Alison Krauss w/Union Station
Alison Krauss & Union Station featuring Jerry Douglas will bring their Paper Airplane Summer Tour 2011 to Vancouver Island as part of an expanded Vancouver Island MusicFest offering on Thursday July 7, 2011 at the Comox Valley Exhibition Grounds.
Tickets for this very special concert event go on sale this Friday, February 25th at 9 am Vancouver Island MusicFest community ticket outlets across the Island.
Alison Krauss’ most recent triumph, the certified-platinum 2007 collaboration with Robert Plant and producer T Bone Burnett called Raising Sand notched up a total of six Grammy® Awards, including Album of the Year and Song of the Year, bringing her unsurpassed total to 26. That mesmerizing modern-day masterpiece sets the stage for another stunner: Paper Airplane scheduled for release this spring.
The players—Jerry Douglas (Dobro, lap steel, vocals), Dan Tyminski (guitar, mandolin, lead vocal), Ron Block (banjo, guitar) and Barry Bales (bass, vocals), with Krauss on lead vocal and fiddle—are five distinct personalities who come together to form something truly unique as a band. Each bandmate has his own bustling career, but when these singular musicians come together, they’re an airtight unit devoted to the process of making music together. Indeed, their connection is so close and deep that they’ve come to think of each other as family.
Produced by Krauss and Union Station and scheduled for release April 12th, Paper Airplane contains 11 songs of poignancy and austere beauty, chosen with the impeccable taste and unerring intuition that have characterized her entire body of work, delivered by this world-class unit with an immediacy that goes beyond mere virtuosity.
Special VIMF Concert Event!
Thursday July 7th 2011
Gates Open at 6 – Concert at 8
Tickets ONLY $50 with a weekend pass to
Vancouver Island MusicFest July 8-10
Thursday Night Only Tickets $65. After July 1st $75
Under 12 free.
Early Bird Passes for VIMF are available only till April 1st 2011. Current weekend pass holders may bring their ticket into a community ticket outlet to receive this great price.
Making Paper Airplane was a revelatory experience for the band. “Whatever formula we thought there was doesn’t exist,” Krauss acknowledges. “It disappeared, especially this last time out. You can’t trust your method; you can’t rely on a method. The only thing you can do is record things that move you—that have a connection with you—and to represent yourself truthfully. Things have to be true that I sing or I can’t do it. Whether I write them or not, they have to be true for me to say it, and for the guys to play it. The only recipe is if it feels true, and true may be incredibly sad. But that’s the part that feels good, because it’s truthful. It might not be true for anybody else, but it is for us. That’s the recipe.”
Throughout her remarkable career, which spans a quarter century, though she’s only 39, Krauss has remained grounded and real. Deeply introspective as an artist, she’s commensurately outgoing and spontaneous in conversation—both sides of her character evidencing a life-embracing humanity. In her work, Krauss has managed to consistently locate the fertile common ground between traditional modes and topical themes. On Paper Airplane, she and the band somehow managed to plumb the depths of Krauss’ own psyche while also capturing the zeitgeist, so that this portrait of the artist doubles as a portrait of America as a whole at a crucial moment in its history.
Part of Alison Krauss’ incontestable talent is how effortlessly she bridges the gap between roots music and country, rock and pop. A highly sought-after collaborator, Krauss has worked with some of the biggest names in popular music, including James Taylor, Phish, Dolly Parton, Yo Yo Ma & Bonnie Raitt. Since signing with Rounder Records at the age of 14 in 1985 Krauss has sold in excess of 12 million albums and garnered 26 Grammy® Awards, the most for any female and the third most of any recording artist in Grammy® history.
Her breathtaking live performance should not be missed.
