Alison Brown

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Alison Brown

Alison Brown (born August 7, 1962 in Hartford , Connecticut ) is an American banjo player and guitarist whose characteristic soft banjo sound is determined by the use of nylon strings . She has won several Grammys and has been nominated for more. Because of her special way of playing, she is often mentioned with Béla Fleck , another banjo prodigy . Their music is a mixture of jazz and bluegrass with influences from other genres.

youth

Brown learned to play the guitar when he was eight, and the banjo when he was ten. At the age of twelve she met the fiddle player Stuart Duncan . In the summer of 1978 she toured the country with Duncan and his father and played at festivals and competitions. She won first prize at the Canadian National Banjo Championship , which allowed her to perform one night at the Grand Ole Opry .

Harvard University, Northern Lights

In 1980 Brown went to Harvard University and studied history and literature. After graduating from Harvard, she earned a Master of Business Administration degree from the University of California, Los Angeles .

In 1982, while studying at Harward, Brown helped reunite the American bluegrass band Northern Lights, five years after they split, and became a full member in 1984. Then she went back to California and worked for two years at Bank Smith Barney in San Francisco , but then took a break to pursue her musical interests.

Union Station and other projects

In 1987, only sixteen-year-old Alison Krauss asked her to join the band Union Station ; Brown played with Krauss for a total of three years. She moved to Tennessee in 1990 and was awarded the 1991 Banjo Player of the Year by the International Bluegrass Music Association . Alison Krauss's 1990 album I've Got That Old Feeling , on which she played the banjo, won a Grammy.

In 1992 Brown became the leader of the band of folk singer Michelle Shocked . This experience led Brown to mix bluegrass with jazz and folk, similar to Béla Fleck and David Grisman .

Compass Records

In the early 1990s Brown and her husband, bass player Garry West started their own label, Small World Music , from which the internationally known Compass Records label emerged in 1995 with artists such as Victor Wooten , Colin Hay , Catie Curtis , Lúnasa , Martin Hayes , Jeff Coffin , Russ Barenberg , Darol Anger, and others.

Grammys

Together with Béla Fleck , she won the 2000 Grammy for best instrumental play in country . She had appeared on Alison Krauss' 1990 Grammy album I've Got That Old Feeling , and received a Grammy nomination for her own album Simple Pleasures . In 2001 she received a Grammy in the Best Country Instrumental category for her 2000 album Fair Weather .

Present: the Alison Brown Quartet

According to Brown's own assessment, Stolen Moments from 2005 is their most successful album so far. "For the first time I feel that I have created a really hybrid sound that reveals its influences - bluegrass, jazz, Celtic music, but as a whole is none of these things." She sees her musical role models in Earl Scruggs , Joe Pass , Wes Montgomery , but also Cannonball Adderley .

Alison plays with her quartet on international tours. As a famous alumna of Harvard University, she played in the inauguration of the new university president Dew Faust.

Discography

Vanguard Records

  • Simple Pleasures (1990)
  • Twilight Motel (1992)
  • Look Left (1994)
  • Quartet (1996)
  • Best of the Vanguard Years (2002)
  • Vanguard Visionaries (2007)

Compass Records

  • Out of the Blue (1998)
  • Fair Weather (2000)
  • Replay (2002)
  • Stolen Moments (2005)
  • Evergreen (2008)
  • The Company You Keep (2008)
  • The Song of the Banjo (2015)

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Alison Brown-Bio on www.compassrecords.com (engl.)
  2. ↑ Alison Brown MBA '86 - By Anne Burke, University Communications (engl.)
  3. ↑ Alison Brown biography at www.allmusic.com (Engl.)
  4. ↑ History of Northern Lights in www.northernlightsband.com (Engl.) ( Memento of 18 September 2007 at the Internet Archive )
  5. ↑ Interview with producer Bill VornDick About the Grammy at www.musesmuse.com (engl.)
  6. ↑ Original text on the group's website: For the first time, I feel like I've created a true hybrid sound that suggests its influences - bluegrass, jazz, celtic music - but when taken as a whole isn't any one of these things .
  7. ↑ Interview with Alison Brown on youtube
  8. ↑ Inauguration of Dew Faust - information on http://news.harvard.edu (Engl.)

Web links

Commons : Alison Brown  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files
personal data
SURNAME Brown, Alison
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American banjo player
DATE OF BIRTH 7th August 1962
PLACE OF BIRTH Hartford, Connecticut