, bluegrass, country and roots music, prodigal Dobra player Jerry Douglas first picked up the instrument at the tender age of eight. Influenced by the likes of Flatt & Scruggs’ Foggy Mountain Boys, Douglas joined his father’s bluegrass band in his teens where he was subsequently spotted at a local festival by the Country Gentleman. The young musician spent the rest of the summer touring with the Country Gentlemen before being invited to the studio to make his recording debut. With a growing reputation as a pioneering Dobra and lap steel player, Douglas was courted by the likes of J.D. Crowe & the New South, David Grisman, Doyle Lawson, appearing on a host of albums during the mid to late ‘70s.

In 1979 the musician issued his debut solo album “Fluxology” on Rounder Records. The progressive bluegrass style of the album was subsequently replicated, albeit with varying influences, on 1982’s “Fluxedo” and 1986’s “Under the Wire”. Following the releases Douglas continued his extensive collaborations, working with Dan Fogelberg, the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, and Barenberg and Mayer. Douglas issued a pair of albums in 1987, the full-length “Changing Channels” and the Rounder Records compilation “Everything Is Gonna Work Out Fine”.

Arguably the finest Dobro player in contemporary acoustic music, in 1989 Douglas released the full-length “Plant Early” on MCA Records. The studio album “Slide Rule” followed in 1992 featuring Alison Krauss, Sam Bush and Tim O’Brien, succeeded by “Restless on the Farm” in May 1998. Shortly after the release the musician would begin his fruitful musical collaborations with Alison Krauss and Union Station, appearing on seven of the group’s albums from 1999-2011. The lap steel and Dobro player would also regularly tour with Alison Krauss when not fulfilling his own touring duties.

In 2001 Douglas earned his fourth Grammy Award for Album of the Year for his contributions to the “Oh Brother, Where Art Thou?” soundtrack. The same year he collected two more Grammys, this time alongside Alison Krauss, for Best Country Performance (“The Lucky One”) and Best Bluegrass Album (“New Favorite”).

Douglas’ subsequent solo release was the full-length “Lookout for Hope”, which became his first charting album, peaking at No. 10 on the Billboard Bluegrass Album chart. Released on Koch Records, the musician’s ninth studio album “The Best Kept Secret” was issued in September 2005, and followed by the Sugar Hill label compilation “Best of the Sugar Hill Years” in 2007. The No. 69 charting country album “Glide” appeared in August 2008 featuring the likes of Earl Scruggs, Tony Rice and Rodney Crowell, followed by the Christmas album “Jerry Christmas” in 2009 and the full-length “Traveler” in 2012.